In that protected cave, the reeves from Naya Hall had kitted out a shelter with a chest, flown in, in which they stored a lamp, oil, bedding, bowls and utensils, and a pot for cooking.

In that cave, Mai labored, and he was cursed sure that if anything bad happened to her, he’d be called—quite rightly—to account for their coming here instead of crossing the Olo’o Sea to deposit her into the capable hands of the Ri Amarah women.

“Were those—things—there before?” he asked nervously, as the glittering strands swirled in an eddy of wind and mist.

“I’m not sure. They’d be easy to miss in daylight. They’re like finest quality silk thread, neh?”

“Miya! Are you there?” Priya called from behind the curtain of water, and because of the noise he could not tell if she was frantic or just searching with her voice.

The reeve set down the lamp and took the bowl of tea out of Joss’s hands. “Keep the water hot.”

“There’s nothing else I can do?”

She shrugged. “This isn’t men’s business, eh?”

Walking on a narrow rim that hugged the rock wall, she vanished behind the spray.

A splash disturbed the pool. A dark shape shouldered out of the roil and so quickly slipped beneath that it might have been only a trick of the light, or a reminder from the gods that he was intruding. He started back around the pool, but before he reached the path he heard his name called and turned back.

Miyara waved wildly at him, both hands aloft.

He ran back. Wisps slithered in the air around him, and when one brushed his cheek he got such a jolt, like a stinging burn, that he yelped.

She called, “Marshal, we don’t know what to do. You have to come.”

He followed her along the narrow path, steadying himself with a hand along the rock wall on his right while water poured past to his left. The mist pelted him, an oddly iron taste on his tongue. They passed out of the spray and into the cave. She halted. A step behind, he stared into the cave, which extended deep into the rock, a haven lit so brightly that he blinked before he saw Mai.

“What do we do?” cried Miyara.

With a plank wedged across and between rocks, they had set up a birthing stool halfway back in the cave, over a hollow smoothed into the cave’s dirt floor. Mai leaned into a cushion made by her folded clothing, but she was herself limned by filaments clustering around and over her as if to smother her. And yet she breathed; she grunted, and Priya said,

“Hold your breath as I say the prayer of opening. Now.” She spoke words in a steady voice, while Mai gripped the edge of the plank and strained.