As the earth slept and the layers of snow and ice built upon each other, Mira grew larger still. The weight of the child strained her legs and back. And she and Dania would take turns massaging each other, though this didn’t always ease the soreness that came with carrying.

No matter the time of day, Mira was always hungry and missed the sweet summer fruits from back home with a savage desperation. In the Northern winter, there were mostly pickled vegetables and salted meats to eat, and the bread was not fluffy like back home but flattened and coated in herbs. One grizzly day, when Mira had determined to breathe the crisp outside air but was so tired she began to doze off sitting by the town hearth, Myret brought her a small dark square.

“Eat.”

The square was sweet and bitter all at once but perhaps the most delicious thing Mira had ever tasted. It melted in her mouth and coated her throat as it went down.

“Shokhah,” Myret said, helping Mira back to Fell’s tent and tucking her into the furs there. “I tell the men to look for it when they’re raiding and bring it back to me.”

“Where does it come from?” Mira wondered out loud. It certainly didn’t come from her homeland.

“Further south than most of us have ever been,” Myret said as she measured Mira’s stomach with her hands and easily found the place the child was resting. “Two more moons, I think.” She smiled at Mira, and Mira found herself laughing.

“Good. I am tired of being so large and slow.”

Myret laughed, too. “Soon, you will be tired for an entirely new reason.”

Fell found the two of them there in his tent, his eyes growing wide with worry.

“All is well,” Myret soothed him with a knowing smile. “The child is exactly where it should be. There is nothing to worry over.”

Mira thought again of Fell’s fears, the ones he told her about when he disappeared at the equinox. The things I have seen happen to Vaneurigk as they give birth. And his words after they visited Vaneurim. Sad stories are not good for Vaneurigk.

She wondered if Myret knew the story Fell did not want to tell. Even if she did, Myret was known for keeping secrets. If Fell did not want Mira to know, Myret would not tell her.

The days grew colder and darker, and Mira grew larger and slower—so large that she struggled to lay with Fell in the way she wanted, in part because she felt her swollen legs looked ugly and did not want him to see them, but also because her movements needed to be so different because of her size.

He laughed whenever her appearance made her moody and told her she was beautiful. Most nights, she did not believe him when he said this, and there was one evening when this frustrated him.

His voice was not truly stern, but more so than she had ever heard it before. “You cannot see it because you are so young. But you are the most beautiful a woman could be. I pray to Valla that she protect you when we go to Hyrold’s Halls. That she keeps the eyes of the gods and the great kings of old away from you so I may still have a chance of being the man you desire.”

His flattery was well received, and he had her that night, though more often than not, in this time, they used their hands to please each other.

The little energy Mira had was given to Dania’s boys so Dania could continue stitching together furs for her baby or so the girl could rest. However tired Mira was, she knew Dania must be even more so, for the girl was rounder, with an even bigger baby within. She was also endlessly stressed. Dania’s children were both born in the summertime, and she spoke constantly about how cold her new baby would be after the birth and how she was to manage bringing the child into the world aboard a ship with such frigid winds blowing.

Mira tried to comfort her with rational assumptions. “The Northmen have lived like this for many years; surely they know how to keep a child warm by now.”

Mira also crafted a baby-sized basket for her friend out of the sweetest smelling grasses she had left from autumn. Dania’s heart seemed warmed by the gesture, and she spent many days meticulously sewing together sleeping furs which sat, folded neatly inside the basket. Waiting.

Three-quarters of a moon after the winter solstice (which Mira did not participate in on account of the bitter cold and how exhausted she was), Dania’s child was ready to come into the world. Mira stayed with her at first, bringing her water when she asked for it and entertaining Hald and Layf while Egunn rubbed Dania’s legs and lower back, but as soon as Myret arrived, she sent Mira away.

“Vaneurigk should not watch others give birth,” Fell said to that night when Mira complained. “It can breed fear.”

It wasn’t until noon the next day that Mira was permitted to enter Dania’s tent, although she’d heard the moans as Dania was taken out to sea the night before. Fell spoke the truth; the sounds frightened Mira, burrowing into her skull and causing her to wonder how difficult her own birth would be. Birth was not something Mira had much thought about; she knew that sometimes women died in the act but had assumed, as a child, that this was a punishment from the gods for poor behaviour. She had not before considered that bringing a child into the world would be difficult.

Myret took Hald and Layf into her own tent for the first few days of baby Illa’s life so Dania could give all her time to resting and adoring the little girl she held in her arms. Mira was relieved to see that Dania did not look tired, or weak, or sad in any way. The girl was glowing, laughing, and singing, her joy stretching outside of her body, spreading to any who sat nearby.

Fell laughed as he held the child and told the baby’s father how beautiful she was while Myret helped Dania out to relieve herself.

Eggun took the babe and slapped Fell on the back, laughing. “Soon, you will be a father as well.”

They drank to the health of the baby already born and the one yet to come. It was strange to watch the giant men coo over the little girl, the lumbering beasts coddling and rocking and whispering sweet nonsense each time the baby flinched or sneezed or stretched or did anything.

Had my father held me like this when I was born? Laughing with joy? Perhaps he had. There would be no way for Mira to ever know.

As the men drank more, Fell grew quiet and still, his eyes directed at the hearth but unfocused.

He spoke without looking up at Mira or Eggun. “I must go away for this night, and perhaps the next.”

“Where?” Mira said.

Fell kissed her instead of answering and went out into the fluttering snow.

Mira moved to follow him, but Eggun stopped her. “Let him go. He will be back.”

Mira had never been alone with Dania’s Northman before. He always seemed gruff and scary to her, but there, holding his first daughter in his arms, he did not seem frightening at all. He was much older than Fell, with lines from smiling around his eyes and beard and hints of grey hidden in his blond hair—the air around him felt safe and solid.

Eggun offered baby Illa to Mira, and she took her gingerly into her arms. The child was so small Mira almost couldn’t believe it—her little eyes closed tight, the occasional strange noise coming out of her sleeping mouth. Mira had never held a new baby before. It was both heavier and lighter than she expected it to be. When she handed the child back, she spoke.

“Sometimes, I feel I understand Fell so well that we do not need to talk. But other times, I feel like I know nothing about him.”

Eggun shrugged. “He carries many heavy weights.”

Mira did not understand this wording. Fell did not carry around more than the other Northmen she had seen.

Eggun laughed at her confusion. “Not in his arms, soten, in his heart.”

She understood his meaning. Sometimes metaphors were hard in her second language, and the Northmen had many phrases that were not meant to be heard literally. She did not think to correct Eggun for using the word soten to describe her as she was too busy wondering about the weights that Fell carried.

“You do not know?” Eggun said.

Mira recognized his expression; he was to be brave. He was to tell a truth when it would be easier to stay quiet. “Fell had a child once, but the girl died within days of her first breath; she was born too soon. His woman died before the child was even out of her body.”

Mira felt as though she had been struck by a bolt of sharp and bitter lightning, simultaneously feeling a deep, primal suffering and a relief, for she now understood so many moments she’d had with Fell more deeply. The woe she sensed when he’d spoken to Vaneurim. How nervous he grew whenever he came home to find Myret in their tent. When he wandered away after the equinox to walk with his fears.

Mira pictured Fell holding the dying child all alone and felt nauseous when she thought of being so angry at him for disappearing after the equinox. And that night, as she lay alone in his furs, listening to the fire whisper and crackle, she whispered as if Fell could hear her.

“I understand now. Take as long as you need.”

When Fell returned a few days later, Mira did not ask him any questions. She acted as if he hadn’t even left. When he tried to give her more to eat than she wanted, she was sweet about it, often taking what was offered and tossing it to the hearth when he was not looking.

Fell stopped going out for the hunt and ceased training, staying by her side night and day. Mira later found out that Rowan had agreed to hunt after his blacksmithing work was done, giving his finds to Gorn on behalf of Fell.

Each Northman had one job, one way of contributing, but Rowan had taken on both his and Fell’s work so that Fell could stay with Mira in her swelled state. Though sometimes she wished for a moment alone, overall, Mira was beyond grateful for his help. It was hard to wrap herself in all the furs she needed (she could not even bend to lace her boots up), and it was hard to move around, particularly given how slippery the ice that coated everything was. Mira was tired but unable to sleep well because of her new size and shape, and when she was finally comfortable enough to rest, the child would wake and move about so wildly within her that she would be kept alert. She was hungry and thirsty all the time and made water too many times a day to count (occasionally not entirely lifting her skirts in time). Fell sang any song she requested and brought her whatever she asked for. He whispered sweet things to their child, asking the babe to be still so Mira could sleep and laughing softly when the child refused.

Rowan, Dania, and Myret took turns visiting with Mira, asking if there was anything she needed, bringing little treats they found, making warming tea when she was cold or berries mashed in snow when she was too warm.

When baby Illa was one and a half moons old, Fell woke Mira in the middle of a blustery, frigid evening.

“Why?” she scolded playfully. “I had finally fallen asleep.”

“You made noise. I thought you felt pain.”

Mira smiled and pulled herself deeper into his thick arms, pressing. “No. No pain.” She kissed him and closed her eyes, eager to float back into her dream. A whale had been pulling her deep below the water, where it was quiet and still, and secret treasures had sunk to the sand waiting to be discovered; she was collecting the items she wanted to keep for the baby. But before she found sleep, Mira realized Fell was right. There was something: a mild, dull ache, as she sometimes felt when she bled. She opened her eyes.

Fell was still watching her. “You feel pain.”

She nodded. It passed quickly, and then there was nothing for some time. Mira drifted back to sleep but was woken by the sensation again. Fell hadn’t tried to rest; he lay on his side, watching her with extreme attention.

Mira desperately had to relieve herself and cursed. She did not feel like getting up out of the warm furs and trudging through the snow, but the feeling prevented her from sleeping, so she sat up. Fell helped her dress and walked with her into the tree line, one hand on her back in case the ice got under her boots wrong.

The snow was dancing violently in the wind that night, a sheet of white flowing in one direction and then another. The clouds above tumbled, moving quickly in front of the moon and then away from it, breaking up the silvery light into thin, ominous beams.

Despite how badly she needed to, Mira could not release water easily. When it finally came, it came with pain. She exhaled deeply, her breath tinted with her voice as tufts of hot, white breath swirled up and away from her mouth. In her bones, Mira knew the birth was beginning.

She looked around at the fierce flurry of white and felt calmer, stronger, remembering Fell’s words on their climb to visit Vanerium. Hyrold is watching.

As they made their way back to the tent, though the snow that grew denser by the moment, Fell’s eyes stayed locked on hers. He knew as well.

The birth was beginning.