Lisette had been chosen seven years ago, when her own mother—the previous priestess—had walked into the first rain of March and vanished into a spray of white blossoms.
For a moment, nothing. Then the woman gasped. A ripple of warmth traveled up her arms, and behind her ribs, something small and fierce—a promise—began to beat. lisette, priestess of spring pregnancy
“Priestess,” whispered the baker’s wife, kneeling. “My hens have stopped laying.” Lisette had been chosen seven years ago, when
She touched a hand to her navel. The tendrils within pulsed once, twice—a heartbeat that was not hers, but the world’s. A ripple of warmth traveled up her arms,
By dawn, her belly would be flat again. She would rise, thin and shivering, and the village would hand her a bowl of lamb’s broth. They would not speak of what had passed. But the plum trees would burst into flower by noon.
“Tomorrow,” Lisette said softly, “you will find eggs.”
Outside, the first crack appeared in the river’s ice. And somewhere deep beneath the frost, a seed remembered how to break.