0451472004 by Stephanie Thornton

strength in the fight to come.”
    I found my mother draped halfway over her bed, knees on the ground while she moaned into her swan-feather mattress. Her hips swayed back and forth, as if to entice the stubborn child to slide from her womb. I placed my hands over hers, knotted though they were in the soft sheets.
    “This one may yet kill me,” she groaned, clutching my hands so the bones threatened to splinter. “Promise me that you’ll keep the child from the river. And from Alexander.”
    I recalled that terrible day, one of my earliest memories, as our family camped along the Euphrates while on progress from Babylon. It had been a fine day and my father had taken down several ducks and a magnificent white-plumed crane with his hunting stick. My elder brother, Cyrus, twice my five years and stronger than the hero Achaemenes to my young eyes, had snuck out in my father’s skiff when no one was looking. My mother yelled for him to come back, but he stood on the prow in the middle of the river, hefting my father’s bow and quiver of arrows onto his back. We watched in horror as he tottered and the skiff swayed drunkenly; then my dark-haired brother lost his balance and tumbled into the river with a violent splash. My mother screamed and my father dived into the water. Stateira and I clutched each other, waiting for him to resurface, but there was nothing. River debris matted Cyrus’ hair and his lips had gone blue by the time my father pulled him back to shore. My mother collapsed and wailed into the earth even as my father pounded on my brother’s chest and begged him to breathe.
    The River of Copper had stolen his last breath. That same day we carried him to Babylon’s Tower of Silence, exposing his pale body and allowing him to greet the gods and cross the Chinvat Bridge into paradise.
    I’d refused to touch even my bathwater for weeks afterward and Stateira still mumbled pleas to Ahura Mazda’s holy flame each time we traversed a river, the flickering light from the god’s fire making her appear six years old again. Life had soured for my mother after that, then grown more bitter with each miscarriage and stillbirth that followed.
    “I swear it, Mother,” I said, kissing her brow. “No rivers. This child will be so overindulged that elephants shall carry her over every river in the empire.”
    But my mother didn’t hear me, for an unexpected midwife had arrived with Stateira, swathed in her customary blue and gold. I wondered if Barsine would have preferred to plunge back into the turmoil of war once she took in the scene before her.
    “The camp is in disarray,” Stateira said, wringing her hands. My lovely sister detested having a single brush or charcoal nub out of place in her drawing box; the chaos of the fireship and our brother’s birth might well send her sobbing into the tent corner before the sun rose again. “The midwife is nowhere to be found, but Barsine offered her assistance.”
    “You brought Alexander’s whore to catch my child?” my mother nearly growled.
    “Barsine’s mother was a midwife before their exile,” Stateira offered.
    Barsine shrugged off her cumbersome head scarf, which fell past her waist and was covered with gold embroidery and a king’s ransom in shining coins. “I’ve helped several of my handmaids deliver healthy children. The Greek midwives during our exile were averse to catching Persian babes. I swear I won’t spit on the queen or her child as they did us.”
    My grandmother pursed her lips, but nodded. “We are grateful for your help, Barsine.”
    But there was another reason Barsine had offered to attend my mother.
    “I have news from your father,” she whispered to me as she submerged her smooth hands in a bowl of boiled vinegar. “Alexander received a messenger—a eunuch from your father—today.”
    “And?” I prompted. “What did the messenger say?”
    She glanced at me, her eyes as blue as her necklace and almost as wide. “He spoke of your