Mara's temple sat opposite the palace, so I saw it nearly every day but only went inside three or four times a year during festivals. I thought that, like everything else, was a pattern that would never change.

But now I had seen the wards come down, and I had heard the goddess in the woods, and rumor held that the king was angry with me. It seemed like just one more thing when an acolyte appeared and all but dragged me into the temple. I was sick at heart with worrying, and so it was hard to drum up any kind of reverence or wonder at the temple itself.

The acolyte left me in front of the goddess's altar and I looked at the ground, unsure what to do.

"Look at me, child."

I wasn't sure who had spoken, and I looked around the room for another acolyte or servant, but I saw no one. Then I noticed movement in front of me out of the corner of my eye and I looked up.

The statue of Mara in the temple is carved from a single, huge piece of wood. She is eight feet tall, enough to make grown men feel like children before her. It didn't seem possible that the voice had come from her and yet I heard it. A statue couldn't move and I couldn't even tell you what part of her had shifted, only that I'd seen movement. Wood-grained hair shifted in the breeze. A carved chest rose and fell with breath.

"What comes for you will hurt," she said, "but please understand that there is a greater plan here than your king's anger. I can't stop him, but I can protect you."

"Aren't you a goddess?" I asked her. "Why can't you stop him?" I was half-ready for her to strike me down there and save him the trouble.

"Our relationship is complicated," she said. I recognized the tone from conversations with my father, when I asked questions he didn't want to answer. "I am not all-powerful, and it will be better if he thinks he has everything under control."

"Doesn't he? He's the king."

"There is a great deal more than this kingdom, Ausrine, none of which is under his control." I thought she smiled. "You'll see soon enough."

"With this, Mara will take care of you." The priestess pressed a heavy pouch into my hand. I shook it. Coins? They clinked lightly together. I appreciated having funds for the road, but I felt guilty. It was clear this priestess didn't have much to give. Yet returning it seemed far more rude.

When I stopped for dinner, I pulled out the pouch as I was seated. I reached in and pulled out two coins, but quickly saw that neither was coin of the realm I'd ever seen before, either in Arcadia or here in the outside world.

I sat them on the table, wondering if they would even pay for dinner.

"Put your coin away," the innkeeper said when she walked by.

When I began to protest, she leaned in close and whispered, "Please, Priestess. My mother raised me in the old ways, but there are those who prefer foreign gods. I will speak to you later, in your room."

I did as she told me, unsure what to make of her calling me 'priestess.' I'd accepted the vocation, but saying the words in the moment was one sort of feeling. Having the title, and the respect, applied to me was a different feeling altogether. Dinner was simple, spiced potatoes, carrots and a little mutton. The men at the next table mentioned it was better than soldiers' rations. The silence as I ate seemed like an ache in my chest. I hoped Inga was doing well.

Afterward, the innkeeper made a loud pretense of showing me to my room and followed me in. I had a sudden moment of fear as she locked the door, but she only looked at me with excitement. "Will you read the coins for me, Priestess?"

"I- I'm still very new," I started to tell her.

"Oh, don't sell yourself short," she said, smiling, as she dragged the empty washbasin over toward the bed and turned it over for the flat surface. "I won't hold it against you if they're unclear. It's just... it's been years since we had a priestess of Mara come through. Not since my mother died."

I nearly mentioned there was one only a day's drive away without thinking, but clearly the woman in the woods did not want her presence known.

I did as the priestess had done, shaking the pouch and then holding it open for the innkeeper to reach in. She plucked out a small handfull of coins, dropping them on the upturned washbasin. For a long minute, I stared at them, unsure what to say, but I realized there was a whisper inside me that knew.

"Mara knows you. She sees you." I pointed to the first coin, one I recognized from Arcadia that was printed with Mara's veiled face. The innkeeper pulled a cord out from around her neck to show me that she wore an identical one. I smiled and relaxed a bit.

The next showed a drummer boy on the back. "There are fights ahead for you. They are not your battles, but you'll be caught up in them."

Then one with a hole in the center and a dragon printed on it. "You will have protection, but you still need to be careful." And on it went, the images on the coins seeming to speak with me. At the end, I looked up at her. "I think the war will come through here. I'm sorry."

"This far?" she sighed and shook her head. "Thank you. I wish I could offer you more for what you've given me."

"Your hospitality is more than enough," I replied, hoping courtly manners would suffice for holiness. I still felt like I was tricking her somehow.

When she left, I dropped the coins back into the pouch, shook it, and pulled one out for myself.

It was Mara's coin again. I had the sense she approved.

I couldn't ask for more than that, could I?

Ausrine swallowed hard as she watched the festival procession go by. At home, she knew, they would be celebrating the early spring by praising Mara's lifegiving aspects and begging her wintery face to turn away for another year. Somehow out here it had become something altogether different.

"Then the Mariam throws the ice witch in the fire," her host was explaining, "though I heard in some places they throw her in a river. It's said that allows spring to come for another year. Do you suppose it was originally about your Mara?"

She knew what the woman meant; she wanted to know if the Mariam's role had originally been played by the spirit. But all Ausrine could see when she watched was that the spirit that had saved her life was being mocked and burnt.

"At home," she began, and then she looked around and lowered her voice, for it was still dangerous even with the army moved west, "at home we celebrate the thaw, and offer the first flowers to Mara."

"Is there an ice witch?"

"Mara is..." Ausrine took a deep breath. "You have this romantic ideal of what the gods are, of what it meant to live here and belong to this land and to its spirits. But the spirits we know, and that you knew, were not so simple as you want them to be. So I will tell you how the new year is welcomed in the spring."

Her voice had grown loud again, despite her best efforts, and some of the other people in the crowd were turning to look at her and listen.

"In the summer Mara is the giving earth, generous and fertile, good to plow and good to rest on. But the earth is all things in all seasons, and after we harvest the last of her gifts she grows lonely and empty. We keep our stores full and our hearthfires warm to remind ourselves that the Mara of the Summer is always watching over us.

"But the earth is not here for our pleasure, and in the winter Mara takes down her plaited hair and sheds her cloth garments. She runs wild in furs, or even naked in the snows, as it pleases her. Even the Sun flees from her in fear, and by the Longest Night we must remind the Sun to return with our bonfires. In winter Mara reminds us that she is not ours, but that we are hers, to do with as she will. Sometimes that means we don't see the spring, but eventually everyone will have a last winter.

"When we die we go into the earth. She welcomes us there. She takes our bodies apart as hers was taken apart once, and she does us the honor of making our bodies part of her.

"But in the spring, when the ground thaws and with it her heart, when the flowers begin to push through like hope, we celebrate that we are still here, and we remind Mara that we are grateful for all she gives us, and bid her to wash the blood from her face and plait her hair again and be the fertile fields once more. We light fires to welcome her in from the cold, and we feast to show her how well we have portioned out the gifts she gave us last year, and we tell stories of her blessings and make offerings that the hospitality will beg reciprocation from her. And she comes back to us, our Daughter of the Earth, and we open the markets in the spring in her name. But she was the icy face of the frozen earth too."

Ausrine shook her head, feeling as if she were waking from a trance. She looked around, seeing the size of the crowd she'd attracted. Some of them were interested, but some were angry. Her host's face was ashen.

"We should go," her host said, and Ausrine followed quickly out of the mass of people.

Dearest Antonio,

I have been fortunate to add to my sources a young woman who was raised in what I may only describe as a genuine pastoral postcard, a sort of Arcadia that did not believe could have survived the war's advances. This woman, who is called Ausrine, knows a number of songs that I had only in fragment, or in different forms, and she was even able to describe to me a still-extant temple of Mara and the statues of other gods!

She tells me that Mara sent her out into the world and I flatter myself to believe that perhaps she was sent to me. While I still feel that I know so little, any encouragement at all that my work makes the goddess proud helps. If Mara and the other old ones truly do see our work, perhaps this means they will likewise return to save our homeland from petty emperors and delusions of godhood.

Yours in faith, Darja Ezergailis

Darja's desk was piled with her notes and copies of ancient manuscripts she'd found. Ausrine found it rather intimidating at first, as if she couldn't shake the feeling that Darja would classify her and file her away in a curiousity cabinet just as she had the coins and small figurines.

As she answered Darja's questions and the two young women became better acquainted, however, she found comfort in those notes. There was something of home in Darja's study, even if it was preserved instead of lived.

After several weeks of Darja's casual hospitality, Ausrine felt comfortable confessing to her, "I feel so inadequate for this task. If I had known where I would end up, I would have..." Ausrine trailed off.

"What would you have done?" the poet held her pen as if the answer were as valuable as any other she'd been given.

Ausrine shook her head. "I would have paid more attention in the temple during festivals, for one thing. I call myself priestess because enough people have insisted I am one, but I don't feel like one. I never learned all the poems or the songs. I only remember the shapes of some of the stories, and I only celebrated festivals as a layperson. Mara should have sent someone better trained!"

"I sincerely doubt I am important enough to warrant a spirit sending someone trained to answer all of my questions. I am grateful for what you have to share."

"But there could be so much more," Ausrine nearly shouted. She took a deep breath to compose herself. "I don't know why she should choose me. I'm not an intellectual. I think with my hands and my eyes, not my brain."

Darja made a note of something Ausrine couldn't quite see. "Perhaps that's why she chose you. She seems from all your accounts to be a practical goddess. She doesn't need lofty thoughts, though I'm willing to give them to her. She needs someone who will get the work done."

"I do wish I knew what the work is."

"Well, tell me another story for now," Darja prompted. "If you're the right person for the job, I'm sure whatever work you're meant to do will find you."

"Do you ever worry that I'm making all this up?"

That was what it took to wipe the smile from Darja's face. "I'm a poet, Ausrine. I know how truth rings, and how lies sit heavy. Your stories feel right, even if you don't know where they spring from. Perhaps they come from your temple, or directly from Mara or perhaps you're just spinning straw and accidentally turning out gold. But it has the weight of gold, not of straw."

Ausrine relaxed at the thought. "Good. I want to do this correctly. I doubt myself, but I don't want to lie."

"Then you shall not lie," Darja nodded. "Now then, no more philosophy. Another story. You said that Mara herself is your queen, but only some of the time. Tell me about that."

The pub was loud and busy, and while she had become very comfortable with the modern languages spoken outside of her homeland, Ausrine still found herself overwhelmed by noise when she had nothing in particular to listen to. She was waiting for Darja to stop talking to some young man on the other side of the room, but they were much too far away for her to hope to make out their conversation.

Her thoughts drifted back to what was troubling her. Ausrine had thought, somehow, that she would have made more progress by now. Here it was the last harvest festival and she was still sleeping in Darja's guest room. It wasn't that she disliked Darja's company; the two had become lovers recently, and Ausrine did not regret it in the slightest. She only wished she had a bit more direction.

"Well that was interesting," Darja said as she sat down. "You're getting a reputation, my dear. That gentleman just invited us to another harvest festival."

Ausrine sighed. The harvest festivals seemed so dry and perfunctory to her, despite Darja's assurances that continuing to make contacts would only help.

"Oh, don't make that face," Darja interrupted her thoughts. "Besides which, he said it's a more pastoral tradition, so perhaps you'll like this one."

Still dubious, Ausrine nonetheless followed Darja out of the pub. The man was waiting outside and gestured for them to get into a simple wagon that could have been from twenty years before or two hundred. Ausrine let Darja sit up on the bench and instead she scrambled into the back of the wagon and perched on a dry bale of hay. A procession from town? She felt more at home already.

As they left the city behind, the back of the wagon began to fill with others headed to the same destination. Some carried lanterns, others grains or root vegetables, the last offerings their land would give up for the year.

When the wagon stopped, everyone climbed out. Their host helped Darja down and explained to both her and Ausrine that they would start by circling the field, making sure nothing had been left unintentionally, no gift unreceived, and then the procession would start. Darja looked unsure but Ausrine smiled at her.

The last two weeks had been dry, and the dusty ground seemed to work its way up into the air as they walked. By the time the field was circled, Ausrine thought she must be covered in a thin layer of dirt. The sky was dotted with stars on one side and still red with the last of sunset on the other as they finished the procession. It fascinated her still, how different the stars were now than from the ones she grew up with.

More reds and oranges flared up, a bonfire at the edge of the field. Offerings were laid out on a long table at the edge of the bare earth. A large stone stood next to it. A middle-aged woman and the gentleman who had brought them in the wagon walked naked up to the stone and there was a long song, though the words and the melody felt like they might be distantly related to something Ausrine had heard. The ice witch was asked for mercy, for protection, for a dozen more things, but they all came down to the same request. Spare us. Let us make it through the winter.

The man laid down on the stone. The woman stood over him, and suddenly glinting in the firelight was a sharp knife. The energy of the crowd shifted, and Ausrine thought she could feel the dirt on her skin joining in the anticipation. Darja's nails dug into Ausrine's arm, but the younger woman didn't move.

The knife came down across the man's chest, and blood flowed freely down the rock. The crowd around them called out again, praising the ice witch.

Ausrine waited, her breath still.

It was difficult to tell in the firelight, but she thought the man was still breathing. The woman stalked through the crowd until she found Ausrine.

"You the priestess he said he was bringing?"

She answered, "I am the one he brought."

"The folk in the city, they forgot what winter's like. Maybe it don't get cold enough in there. But we give the ice witch her due still." The woman looked Ausrine up and down. "That who you calling Mara?"

This time Ausrine did not hesitate. "Yes, that's the Winter's Mara." Darja looked uncomfortable.

"You gonna bleed for her then?" She offered Ausrine the handle of the blade.

This was not the way it had played out at home, but the shape of it felt familiar enough that Ausrine didn't hesitate. She had scars from the year she had been chosen for the sacrifice, where she'd gotten infected and almost died. You put your life in Mara's hands when you bled for her.

The acolytes of the temple always performed the same ritual after the sacrifice. Following her instinct, Ausrine did her best to imitate what she remembered. She didn't clean the knife. She bowed to the man on the rock, and his eyelids fluttered. Not giving herself a chance to hesitate, she slid the blade along her palm with as much force as she could bear.

For a moment, she thought she had failed to pierce the skin, but finally blood appeared, and she let it drip onto the ground, mixing with the man's blood and the dirt. Reaching down, she drew up a handful of the resulting mud and painted the corpse-lines on the man's face and chest.

"Know your sacrifice has been given and pass by with your cats," she said, in her own dialect. "Do what you must, as will we. Good hunting."

The men and women behind her seemed satisfied; the middle-aged woman began yet another song and it was quickly picked up. Ausrine held her hand in a fist as she stepped away and handed the knife back. Fortunately, there was very little remaining of the ritual, and soon she and Darja were seated at a long table covered in the traditional feast.

"I thought they were-" Darja began and stopped. "I thought he was-"

"I've told you about the Winter's Mara before," Ausrine said, gently encouraging her lover to actually eat the bread she was staring at.

Darja chewed slowly. "It's different."

"It is," Ausrine agreed. "Now you know why the city festivals feel so hollow." Darja didn't answer, but she did finally eat, and eventually she even joined in the dancing. Some of the storytellers took a shine to her when they realized she was listening and recording, not trying to correct them.

"Was a good show," the ritual leader said when she was setting Ausrine and Darja on their way in a different wagon, with a different driver. "Your Mara, you tell her we ain't forgotten."

"She knows. I'm sure she knows," Ausrine said. "May I ask you a question?"

"Go on."

"The offerings. What do you do with them?"

The woman smiled. "They go in storage. Any folks end up needing them, we've got them. It ain't enough if there's real trouble, but it's been enough plenty of times."

Ausrine nodded. "That's different, but it's good. It feels right. I'll remember. Thank you for letting me come." Then they were shooed out the door and into the dawn light.