Cora MarisovnaIn a tiny pocket of shelter from the biting whirlwind, Cora slumped back against the rock of the canyon. Even in the clogged air, she could breathe again at last, and her body quivered with relief. Each dust-laden breath rubbed her lungs raw, but her chest could rise and fall again without effort. The cold wrapped around her like a blanket of freedom.
Without the baby, though, she felt empty inside, just a hollow shell. She had bled some, but not as much as she had seen before, in other births she had watched in Neryungri. Cora was exhausted and in pain, but it was a different kind of pain from the endless rounds of adin surgery she had suffered in Siberia. This was more of an ache, a loss, a weariness from which she would eventually recover.
Touching her baby daughter for
