Deathless

by Catherynne M. Valente

But Koschei the Deathless steps into his daughter’s embrace and holds her, gently, tenderly, proudly, for a moment, smoothing her wet hair with his hand before kissing her forehead as perfectly as any father has ever done. She opens her mouth and takes her third breath, wholly, fully, through her mouth, the last trickles of the water of her mother’s womb spilling from her lips. The force of her third breath drags Koschei’s eyelids down, down, down, until they droop, and fall like scrolls unfurling to the floor; and he is become his brother, the Tsar of Death, for a tiny silver moment no larger than the prick of a pin. He lifts his eyelids with one arm to see Marya Morevna one last time, lifting them over his daughter’s shoulders; and beneath the lids and lashes there is only light, more and endless light, silver as water, pouring out of him; and suddenly they are both gone and there is a bird in the room, a bird both like and unlike Marya’s firebird; and Marya’s belly is flat and firm as though she were never full of daughter, and she is not in bed, but standing in a corner of her house in Yaichka, in the dark, and all is grey and cold except the bird, the bird staring at her with a human face.