Larksong Grotto what gods win, what you lose

While the tawny man is silent, the gilded woman is all words. Ayovi stares, expecting wrath to flare; waiting for milk to be called out from the earth and an army to be shaped from dust. Such sorcery was worked by the crone, who sundered rolling heads from limp bodies and bewitched a mother’s senses by that which is next recited:
A child! A hunter like mother, with warrior’s eyes like father. And from any other mouth these claims would have seemed like wild lies. But in Aspa’s voice carried an utter conviction, and in Ayovi’s heart a fluttering young mother’s desperation.
Swallow, she’s instructed. And she does, avian beak churning to powder under sharp fang.
A second; clever! Summoning a warchief’s intellect and a river’s deftness. Her child; Skorpa’s cub, and Ayovi brings the stoat head; eyes, nose, whiskers and all, to her mouth.
All her yearning, life’s most precious dreams are given breath, and as if in answer the strokes of little feet keep quick time against mother’s belly. She cannot swallow quickly enough. Each prophecy holds the length of a night. The shadows gather thickly. A single golden glint on the soothsayer’s face darkens.
There is more.
Rapt ears stand, blood and offal rimming the dark lips. Intently, Ayovi listens as the third child’s fate is revealed to be breakable; sickly.
May they draw breath at all.
No! No, no, no, no! Fear wracks her body, pummels through limbs, giving rise to a gouging noise much like a cry that startles her own ears. Hands quickly encircling, protective of that which is safe inside her; who shares her body. Who would know life’s quick pulse— who must!
“They will live— they must live!” Her eyes whip between Aspa and the silent man, "Giv mig fawn," her cry burns.  It is a great ordeal to pass every bite, every chew, every swallow. It doesn’t matter. Over and over Ayovi is succumbing to powers beyond her comprehension, her mind tumbling now.
"Den fjerde?" Mother asks in near gasp, a weary muzzle raised in question of the witch while colors dance in the corners of a narrowed vision.