Jin was called away a few days later. We weren’t told why or for how long we would be on our own. Yule, the sleek, no nonsense whisper woman who had silently judged us during Jin’s first trick simply ordered us to keep practicing before she disappeared back into a shadow on the edge of the training area. I think she thought she’d catch idiocy if she spent too much time near us. Given the slack jawed looks on a decent number of the cohort after her announcement I almost couldn’t blame her.
Some were convinced that this was just another test and we were supposed to display what we learned over the past few months by finding Jin, since we had failed to do so the first time. That group was championed by Ulo, interestingly enough. I hadn’t thought the earnest rule monger could think of something so outside the stated facts, regardless of how true they might be. Then again, such a trick was hardly unprecedented and Jin had been harping on about teamwork and honing our skills since day one. It was hardly a leap of thought to reach the conclusion that this might be a test dedicated to those things.
Others who had seen a fight or two down on the lake’s shore thought she had been actually called away to deal with the threat. Loclen was the main proponent of that option, but I doubted that our mentor would be needed there. For one, the whisper women I had seen before seemed to have the lake monster handled; two, there hadn’t been any monster sightings recently; and third, I doubted Jin’s blessing would be much help fighting such things. And why else would she have been specifically called away unless there was need for her blessing?
Juniper and her little group didn’t share their opinion either way while Prevna mused aloud about a multitude of options ranging from the idea that Jin had been summoned to goddess’s dwelling to the speculation that she was fighting somewhere or that she gotten tired of us and abandoned us for an abrupt break. All possibilities, but I couldn’t commit to any of them. Something in my gut insisted that it was something else, something bigger.
It wasn’t until a couple days later that I understood why. The Seedling Palace was subdued, quieter than it had been ever since we arrived. There were less whisper women on the paths and platforms that we could see from our quarantined area. Breck even let slip that she had been back to the arena already, but less than half number who had been there before filled it now. I also gathered that there was more tension and less fighting which didn’t bode well and she didn’t like. The fire starters were also more on edge but they kept their mouths shut when it came to telling us what was going on.
The only place in the whole of the Seedling Palace that seemed the unchanged was the nested library. Shawsh still sat, bent over his latest miniature scene, while Clara lay on her cushions absorbed with reading whatever scroll on hand. I was certain she must have read everything in that library at least once.
I went to press them for information again after Clara rebuffed Prevna and Loclen the first time. Still, they were our best chance at finding out what was happening, so I couldn’t leave them alone.
Clara rolled her eyes when she saw me step around the last line of scrolls and into the open space in the middle of the library. “Go away.”
I scowled at her. “How do you know I’m not here to read?”
She kept her gaze trained on the scroll in front of her. “You wouldn’t have stopped if you were.”
I couldn’t deny that. “We need to know what’s happening.”
“No, you don’t. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Our mentor disappeared.”
Clara snorted and finally shot me wry glance. “This library could teach you more than she ever will.”
I crossed my arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “It’s not like she got the job because she wanted it or was good at teaching. Right, Shawsh?”
The old man shifted uncomfortably as he looked up from the clay he was carving before he inclined his head toward the scrolls around the Seedling Palace carving. “You can find more about the Enforcer there. Third circle from the carving, third column in from the right, eleventh scroll from the bottom.”
Enforcer? I pictured Jin’s slack way of dressing and tried to reconcile it with the brutal impression the word conjured. Then I all too clearly remembered the almost casual way she had nearly killed me and then the nickname wasn’t so difficult to understand.
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I filed the information Shawsh told me to the back of mind. Learning more about Jin would be interesting, but it wasn’t why I was here. “Why did she leave?”
Clara glowered at her scroll as her tactic to distract me failed. “Why should I know?”
“I’ll give Shawsh a firsthand account of a secret spot in Flickermark.”
She pressed her lips tight together in an attempt to disguise sudden hungry interest. “We can’t create something that would ruin a trial.”
It was my turn to shrug. “It would just be a scene. I won’t tell you where in Flickermark it is, and you could always…be more artistic.”
Clara eyed my trial mark before looking past her scroll to Shawsh. “Would that interest you?”
He smiled, a bit guilty, a bit excited and that was enough for her.
Clara looked back at me. “Some fool decided to burn down a tree.” All the blood drained from my face and my stomach plummeted as she continued, “The goddess has denied access to fire to everyone in the southwest region in punishment until a thousand new seeds are planted. I believe your mentor is delivering the goddess’s punishment to the idiot.”
I swallowed and couldn’t help but state the obvious. “But it’s late cold season.”
Unless the people there had a place like the meeting hall in Grislander’s Maw they would freeze in their tents. The weather always got colder and worse later into the cold season. Not to mention that they wouldn’t be able to cook or thaw the frozen ground to make planting the seeds faster and easier. I shuddered. I doubted they had enough picks and shovels to get the demand done before many were lost to the goddess’s wrath.
Clara seemed to read my thoughts on my face and murmured agreement, “The goddess isn’t known for Her mercy.” Then her features twisted in distaste. “Of course, the Lady Blue sensed the disturbance and now we have to deal with her slimy fish warriors and those awful salt creatures trying to erode the banks as well as make sure the tribes don’t do anything else stupid.”
I blinked at her, feeling like I understood everything she had separately, but not together. Clara’s eyes narrowed in annoyance before she deliberately turned back to her scroll. “Shawsh?”
The old man cleared his throat. “Moorkin collection. Fourth column, second, fifth, and seventh scrolls from the bottom.”
I nodded my thanks to him and, seeing that I wasn’t going to get any more information from them, went to collect all four scrolls he had directed me toward. Then I left the library to settle into one of the needle bed benches, though I was too restless to lay down. Instead, I sat cross legged in the middle of the bench and settled the scrolls securely next to me.
I read the one about Jin first. It was a dry, listed profile that highlighted her major accomplishments. Bearer of a Named blessing, Desperation’s Mirage, and one of the first in her cohort to drink the shadows. Scouted by the Peacekeepers and now she was ranked second only to their leader. She was known for efficiently punishing those who didn’t adhere to the Scales' rulings and forcing compliance. The more I read, the more I understood a single truth about the whisper woman overseeing the beginning of my time in the Seedling Palace: she was a breaker. She wasn’t here to build us up and teach us. No, she was here to break us down until we could be rebuilt into something else, something they thought was better, or we broke from the strain.
My teeth ground together. I didn’t come to Seedling Palace just to be put in the same situation I had dealt with in my childhood. I was a seedling, not some powerless child. But, for now, I would have to keep playing the part if I wanted the chance to figure out a way around her goal. Just like I had with her. Then trading myths for healing had worked, though I doubted such straight forward tactics would work as well this time.
I mulled through the situation for a while longer, not coming up with anything but anger and frustration, before I forced myself to put the scroll and fruitless plotting aside in exchange for one of the other scrolls.
It was a line drawing of a crusty looking creature with six legs, three to a side, and the front two were very wide and curved like large shovels. It almost looked like it was lumpy and formed from small crystalline piles. A large oval mouth gaped in between the front legs, full of jagged teeth. I couldn’t see any eyes on the thing or other notable features. Under the picture a single phrase was written in neat archaic script: Land’s End.
I shivered and quickly set the scroll aside in a bid to get rid of the sense of foreboding the image had created. The next scroll was another picture of a huge wave crashing onto a shore and carrying ugly bipedal fish that used their wavy fins to walk and hold spears rather than swim. I stared at the weird army, unsettled by the creatures as well as their number, before I slid my gaze down the scroll to read the drawing’s title: Lady Blue’s Fury.
If Moorkin had taken time to record such things than they must be truth, however unsettling it was to think about. The last scroll was a written account similar to the tale I had recounted down in depths of Flickermark while I waited for Fellen to rest. The Lady Blue, not a goddess but nowhere near mortal. She became something in between, greater than the goddesses’ other creations, but without the true gifts of the goddesses. Cursed to have no definite form and banished to the sea. I still found it difficult to believe our goddess could fail, but there was no mistaking now that the Lady Blue was not only myth. Not if Moorkin recorded it.
I sank back into the needle bed bench and spent the rest of the morning trying to think through what I had learned and how to present it to the others. They needed to know what was happening even if I didn’t want to involve myself anymore than necessary. None of them deserved to ground down to nothing just because some woman had ideas about what she thought we should be.