I stood in a half crouched position, weight evenly distributed between my feet and arms outstretched at my sides. The rest of the seedlings were in similar positions as we made a cube four people wide and three deep in the grassy ring on the training platform. We were supposed to keep our concentration on a fixed point in front of us, so I had good view Nii’s back and only a vague impression of Wren on the edge of my vision to the right. Loclen’s concentration could be felt behind me, however, and I knew the general positions of the others from when I looked around before Jin started the exercise. She was quizzing and lecturing us as she paced around the lip of the practice area.

“Break formation and be prepared to run ten laps around the platform. Every successive failure will result in an additional ten laps! Talk back or complain and you will hold the weight of your words in your hands.”

No deadline or mercy. I forced my jaw to unclench and consciously began to breath in long, deep breaths. I would need every edge I could get—despite long hours of training with Rawley I could already feel the back of my shoulders and thighs start to burn from the unfamiliar position.

Jin paused in front of our group. “Tell me what little you can of the elite you wish to join. What knowledge has slipped beyond these branches?”

Answers crowded together on the tip of my tongue, begging to be let out promptly because a mentor had asked us a question. I kept them back. Rather than show off the handful of knowledge I knew, it was better to learn what the others girls knew.

It turned out that a tidbit amount of information was much more common than a handful. It took Wren and Andhi both to remember the names of six sects within the whisper women, much less what they did. Loclen had to chime in for that second part. I simply recalled the simple poem that had been drilled into me as a child.

Beastwatcher for Her bounty of grass and bone

Scales to uphold Her word alone

Peacekeepers to keep the masses steady

Hundred Eyes always watching and whispers ready

Caretakers to watch what came before

Seekers striving to discover more

Know these six and know them well

Or you will fail wherein they dwell

I was under no illusions that she had created the poem, but she was the one who had beat Grandmother’s knowledge into me through repetition and cold obsession. It was one of the first things I could remember tucking into my memory tent, so that it would always be ready in case the question was once again thrown my way. Perhaps I was lucky that Grandmother had chosen to part with some of the knowledge that came with her position, but it was still odd to me that other Grandmothers wouldn’t also take the pragmatic route and share basic knowledge with bless marked girls in their tribes.

Knowledge of the whisper women’s boons came quicker and easier, no doubt because they were considered more exciting. Idra was the one to announce those. Her voice was clearly suffused with pride and avarice, especially when she touched on walking through shadow and seeing clearly in the dark. Apparently, talking at distance with the winds or becoming resistant to the elements weren’t as inspiring to her.

There was a beat of silence before Dera timidly offered up the pathetic and universal knowledge that only girls who bore a bless mark could become whisper women, those bless marks gave each of them a unique power, and that they were trained in the Seedling Palace. I rolled my eyes but, surprisingly, Jin thanked her for her contribution before pressing us for more.

“What can you tell me about the High Priestess? Or rank? Training? Did you bother to listen to the stories of how whisper women came to be? Tales of how to acquire the boons?”

No one spoke though I could feel the tension in the air increase as everyone strove for an answer, tried to decide if they should give voice to the hearsay they heard or keep quiet and keep the specter of failure at bay. My arms and legs felt like they were thick, heavy tree limbs that had been set on fire at this point, but I pushed past the burning pain to finally give my own answer.

“Lithunia is the current Hight Priestess and thus, the leader of the goddess’s chosen. It is said that she is part of the Hundred Eyes sect, granting them more influence in the Seedling Palace. She has a large swirling mark on her left side and her hands are cold.”

There. Some proof that I had not listlessly waited for my time at the Seedling Palace to come. Perhaps I shouldn’t have added on the fact that the High Priestess’s hands were cold from the way Jin’s eyes had now caught on me, but the way she threw out questions like a challenge baited me into saying more than I should. Kept the need to prove myself alive and well as a constant sour pressure in my throat.

Jin slipped the fallen half of her robe back onto her shoulder. “And how do you know the temperature of the High Priestess’s hands?”

I wasn’t about to admit that she stopped me from further embarrassing myself when I had been caught in a blind panic during the goddess’s procession. That much I could still keep to myself. Instead, I gave the vaguest outline of what had happened. “She touched my hand during the goddess’s procession.”

Jin’s lips twitched, her robe slipped back down her arm, and I had the feeling that, somehow, from that one vague sentence she knew the entirety of what had happened. I strained to stay on my feet under a wave of embarrassment and distressed muscles. However, Nii’s back and arms hadn’t wavered a single time yet and the annoyance of that gave me the strength to keep going.

Jin switched her attention back to the group. “What else?”

There was nothing else. I knew three different versions of the tale that proclaimed how the whisper women were formed, but they all had conflicting information. After already sticking my neck out by saying something unnecessary, I wasn’t about to do the same thing again. The tales about how to acquire the boons were similarly conflicted, with only a few consistent versions in each of the stories. Such as the fact that you had to drink shadow to acquire the ability to travel through them, but none of the stories revealed how the whisper women scooped up the shadow to drink it—the act was always simply stated to have happened. Details of rank and training and how long everything took were still unknown as well, despite how much I would have loved to know them beforehand. The Seedling Palace was skilled at holding onto its mysteries.

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Jin was about to speak again when a muffled thump came behind me along with a couple of snickers—one was more of a huff of breath than the other. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jin clap as she kept walking around the grassy area. A cry of surprise and a groan of dismay followed before another sharp clap.

Silence.

Then Jin spoke again, “It hasn’t been so long that you could have forgotten my warning at the beginning of the lesson. I’ll make those stones bigger again if I have to. Dera, run.”

Someone scrambled to their feet and began to run. I gritted my teeth and decided that my legs would break before I fell.

Jin tried to press us for more answers during the time it took Dera to run her laps on shaky legs. We didn’t have much else to say. Ulo went over the whisper woman’s role in a funeral, but couldn’t answer when Jin pressed her about which sect that whisper woman would have belonged to. Scales sect was the answer. Juniper’s arm dropped during Ulo’s answer and she was sent to join Dera which fractured the image of control she had presented the night before. No snickers sounded at her failing. Wren recounted seeing the chosen at the goddess’s procession and the whisper women’s role in bringing us to Seedling Palace. I kept quiet about what I had seen at the Grove in Flickermark and though I didn’t doubt that our mentor had marked the dots on my chin, she didn’t press me about my experience.

Instead, she kept us hovering in that horrible position until both Dera and Juniper were done running. Juniper lapped Dera a couple times, so they finished around the same time. By that point I was cursing them with every word and phrase I knew in my head, my arms and legs were so shaky. I watched Jin watch Juniper as she passed the front of the group for the tenth time and slowed down. Watched our mentor turn back to us, mouth opening to speak and hand raising, only to hear the unmistakable sound of someone else’s hand hitting their leg. Several groans broke out, including my own, and Jin’s motion quickly changed direction into a clap.

A gray stone appeared on the back of both of my hands and didn’t slip. They looked and felt like a real river stone even though I knew they couldn’t be. Still, the slight weight was enough to crumble what strength was left in my arms. They fell and were quickly followed by the sound of someone else’s arms dropping. The stones disappeared.

“Idra, Gimley, Loclen, go run. Juniper and Dera, resume your places.”

I didn’t comment on the oddity that she knew all of our names, assumed that they had still been watching us the afternoon before, and ran. Ran with the same single mindedness that I used when I attempted to track Rawley at the beginning of my huntress training. Afterward didn’t matter. Finishing without showing another sign of weakness mattered.

I ran and the training platform seemed to stretch wider with every lap. My legs threatened to mutiny and I reminded them that we had hiked for much longer through Flickermark. Granted, running had never been much of a strong suit, but if I could outrun a bane pack then, I could storms well run ten laps now.

This time I didn’t count the exercise over until Jin spoke after we finished our ten laps and, miraculously, no one else gave into the strain.

She raised a staying hand. “Rest. Drink from the vines if you need to. We’ll begin again with the next exercise in five minutes.”

I barely kept in a groan at the reminder that this had been the first of a day’s worth of training. Who knew what she would have us do next or how long she would keep us here for? If she decided to have us skip the midday meal or keep us running there wasn’t much we could do to refuse.

I made my way over the adjoined platform with the ice vines, careful to keep my back straight and get my breath under control as quickly as possible. Then I chipped off a few ice flakes into a cupped hand with my eating knife and drank as the ice quickly melted into cold, clear water. As I drank more, I noticed that Juniper, Idra, and Ento didn’t bother with the vines. Instead, Juniper used her blessing to summon water before tipping the liquid into each of their mouths. Breck also drank from her own water skin rather than walk over to the resting platform. I hadn’t brought mine down from the dome, knowing that the vines were here, but I considered bringing it the next time to cut through the hassle of repeatedly chipping off ice during what would likely be very short breaks.

The second activity was even worse than the first.

Jin organized us into a circle in the grass area again and then, in a tone that brooked no argument, commanded that we hold hands with two different people across the circle. Right hand to right, left to left. I held back for as long as I could, but soon I was the only one still free. No one else seemed to have any qualms about the sheer proximity of everyone else, the rub of a shoulder or the feel of a sweaty hand. So I steeled myself and repressed a shudder as I leaned forward and took Prevna’s outstretched hand along with Breck’s remaining free hand. Prevna gave me a knowing look before turning her attention back to the knot of hands in the middle of the circle. The goal of the game, if it could be called that, was to unknot ourselves so that the middle was clear and those we held hands with stood at our side without letting go for the entire time.

I didn’t doubt that the game was supposed to promote communication and teamwork as well as reveal who tended to lead or follow. As it was, Wren wrested control away Juniper with a smile when the younger girl tried to take charge, and kept it—along with the peace—when Nii and Idra began to bicker. Somehow they had ended up holding hands and neither of them liked it. Loclen and Dera broke in with insightful ideas how to to untangle ourselves from time to time while Ulo, Breck, and Ento perform a few interesting feats of flexibility to untangle a certain section of the group despite the fatigue from the previous exercise.

I kept my focus on not ripping my hands out of the others’ grasp and doing my best not to touch arms and hands as little as possible when I was required to slip through them. In some odd way it reminded me of being trapped in a narrow crawl space and the comparison wasn’t a comforting thought. I wasn’t used to amount of physical contact, and the fact that it hadn’t been a choice along with the knowledge that the game was designed to force interaction made all my instincts that promoted the decision to run stand up on high alert.

But I couldn’t run. Not if I wanted to pass the training and become a whisper woman.

So, instead, I did the distasteful thing and fell back on the old habit of doing what was expected without a word while I cursed and ranted and screamed in my head. I think I stood a little too long without responding, glassy eyed and out of it, because Prevna tugged on my hand and gestured with her chin to the air above us. I looked up and only saw branches arching way overhead, the bottom of a platform or two, and open air. Seeing the space calmed me enough that I was able to slide under the pair of arms waiting for me without a fuss. When I glanced back at her, she acted like nothing had happened. I went back to concentrating on finishing the game, which ended a handful of minutes later when Andhi and Wren finished untwisting themselves, and it was only in the dome that night that I had time to wonder how Prevna had known seeing the open air would help me or why she had cared to help.