We returned to a waterlogged ruin.

Oh, the root wall was still as tall and imposing as ever along with the goddess’s three supernatural pine trees, but when we returned to the main camp I was pulled out of the shadow on a bough of the center tree because everything else was covered in twenty feet of salt water.

With the fog gone, I could see piles of smashed tents and other debris pressed up against the root wall. Dead fish floated on the water’s surface. Through the pine needles I could see whisper women and fire starters diving into the new lake’s depths—possibly looking for hidden enemies and survivors.

I swayed and Tasha pulled me further out on the branch, out of the way, before making me sit. She left me there without a word and I watched, blankly, as she disappeared back into the shadow with her group.

The clashing scents of salt and pine coated everything.

I don’t know what those whisper women thought when they had been trying to bring Melka here. Unless they had wanted to bring her even further to the Seedling Palace—as if she would have lasted that long. I only picked out two harried healers in the branches that were patching up the worst injured before sending them on to the healers’ nests at the Seedling Palace.

My fingers itched to help them, but I knew the risk I had already taken was dangerous enough without immediately compounding it. I didn’t know these injured, even if I kept catching myself straining to see if the other seedlings were among them, and this place was more in the goddess’s eye than that cliff had been.

I tried not to think about all the people who had been in the camp when we left. Breck and Ento. Petra. Had they survived what happened here or was ill news on its way? Had Kaylan been here or had she gone out with one of the rescue squads? Was Prevna still safe at the makeshift camp in the forest?

I had no way to find out. Not now. I couldn’t leave the camp now without aid and the walk back to the outpost had taken the last of my strength. All I could do was sit on the branch like an idiot and take in snatches of conversation around me.

The main camp had been hit by another wave. There was some speculation that the first had been a trial run to see how big a wave was needed to breach the wall. I shuddered as I pictured such a looming wall of water. Some thought the fog was unnatural, others weren’t convinced. It seemed that the huge wave hadn’t carried as many fish soldiers as estimates thought it could have brought and that, while there were some fights along the coast, they hadn’t been as coordinated as true surprise attack ought to have been. That had saved our people’s lives and led to debate of whether this was proof of the fish’s low intelligence or a case of an unexpected advantage quickly acted on.

The fish along the coast hadn’t targeted the stranded outposts or rescue groups either. Instead, they had chosen locations between the outposts where handfuls of Shore Eaters gorged and did their best to create new channels of salt water creeping ever inwards. A couple groups had stumbled on the effort in the fog and lived to tell the tale. Now that the fog was gone reserves from the Seedling Palace were coming to help clear the infestation.

Other reports were trickling in of fish being spotted a lot further inland than they had any business being and there was even mention of the sea snake. Given how the monstrous thing had smashed straight forward and hadn’t been hindered by the natural meandering quality of most caves, I could only assume the way had been prepared for it to have as easy access to the goddess’s forest as possible.

Everyone was on high alert for another attack or difficult weather. Groups were constantly appearing from and disappearing into the tree’s shadow. It was odd to think that so many were coming from the Seedling Palace to help when we had been on our own here for nearly a month, but this wasn’t a slight whisper women could take lightly.

I heard that three or five whisper women in camp had helped protect themselves and others from the titanic wave and debris. If they hadn’t there would have been a sharp increase in fatalities. As it was, there was over a hundred dead between the wave and fighting, and nearly double that of injured based on the most recent estimates I overheard. Nearly everyone I saw had some type of injury unless they were from one of the coast groups that got away unscathed or were fresh from the Seedling Palace. Fire starters had the higher percentage of dead and injured compared to whisper women, but I thought that was due more to ratio than sheer ability.

Over a fourth of our forces here gone just like that and nearly everyone else’s capabilities impaired. No wonder we were getting reinforced. Even more than the slight the Lady Blue dealt, we probably couldn’t hold this location without the help.

Looking over the devastated camp, I wasn’t sure we could hold it even with the new fighters. The water below was draining out, slowly, but the cold, wet mud it would leave behind wouldn’t make for easy or comfortable camping. And, even then, what was the point if the fish could dump another wave on us?

No one was willing to go too far down that dispiriting chain of thought but it was easy to pick out among what wasn’t said. It had been thought that such unnatural waves of water were more of myth than reality and that, if they could be used, it would only be sparingly. And yet we had been hit by two in less than a month and one had even breached the root wall of all things.

Some wanted the root wall made higher, but that discussion stopped as soon as it was pointed out that the wall was goddess made. Then nervous postures reigned as if everyone was waiting for Her to show up right then and there, incensed that her creation had been beat.

The way things were going I couldn’t really deny the possibility.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I’m not sure how long I sat there on the branch, watching the hive of activity around me. I do know when everyone went ominously still.

A large cracking sound echoed throughout the camp.

I turned with everyone else toward the large pine closest to where the wave would have hit. It felt like a stone lodged itself under my heart as I barely dared to breathe.

One of the pine’s large branches, about halfway up, creaked loudly again. I saw small figures jumping to other branches or wisping to nothing as they hurried into the shadow paths. It wasn’t enough.

Another ominous crack crackled out as the branch bobbed downward once…twice—and then it was crashing down through the lower branches. The sound of bark striking bark filled the camp along with smaller snapping sounds as the branch took smaller branches with it. A handful of people also didn’t get out of the way fast enough and splashed down into the briny water with the broken branch.

We watched as the branch bobbed there. A few people broke out of the trance long enough to dive after those that had fallen. The rest of us simply waited.

Had it been the branch of a normal pine tree we would have immediately set upon it for fire wood after a quick prayer. But this branch wasn’t from a normal tree nor had it fallen from common circumstances.

If the goddess came we were likely as dead as those She wished to punish.

Dread dripped from the stone of fear behind my heart to pool between my ribs. If She came there would be no hiding from Her. If She decided what I had done on the cliff was healing, then I was doubly dead as everyone else, storming blessing or no. I didn’t doubt that what She could give, She could also take away.

We waited.

And waited.

The goddess did not appear. Her High Priestess did.

Lithunia, the Lady of Frost, stepped out from the shadow on the tree’s trunk and onto what little remained of the broken branch. I recognized her unnaturally pale coloring immediately. The displayed mark on her side was a dead giveaway as well.

I froze.

The High Priestess was an infinitely better arrival than the goddess, but her presence still didn’t bode well. She might have been kind to me on the Calling Road but there was nothing soft about her now. She surveyed everyone laid out before her in the camp, full of reproach.

“Our goddess is not pleased.” Despite the distance between us, it sounded like she was speaking directly into my ear. “Not all of you may be Beastwatchers, but She still expects Her land to be protected. One tree burned and another broken.”

I flinched and was not alone.

Lithunia continued after giving ample time for the reprimand to sink in. “If another is ruined in this region in the coming month She will take matters into Her own hands.”

I didn’t even want to contemplate what that would mean.

“However,” Lithunia held up a hand. “She has allowed me to come and perform preventive measures. You have fifteen minutes to return to the Seedling Palace if you wish to remain unfrozen, including those of you strung along the coast.”

There was a beat of silence and then everyone bowed deeply before a flurry of activity erupted around me. The commander stepped out of the shadow behind the High Priestess and bowed again before Lithunia acknowledged her.

I tore my gaze away from that interesting exchange to find whisper women disappearing into the shadows in droves, often with multiple fire starters in tow. Some stepped out of the shadow only to immediately step back in—most likely those from the outposts who couldn’t make it to the Seedling Palace in a single trip. I didn’t know how those who were currently fighting would make it back to the Palace in time or how she thought she could affect the entire coast.

No one paid me any mind.

Most everyone who had been on the tree when she made her announcement was already gone. Only those who had been caught in sunlight or who had to make their way out of the water still remained.

I tried to stand and make my way closer to the trunk and the last handful of whisper women in shouting distance, but my hurt leg wasn’t having any of it. I nearly slipped and fell as soon as I tried to put weight on it.

That left the much slower method of scooching my way over to the trunk, but the indignity of it grated at me, even without mentioning that all the whisper women were likely to be gone by then. I shouted at the whisper woman closest to me, about four branches down, but she had disappeared into the shadow before I even finished my sentence.

I looked wildly around.

All I found was an empty camp and the High Priestess perched on the broken branch, alone again. More whisper women appeared as the time limit continued to count down but they all disappeared back into shadow before I could get their attention.

This couldn’t be happening.

It wasn’t like I was invisible or silenced.

My attention kept flicking back to the High Priestess, but I resisted calling out to her. If those that appeared on the same tree as me couldn’t even notice me then I doubted trying to yell at her would do much better. And besides, even if I did get her attention, I sincerely doubted she would pop back over to the Seedling Palace just for me.

It was my fault I was here. That meant I needed to get myself out of it.

Except I couldn’t traverse the shadow paths and I was stuck in a gigantic tree with a bad leg and potent exhaustion, even after resting for however long I’d been sitting there.

I couldn’t even make myself a lick of flame to keep whatever cold she was going to inflict at bay. In the end, I elected to stay where I was and hope for the best. At the very least, Tasha might remember where she left me then.

I scowled. I really hated needing to rely on others. I’d get her back for abandoning me here in the future.

If I wasn’t frozen solid for forever.

I didn’t think Lithunia had that kind of power, but things hadn’t exactly been taking a turn for the better lately.

The High Priestess clapped lightly when the time limit was up. I thought she said something too, but given that she was no longer using her trick to speak directly into my ear I couldn’t hear what she said. Then she pulled out a large chunk of ice from a pouch and held it over her head. Long moments passed as she likely spoke a prayer or ritual.

A large eye snapped open in the middle of her mark.

It was like when Grandmother had performed the mourning ritual and her wrist marks temporarily changed.

I stared in shock as the ice began to glow blue and frost wafted around it, visible even from where I sat. The glowing ice brightened further until it was like a miniature star in the High Priestess’s hands.

Then the ice cracked and split into multiple jagged, floating pieces. They shot off in all directions along the coast. The root wall quickly blocked my view of their impossible flight.

I gaped at the High Priestess. Was this the kind of things I would be capable of when I finally worked my way into the goddess’s chosen? I didn’t think it could be solely due to her blessing, not with the similarities to Grandmother’s ritual, however minor that was in comparison to the scale of what the High Priestess was attempting.

It wasn’t long after that I felt the air shift from the normal cold you could expect during a cold season day to something more akin to what came before an approaching snow storm. The temperature dropped unnaturally fast from cold to chilly to icy to frigid.

Then the blast of frozen air hit me. One moment I was uncomfortable but relatively fine and then next I was frozen to the branch I sat on. Cold that chilled down into the bone and sapped all thought pierced me.

My mark burned like seven raging firestorms had formed on my thigh.