It took two hours for the nook to become too quiet and full of the things I couldn’t do. Normally, the quiet was wonderful, comforting in the certainty I had that it wouldn’t be disturbed. Nor did the small space typically press on me as much as other enclosed spaces. I could see past the needles in spots and I knew that if I wanted to leave I could. There was nothing and no one to stop me.
But, normally, I indulged in reviewing my healer’s knowledge there. Plants and poultices and labels and recipes. Checking my poisoner’s pouch and the ingredients secretly gathered that could be used for healing or hurt.
I could still do that. In theory.
Most likely, I would, sometime soon. It wasn’t exactly knowledge I could allow myself to forget.
As it was currently, however, I couldn’t act on any of that knowledge. I didn’t dare sort through ingredients or slip into my memory tent and slowly go over what I had learned. Test how quickly I could recall various remedies or wrap a bandage.
The goddess might be watching.
I doubted it. She surely had better, more interesting things to do, but I also couldn’t deny the possibility. That uncertainty meant I couldn’t risk it, not so soon after the trial. Not if I wanted to make absolutely sure I stayed unfrozen and kept the privilege of having a single mentor.
So, I stalked around and around and around the little nook. I knew I should be out hunting for stones or practicing but, for once, my focus failed.
Overall, I knew that the trial had gone about as well as it could for me. Jin and Yule were limited in how they could act against me, I hadn’t been condemned or had my blessing revoked and been killed for healing someone, and I had a mentor when such opportunities were supposed to be closed to me.
I knew that.
Just like I knew I hadn’t really lost anything I hadn’t already taken away myself. But the lack was still there.
What else did I have?
A smattering of huntress knowledge and skills, poisoner’s recipes I couldn’t use now if I were to follow their strict parameters, a childhood’s worth of myths and stories that might or might not help in any capacity. I could read, write the basic characters, but those weren’t things it seemed like a whisper woman built her life’s work around, that the sects would care about other than basic competency. Others could develop their blessing, but the thought of testing mine sounded painful and stupid. Who knew if I could recover completely from being nearly killed over and over again?
Perhaps I could focus on one of the boons once I earned those, like the whisper woman who had given Fellen and I the trial in Flickermark, but there was no telling if I would take well to the boons before I got them. Perseverance was important, but not if it was foolhardy and fruitless.
And even if I did take well to walking the shadows, or one of the other boons, I couldn’t earn them if I couldn’t find the storming stones or force myself across the thin paths.
I growled under my breath.
Limited.
I felt limited and it was like being under her eye all over again. No wrong moves, no way to move forward with what I really wanted, and nothing to do but to try to make things work within a strict framework I couldn’t say no to. It wasn’t like the person in charge would even acknowledge I had anything to say, much less listen to me.
Everything began to feel brittle and over bright as old fury sparked and tightened my throat. My hands trembled.
Limited.
Well, there was one thing I could do to lessen that. One thing that didn’t involve punching someone or screaming incoherently about missing beads and bad decisions and all seeing goddesses.
I stomped out of the nook, pulled myself over the railing back onto the main paths of the Seed Landing, and kept going.
Kept going right past a spurned Ulo who had wanted to make a smart comment in front of Andhi and Nii and failed as I passed the housing platform. Past Prevna, who gasped when she saw my expression. She hastily climbed down from the bridge where she had been sitting and followed after me.
“Gimley? What happened?”
I didn’t answer her.
What could I even say? It took a goddess freezing me nearly to death for me to finally realize healing was utterly closed to me? When it had been nearly a year since I cut off my beads? That I wanted what most people understandably reviled? That it wasn’t fair that the black handed healers existed and I had no idea what I was supposed to make of myself?
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She didn’t need to know I was weak.
Besides, failure and excuses weren’t acceptable. Ambition is nothing without discipline, after all.
As if I had much to be ambitious about now.
My black mood notched a bit higher at that thought.
I stopped short just before the thin paths. The new net still hung limply beneath the easier paths. My gaze latched onto the thinnest path, the one without a helpful rope strung across it. The one that a storming hidden pouch had once dangled from.
Prevna stopped behind me. Still worried, still awkwardly jerking away when she realized she had gotten too close for comfort.
Well, what was the point of being recklessly angry if I didn’t make more than one stupid decision?
Rawley would say that everything was a resource. To be flexible.
Jin had stolen all that prattle when we first arrived about knowing ourselves and working together because storms could topple single trees but not forests. I detested doing anything remotely close to listening to her, but it was true that I was tired of getting kicked in the teeth on my own.
Prevna was here and seemed to care for some throughly unthoughtful and poor reason that I was sure she would regret later. She had helped me come back from the goddess’s retribution once already, even if she didn’t know it, and when Fellen couldn’t move forward when we finally made it to the Statue Garden I had pulled her through.
I didn’t need to be pulled forward, but, storm it all, it might be helpful to know that I couldn’t go off the edge of the bridge without taking someone with me. And that was something I couldn’t allow to happen, not if I couldn’t heal her. Not when she had helped me more than I had helped her.
I spun on Prevna, still high on adrenaline and impotent fury. She tried to take a startled step backwards, but the motion was cut short by my grip on her forearm. Prevna blinked down at where I held her before slowly looking back up, more wary than confused.
“Gimley—”
“Stop flinching.” She flinched at my tone and I ground my teeth together before holding up her arm. “You’ve always known how far to push and when. It’s more difficult now that you flinch away every five seconds. I know what I said to Dera. You already knew that, so stop flinching and get back to your usual self. Things are better that way.”
I could have sewn my fool mouth shut when, after a few long moments, Prevna started to get that knowing, smug look back in her eyes. “Are they?”
Instead I rolled my eyes and pointed at the narrow, empty path. “We’re crossing that.”
The wariness wasn’t completely gone. “Not the ones with the net Wren and Dera so nicely made under them?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me what happened after?”
I considered. Likely she would find out on her own if I didn’t tell her, but if I did the telling I could gauge her reactions better. “Fine.”
Prevna grinned. “Are you going to let go of me?”
My jaw worked before I finally managed to spit out the uncomfortable answer. “No.”
Her grin got bigger, even if there a bit of underlying concern. She gestured with her free hand. “Lead on, friend.”
I scowled, but didn’t fire back a retort like I was tempted to do. My head was too full of too many other things, like the sheer idiocy of inviting her even closer to me and the fact that I was about to walk across the most dangerous path in the Seed Landing when the last time I had stepped onto the thin paths I had fallen and nearly gotten myself kicked out.
It helped that everything still felt bright and brittle and a little unreal as the litany of useless, worthless, limited, no healing pushed me on from the back of my head.
I wobbled on my first step onto the path. I only had an inch or two of space on either side of my foot before the air opened up into a long plummet.
Prevna’s free hand touched my shoulder, steadied me, before dropping away. I closed my eyes and drew in a long breath before focusing back on the path ahead. Another step and then another, and then we both were a half a step away from free fall.
Prevna didn’t offer words of encouragement or crowd me, though once she couldn’t stop herself from making a small jibe that she might lose her hand from blood loss. I wanted to let go of her then, wanted the safety of distance, but I had brought her onto the storming thin path and if I was a fraction of a second too slow to grab her if she fell I would have no excuse. No good reason. All I would have is the vain hope that she hit a landing, didn’t die, and that I could reach and treat her before the goddess froze me for good.
A part of me wanted that outcome even as I hated the addicted nature of it. The slim vindication to use healing one last time.
The larger, more rational parts of me recognized the foolish nature of that desire, the truth that such an ending would only prove that I amounted to the little she said I was. Those parts of me also remembered the sheer horror and pain of being so helpless and freezing and shied away from choosing an eternity of it.
We took another careful step and another. A soft breeze drifted by, warm and gentle, and the dark pine needles rustled around. The scent of sweet and stringent plants drifted from the garden. A shaft of sunlight managed to pierce through all the coverage and land on the path just past the halfway point. It blinded me until I blinked my eyes clear and stepped back into the cooler shadows. Prevna made a pleased sound when she stepped into the sunlight.
My chest felt tight as we edged forward, shoulders tense, eyes carefully cataloging anything that might make us slip such as a couple needles that had fallen from above and draped over the path. They were thin and easily stepped over, but I felt Prevna start to slip on one as it rolled under her foot. I tightened my grip on her and shifted, pulling my weight slightly to the side and forward to balance out her own. She caught herself and touched my shoulder again in thanks.
We moved forward.
The end of the path was nearly disappointing in its simplicity. I took one, two, three steps and then I was off, onto the platform leading to the garden. Prevna stepped onto the platform behind me and it was over.
I let go of her and looked back over the way we had come, heart still beating fast.
Over.
If I had done it once, I could it again.
Not so limited after all.
I glanced over at Prevna and she shifted, arms crossed and looking expectant. “Tell me?”
I did.