I leaned against the muddy orange of the outlook’s railing, letting the wind tug on the hair that had escaped my braid, and watched the sun crest over the mountains in the distance. Even from this distance I could tell there were two sets of them. The Shadow Caster Mountains and the Broken Spear Peaks, split by the Cut—a haven for Picker bands and the bane of runner tribes and other travelers. The Cut was the most direct and geographically easy way from the central portion of the goddess’s domain to its eastern heart. When I had traveled back from the goddess’s procession with a temporary tribe of other travelers we had to pass through the Cut. Not even our numbers had been enough to dissuade them. Instead, we had to pay the Pickers a steep “protection” fee of goods and food, and even then we had to carefully stick to their route so we didn’t get fleeced by another band.
Nor had I appreciated the feeling of being caught between two high walls at the time, despite the fact that the Cut was wide enough that it could take a week or more to travel from side to side on foot. The Shadow Caster Mountains were said to be tall enough that they touched the tips of the Silver Forest and so, if you were determined and desperate enough, if you climbed to the top of the tallest peak you could speak to the dead. Someday, I would confirm for myself whether that rumor was true or not. Not that I had anyone I particularly wanted to talk to in the land of the dead, but the possibility of it was intriguing.
The Broken Spear Peaks were much less of a goal destination and more a place to be avoided from the handful of myths I had heard that took place there. Kidnapped boys and a beast of wing and scale and realistic nightmares strong enough to kill a woman. Interesting, perhaps, but more dangerous and less rewarding. The goddess’s touch ran strong in those mountains, ground down and crumbling as they were, especially in the Upper Peaks. It wasn’t a place you traveled to lightly unless you dreamed of becoming a shamble man for eternity. From what I had heard, the tribes that had settled on their fringes had long since moved away and even the Pickers in the Cut made sure to give those mountains a wide berth.
Flickers of movement caught my attention down below, just beyond where the needles and branches would have otherwise blocked my view. A dozen dots, presumably whisper women, had gathered on the red sand of the lake shore. A barrier I hadn’t noticed in the dark of night before—it looked like a dark fishing line from here—blocked their way into the lake. I watched as they shuffled around each other for a moment before falling still and ready.
A tentacle bashed into the wall. Another immediately followed it and one of the whisper women began to dance.
I gaped, eyes wide. I hadn’t ever seen a lake creature so large and aggressive, much less with the determination to go after prey on land. The true size of it was hard to tell from my vantage point, but each tentacle dwarfed the whisper women. Nor had I ever thought I would see something brazen enough to attack whisper women, especially practically within the roots of the Seedling Palace.
As the whisper woman danced, the water began to swirl near where the tentacles had emerged. The other whisper women no longer stood still either. One had strode up to the wall and another had something swirling around her and a third was pointing at the sky over the lake.
Lightning punched down out of the sky from nothing and sparked through a small portion of the lake, lighting it up. More tentacles writhed there, all connected to the shadow of a bulbous body. The creature squealed high and sharp enough that I could hear it as the lightning struck it. It lashed out with a few retaliatory strikes against the wall, but the swirling water was dragging at it now and the swirling cloud—sand, I thought—controlled by a whisper woman shot over the wall and caught the remaining tentacles still on point to hit the wall. The water darkened around the hit tentacles. The thing shrieked again just as another lightning strike slammed down on top of it. It writhed beneath the water—and was gone.
No more strikes hit the wall and after nearly a minute the swirling water changed, so that instead it was pushing the specks that had floated to the surface of the water after the lightning strikes to the shore. The whisper women set ladders against both sides of the wall that they used to clamber over it and into the shallows. I saw most not bother with them, however. One merely vaulted over the wall like it was only some irritating child’s construction and another walked up the side if it like she was still on flat ground. The rest stepped into the shadows created by the Seedling Palace and morning sun before reappearing in the wall’s shadow on the other side. Those that had used the ladders looked like they had were receiving earfuls of jibes and playful ribbing from the others. They began to gather the specks, presumably fish and other animals, that had been pushed close to the wall in large nets. I watched them work for a while longer, but no more monsters appeared, so I decided it was time for me to continue my morning exploration.
Pushing back from the railing, I spared another glance toward the mountains and—
“Are you still too broody to consider anything but your shadow as an ally?”
My shoulders tensed and I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Over the last couple of weeks of training Prevna had perfected the art of showing up precisely where she was uninvited and unwanted.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I kept my gaze on the horizon so I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing I had seen her smug little smile. “Go away.”
Instead, she strode up beside me, uncomfortably close on the small platform, and leaned back with her elbows on the railing. The railing was a little bit high for it to look entirely comfortable, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“You should get more creative with your lines. ‘Go away’ and ‘don’t talk to me’ and annoyed sighs get old after awhile.”
I held in a sigh and glared at her. “What do you want?”
Surprise quirked her eyebrows up briefly before her smile widened. “Let’s cross the thin paths. I want to know what Breck saw over there.”
I turned back to the view so she wouldn’t see my reaction to her offer. The promise and threat of the narrow pathways had been a constant nagging in the back of my mind since I first laid eyes on them. One misstep could easily lead to a fall that resulted in broken bones or worse, even with the paths with the ropes for balance. But I also couldn’t put off crossing them forever and knowing what lay on the other side was a very sweet prospect. However, that still didn’t mean I needed to complicate things by getting another person involved.
“Go ask someone else.”
I sensed more than saw Prevna roll her eyes. “Oh, come on. We both know you’re dying to find out what’s on the other side, and there’s strength in numbers. Better to have someone catch you if you fall, right, ally?”
I slanted her a look. Narrow and mean and aware. We both knew she had to have heard the story of the bridge collapsing in Flickermark if she had heard the rest of the story, and I didn’t appreciate her alluding to recreating the scene of when I had saved Fellen.
“Better catch yourself or get someone else to do it then.”
She huffed out an amused snort. “Fine. Maybe I’ll get Wren to help me then. We could hold hands all the way across.”
I recognized a jibe when I heard it and my ears flushed hot at the implications. “How—”
“You’re not exactly difficult to read, no matter what you think. Next to me, she’s the one you glance at most and you practically melted when you met her back in that alcove in the valley.”
“I did not.”
“Sure.” Prevna’s irritating, knowing smile was back. “So are you coming or am I holding hands with Wren?”
My mouth worked as I fought to come up with the smartest response to the blatant manipulation. It wasn’t like there was actually anything between Wren and me—from the looks of it, Dera was the most likely to hold that honor, so Prevna and Wren holding hands wouldn’t really mean anything even if the other girl agreed to it. But I still didn’t like the thought of it and now that option to cross the thin paths had been put squarely in front of me, it was hard to tamp down on the curiosity. Not to mention, that if Prevna did slip she would, more than likely, catch herself and I doubted that any part of the Seedling Palace would crumble as the stone bridge had. Of course, we did have training relatively soon and I also doubted that we could make it to the thin paths, cross them, and still have adequate time to throughly explore the other side before we would need to return.
Finally, my teeth ground together before I gave her the response she wanted. “Tomorrow morning. We’ll eat at dawn and then go directly to the paths.”
Victory brightened her expression and she clapped me on the shoulder. I flinched at the unexpected touch but she made no sign of noticing the motion, though I was sure she had. “Perfect. I’ll sit with you at the midday meal in thanks, ally.”
She walked away and gave a short wave of goodbye over her shoulder before I could reply. So, I just glared after her. We both knew I would have preferred it if she stayed in her normal group.
I rubbed my forehead and waited a few minutes for her to get a decent lead ahead of me before I also made my way back down the path. The last thing I needed now was to accidentally catch up with her and start another awkward, annoying conversation. I spent the remaining time I had before I needed to head over to the training platform stomping around my nook, fuming, and going over the conversation in my head. Which didn’t improve my mood and only solidified the notion that Prevna was nearly as good at traps as Rawley, in her own way. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how she had known I would be at the outlook.
- -
Jin’s announcement that day only soured my mood further. Apparently, it was time for us to start training our individual blessings. Getting to know the ins and outs of it, all the parameters. Some of the group knew their blessing more intimately than others because they had discovered it earlier into their childhood or the skill was more straight forward. As far as I could tell there wasn’t much to train with mine. I didn’t die—not a whole lot of wiggle room with that. Of course, saying I was “resilient” had a lot more leniency which was exactly why I was using it as a cover. It seemed in the near future I would be forced to share the truth to Jin and swallow the consequences, no matter that I had planned to be more sparing about the reveal than I had in the past. There was always the chance that someone would take the blessing as she had, rather than Rawley’s interpretation.
The added training also meant that I would be losing some of my free evenings as Jin would use the time for concentrated, individual training. Just the thought of more training on top of our current schedule sounded exhausting, though I made sure not to show it. The exhaustion and worry intensified when Jin shared the rotation. I was second on the list, so I had the privilege of going tomorrow night. Breck was first. From what I could tell, she had front loaded the list with those of us who had been more tight lipped about our blessings. I held in a exasperated sigh. Between the morning exploration Prevna had pressured me into, regular training, and now this new training, tomorrow was going to be a long day.