“Do you want to go with me?” Prevna held out her hand. With how much practice she had been putting into shadow walking before we got stuck in the inner valleys, she might be able to take me all the way to the Seedling Palace. Or if not her, Mishtaw could, even if she had to make two trips due to Creed’s bulk.

But Mishtaw shook her head and my instincts agreed. I didn’t want to be dependent on everyone else and unable to use one of the boons that defined whisper women just because I was afraid to learn what one mistake had caused. That sounded like its own kind of torture even if I wasn’t sure that the goddess and other whisper women wouldn’t look kindly on that kind of behavior.

Mishtaw ordered Prevna, “You go first. Serve as her anchor.”

I didn’t have a strong chance of finding the specific shadow she would stand in or near amongst all the deep shadows of the Seedling Palace, but if it was the thought that counted. Prevna certainly seemed pleased to be given something to do instead of just waiting to see if I would reappear from the shadows or not.

As soon as she was gone, Mishtaw turned to me. “If something feels off or you can’t make the path, step back out here. Otherwise, have a whisper woman let me know you made it. I’ll be waiting.”

I nodded and then drew in a deep breath as I focused back on the shadow of a pine branch just a step away. Back to the Seedling Palace. Simple, easy, practiced. Shadow walking had been one of things I was better at since I first figured out the trick of it. I wasn’t about to lose that advantage now.

I stepped into the shadow and willed the shadow paths to open up to me. The shadow felt…odd. Like it was strong and stable now, but underneath that it felt like it was the most ephemeral shadow I ever tried to enter. Light as a breath and liable to disappear after a moment.

At first I thought it had to do with the ghost, but I hadn’t even entered the shadows yet, and then I realized it was likely an effect of the Reforester’s blessing. The branches she grew didn’t last even if they were strong enough to create shadows that whisper women could easily pass through. The sensation was likely a reminder that while her blessing was powerful, it was nowhere close to the goddess’s ability to grow pines with shadows that never lost their strength in a heartbeat.

I finished my mental image of untying a tent flap and stepping inside. Gravity shifted around me and then I was inside the shadow paths. Oil slick floor under my feet, swirling smoke all around.

I froze as I swept my gaze around, trying to determine if anything was different. There wasn’t a body; something I had half dreaded, half hoped for. If there had been that would’ve been a simple solution to pull the body back out and any ghosts it might have with it. But no. Every time we entered the shadow paths we created something new, I knew that, even it meant that I wasn’t sure how a ghost could follow me around in first place.

After waiting a little bit longer, I got to work. If no spectral hands were going to reach out of the mist or moaning howls were going to sweep by on the edge of my hearing like ghosts did in the stories, then I might as well get to the Seedling Palace and report everything was fine.

There was a particular shadow in the Palace that we had taken to using when we were returning from one of Mishtaw’s relic hunts. A deep well of shadow in an arch of wood at least twice my height and half again that wide. It was situated near the residential area Mishtaw’s home resided in and whenever I looked at it, it seemed like an invitation to all the different places the shadow paths could take you.

I drew up the image of it in my mind as I willed the shadows to link together. I felt the path reach out, stretching to reach the destination I had focused on, before it…stuttered and my concentration broke.

That hadn’t happened before. I frowned. My paths certainly had broken before due to my destination being outside my range or being unable to find any shadows dark enough to anchor the ends of my path. But this had felt different. It was almost as if my path had…snagged on something while reaching for that arch of shadow. Even though in this world of mental images and intent there shouldn’t be anything for it to catch on. Nothing but the ends of the path I was trying to anchor with my will, and this hadn’t felt like that.

Cautiously, I tried to make the path again. And again, it caught long before it was supposed to. I let the path fail. Then I tried something different and tried to make path to another one of the Reforster’s shadows. That time the path connected where I meant it to, but I had felt something like a pull while I was making it. A pull that was vaguely in the direction of where my other paths had gotten caught.

Was this the ghost?

Mishtaw had said there were stories about the ghosts supposedly messing with the shadow paths and making it difficult or impossible for whisper women to go where they meant to.

I made another path and this time let it catch on where the first ones had been snagged. Then I followed the path to see where it might take me. Mishtaw might have said to rejoin her if there was anything odd, but this way I’d be able to tell her more than about a vague feeling I had. Besides, this was my issue. If I could solve it myself, I would.

I stopped when I felt another shadow beneath me, the end of the path. The shadows paths still looked normal as far as I could tell here. Smoke in varying shades of gray and the ground that looked like it should be wet but wasn’t. So I stomped my foot so I could see where the path had taken me.

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A forest greeted me when I opened my eyes. One on a slope, though it wasn’t as steep here as it could be. There was also a small rise a little ways off.

It could have been any patch of forest, there was nothing remarkable to set this one spot away from the rest, except for the fact that I knew it. Looking around, I could clearly picture the moment the death bringer had rushed over that rise and screeched when she saw my lips. I knew the spot where Prevna and Jika had held their ground back to back against multiple attackers and where Kuma had nearly been killed by a surprise attack. Where…

I twisted and stumbled back, bile suddenly pressing at the back of my throat.

Just like this spot, the pine tree was no different from the rest, nothing to it that made it stand out, other than for the fact that I knew this was where I had taken the death bringer into the shadows and never brought him back out.

Was this it then? The ghost would bring me back here whenever I tried to walk the shadows? Endlessly stuck returning to this useless patch of forest?

But the shorter path I had experimented with already showed I could make paths that weren’t pulled off course, even that one would have useless in a practical sense. It would have been easier to just walk normally between the two spots rather than bothering with the shadow paths.

What if this meant I could no longer make longer shadow paths without being diverted? I glowered at the tree. If that was the case I’d lose any hope of beating Hana at her own game.

I’d have to practice more. Experiment. See how strong the pull to this place was and how often it caught the paths I tried to link together.

But first, I had to leave.

I could have chosen one of the other shadows, but I set my shoulders and stepped back into the one I had used to dispatch the attacker.

No body.

Again, the shadow paths looked normal, but this time there was definitely the feeling of something being…off. It was like a small hole torn into a tent’s roof. Out of my reach and something I didn’t currently have to tools to fix even if I could reach it. That small hole wasn’t a necessity to fix right away either, but it was a distraction and if the weather turned bad it certainly could be the doom of whoever decided to shelter in the tent.

The trouble was, small hole in a tent or a ghost, I couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing in my training with shadow walking had touched on anything like this and my skill wasn’t advanced enough that I could attempt any of my ideas to fix the issue. All I could for now was ignore it while increasing my skill and knowledge, so that at some point in the future, I might be able to do what the whisper women did in the stories and get rid of the ghost.

Creating the path from the shadow to the one in the Seedling Palace was more difficult than it should have been. It felt like the path kept trying to twist back and latch onto something that wasn’t there. Unlike when the pull had drawn me here, the path couldn’t seem anything to hook onto even when I allowed it to follow the impulse to return to this place. I tried some of the other shadows in the vicinity with the same results. At best, I exited the paths out of the shadow I had abandoned the man in and at worst, I couldn’t get the path to anchor anywhere.

After multiple fruitless attempts, I had to admit that I wasn’t going to force my way through the problem. If I couldn’t get the the shadows to work like they should here, then I just had to go elsewhere. Perhaps distance would be the key to working my way around the ghost issue if I couldn’t solve it for now.

I left my presence unblocked. With all the pines around, Mishtaw would likely be able to find me if I didn’t make my way to the Seedling Palace first. Better that and the lecture that would likely come with it, than getting caught up in another fight with death bringers or Peace Keepers who attacked first and noticed details like black lips later—with the purge still going strong.

I kept my sling at the ready as well. The woods might make it more difficult to get a good shot, but even a slightly bad one might buy me some time for my next move while my possible attacker dodged the stone.

Having already walked the path once, it wasn’t terribly difficult finding my way back to the healer’s cave. Not when the path itself had been a mostly straight shot across the mountainside. It was also a certainly faster trip than when we had been lugging wounded behind us.

I stopped on the edge of the treeline and waited. Mirabeth and her two fake followers might not be around anymore, but that didn’t there wasn’t anyone else. It could have been taken over by death bringers or whisper women who shared too much of Jin’s distaste for me.

After a quarter of an hour, I didn’t see any movement which was nearly more suspicious than seeing someone. This spot was defensible enough that I doubted it’d be left abandoned.

But still, I had a choice to make.

I could try the shadows again and likely make my way back to the Seedling Palace like I was supposed to. Or I could use this unexpected chance to return to this place and see what poisons and other useful ingredients might have been left behind. The ones I had been too busy trying to negate a poison and then surviving an attack to get a closer look at.

I didn’t strictly need any of it, but there was no telling what kind of interesting things Dahrii might have secreted away in his lair that I had missed—and that was ignoring the things I had noticed but hadn’t had time to collect.

Prevna thought I should embrace my poisoner’s training. Use all my knowledge with the only acceptable outlet I had left. Be two berries in a casket pod, and both use poison to take down our foes.

At times I wanted to. Other times, it still felt too close to healing. Most of the time, I simply didn’t devote the time needed to make use of what I knew. Doing so required ingredients and tools, and if I didn’t have those it was a simple matter to say I couldn’t do it. To use the time for other training instead.

But I could change that now. I would likely find everything I needed in the healer’s cave since I doubted Mirabeth had been given the time she needed to pack all of her things. I could fill my poisoner’s pouch to the brim and use what I took in future encounters. It’d be something I doubted many other whisper women had the skill for. It might be something that would help make me indispensable to a sect.

I wouldn’t get this chance again I was sure. I had no reason to come back to these mountains, and even if I did, I likely wouldn’t be alone and able to go wherever I wished.

Choice made, I settled in to wait just a little bit longer to see if anyone would appear given more time. Depending on what I saw, I’d have to decide if going in the front would be best, or if I thought I could slip directly into Dahrii’s lair through the hole in the ceiling we had escaped through before.