I spent time trying to gather information on the different sects, the Lady of Calm Waters, the factions and groups that sprawled beyond a single sect…really anything I thought might be interesting or helpful to know. The trouble was that my infamy had spread to unfortunate extent. Despite my scowl, others would come up to me when I settled in an eating area or at the arena, trying to find out their own tidbits of information. Most often they wanted about what had happened when I was earning my final boon, if I knew what had caused the spirits to kick everyone out of their home, but sometimes they also wanted to know which wellspring I had found or even if it was true that I had been in the inner valleys when the goddess made Her presence felt.
More often than not, they left me again after a minute: defeated, frustrated, annoyed. I had no obligation to give them what they wanted and each time they bothered me it reminded everyone else that I wasn’t just another person in the background. So much so that I lost my ability to eavesdrop on those nearby as everyone started to give me a wide berth or would fall silent when I approached. The most I got was half finished rumors about me as I walked away: speculation on which sect I’d end up with, whether the dots on my chin were my bless mark or not, what trouble I might cause.
I got my best information when I was out of sight or when I managed to overhear someone talking on the wind. But those bits of information were disparate and not typically helpful in determining which sect I should choose. I did learn that some of the others in the cohort had been solicited by some of the sects. To no one’s surprise, Breck, Nii, Ento and Idra all had been formally invited to join the Peacekeepers. Breck had also been scouted by the Beastwatchers. Loclen had been approached by Hundred Eyes and the Caretakers wanted Andhi. I hadn’t heard about the others but I was sure most, if not all, of them had been approached by at least one of the sects.
It was the way things were done. Then the seedlings were supposed to pick from those invitations at the declaration ceremony—though they could technically pick from any of the sects.
No one had approached me yet. Mishtaw had warned me that the Seekers didn’t invite candidates to join the sect, even if they thought the seedling would be a good fit. Their stance was that if you wanted to be a Seeker you better care enough to seek them out first. Even so, that meant there were five other invitations I hadn’t received despite how close it was to the ceremony. Not that I’d been expecting them. Like Esie had warned, no one wanted to get on someone else’s bad side by declaring they wanted me to join them. I was too controversial.
So I had to bide my time, learn what I could, and show everyone that they were fools not to pick me when they had the chance. If I had to prove myself upon joining a sect that I deserved to be there, that I deserved to learn what they knew, well, so be it. I had done that ever since I was young.
The wellspring I had found wasn’t one of the well known ones, so that meant while I might not have gotten the respect I wanted from it I did have a secret ability no one else knew about. Not even Prevna. I only ever said the first half of what I earned so people wouldn’t suspicious. A large part of me wanted to tell her the rest of it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to give up that bit of information when I knew she had gotten exactly what she wanted: the Wellspring of Devotion.
Like my thoughts had summoned her, Prevna’s voice whispered in my ear as wind brushed by.
“Join me at the wall. Lakeside.”
Her messages weren’t ever longer than that for the most part, not yet while she was still learning, but they always reached where she sent them. My messages were even shorter and less reliable, but I could already speak silently into the wind so no one else could hear me. Having the small boon to listen in on others had made it easy to learn how to do the opposite, but I didn’t bother having the wind swallow my answer. Not when that could clue others in that there might be more to what I earned at my wellspring than I let on.
“On my way.”
Wind whispering felt somewhat similar to shadow walking, but rather than building a path between two points that didn’t exist before, I was sensing the winds and casting my voice out and hoping my message didn’t get blown off course before reaching its destination. Mishtaw said it was about conviction. The more certain you were that your message would reach its target, the more likely it was that it would actually get there, though stable winds and the size of the message played their own parts as well. Like with shadow walking it was easier to speak to someone nearby at first and the winds around the Seedling Palace never weakened to the point that they failed to carry a message.
I had the most success when trying to speak to Prevna and Mishtaw on the winds, but my messages didn’t always reach their destination and there was no signal to know when they failed. So I didn’t waste time stepping back into a shadow to travel to where Prevna wanted to meet in case she thought I had ignored her.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
When I emerged from the shadow paths, I was ankle deep in water. Which was disconcerting for a moment, because I had used the image of rising out of the depths to exit the shadows. I’d meant to come out on the red shore a few steps away, but my accuracy still wasn’t perfect when I was traveling to unfamiliar places. And perhaps I could count myself as lucky since the Seedling Palace’s shadows stretched way out into the lake. In this spot only my water resistant shoes were wet.
I trudged to the sand shore and looked around for Prevna. This was close to where I had seen whisper women fight off a monster years ago. Given that it was dangerous, we weren’t really supposed to come here and I’d never had a reason to until now. However, despite the sun disappearing behind the horizon and the warnings against it, I wasn’t alone. A handful of others had gathered near the wall where a couple of ladders had been tied up and an eye had been carved into it. Unlike the goddess’s root walls, this one was made of dark stone that shifted between a dark burgundy, gray, and black. I hadn’t been able to discover its source though most people agreed that it must have been from a whisper woman’s blessing in the past.
I kept my distance from the others at the unofficial meeting spot by the wall. Prevna arrived a few minutes later, feet dry, but further down the shore than I’d been. She had a large pack weighing her down, so she caught my eye and gestured for me to follow her. The group still at the meeting spot buzzed as I passed them by but I ignored them.
Couples might come here, but so did friend groups and others who wanted a break from the Seedling Palace. This place was too public to truly be a place for secret meetings or complete privacy. And Prevna and I had no need for those things, though I did wonder why she chose to meet here when we typically would have met on Mishtaw’s balcony.
Prevna brought me to a spot far away from the others and around the curve of the shore so that they were out of sight. Then she dropped her pack on the ground, pulled out a blanket and spread it out next to her. After that came small dishes of berries and cut vegetables, wraps stuffed with meat and herbs, and a drinking pouch that could only contain Mil’s nectar once I caught the sweet smell as she poured it into two cups.
My eyes went wide at the feast. “What is this?”
Prevna settled on the blanket. “Join me?”
Her hair was drifting slightly in the breeze and it looked shinier than normal, like she had taken more time to brush it. More than that though, she wasn’t smiling knowingly and there wasn’t a teasing glint in her eye. That set me more on edge than I liked, since this was Prevna and there wasn’t anything to be nervous about.
I made myself walk over normally and sit across from her.
“You’ve been eating later, keeping yourself busy, so I thought this would be a good chance to catch up,” she said. “I didn’t want to jump out of a bush and poison you again, so I thought I’d go with one of our other beginnings.” At that her smile finally felt a little more real, though it was still uncertain.
Still, at her words, the time when she came to sit next me by the moonlit lake at the end of the Heartsong festival immediately came to mind. I had rebuffed her then, too caught up in everything else I had going on, and I didn’t want to do the same thing now. But that also didn’t mean I was going to let her pretend everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t.
I leaned closer to her. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Her lips pressed together before she smiled again. “Nothing’s wrong. Really, it’s a cause for celebration.”
She reached for the nectar but I caught her hand before she could touch the cup. “Prevna.”
She stared at our hands for a long moment, licked her lips nervously, and seemed to come to an abrupt decision. “The Beastwatchers gave me a formal invite today. I intend to join them at the declaration ceremony. But that’s not where you’re going, is it? Have you even gotten any invitations?”
I withdrew my hand. “No, but the sect I join will have to deal with my presence whether they like it or not.” I drew in a deep breath and smiled at her. “Congratulations. I’m glad you’ll get to join the one you wanted.”
This time I picked up the small cups of nectar, handed her one, and then took a sip of my own. A burst of tangy sweetness slid down my throat and I felt slightly more alert. I’d have to down the whole cup and go for a second I wanted the comfort the drink provided.
Prevna didn’t drink hers. “I know you haven’t told me the full truth of what happened when you earned your boons, but no one else had to be carried out or got the whole trial shut down early. That’s fine if you don’t tell me, but you collapsed twice.”
I probably could have made my own way out too if I hadn’t pushed things for Esie’s favor. And it was a bit of a stretch to say I collapsed twice. I might have been exhausted but I had made it to my bedroll under my power after I had pushed my practice in the wind spirits’ home longer than I should have.
Still, I kept silent and watched her. She had more to say and I wouldn’t hear it if I interrupted her.
She pressed on, “It just feels like you keep getting hit with storm after storm and no one else bothers to help, so you push too hard and hurt yourself. And now I won’t even be there even if I…” Prevna ran a hand through her hair and I had to banish a image of my hand trailing after hers between one blink and the next. She shook her head. “I know you probably don’t mean to, but it feels like your distancing yourself before we have to separate. I don’t want that.”
I blinked again and realized she was right. I knew that she wasn’t going to be around nearly as much once we joined our sects, so I had started to fall back on old habits. It made more sense to keep my own counsel and figure things out on my own when that was what I had always done, especially when there didn’t seem to be a point to burdening her with my worries when she’d have her own place soon that didn’t include me.
But I hadn’t made much progress on my own and this was Prevna.
“I don’t want that either.”
She gave me a real smile this time, full of relief. “So let’s talk?”
I nodded. “Let’s talk.”