Rivon watched the other seconds take the rest of the cohort in hand before pulling them into the shadows, unimpressed. Idra, Nii, and Dera were left awkwardly standing on the platform since Jin either couldn’t or wouldn’t take more than two others with her and she hadn’t told them where to go.
Instead of offering her hands and pulling Juniper and me into the deep shadow, Rivon ambled over to the side of the platform, peered down—and then disappeared over the edge. Juniper and I shared a panicked look for a moment before we rushed over to see if our new second-in-command was falling to her death.
She wasn’t. Rather she looked annoyed at our concern from where she stood on another, much thinner, branch that crossed below. It wasn’t close enough for someone to use it to reach the Gathering Spot without walking the shadow paths, but dropping down onto it also wouldn’t be too jarring if we hung from the platform’s edge.
Rivon challenged, “Scared?”
One glance at Juniper was enough to see her eyes going wide at the thought of going over the edge. She was staring at all the space around that thin branch, everything that could remind her that we weren’t on solid ground but rather hundreds of feet in the air.
“Juniper, close your eyes.” Better to cut her panic off before it could truly begin.
Her gaze remained fixed on the open air. “That doesn’t actually help.”
I held back a sigh and resolved that Juniper’s ire was less likely to be problematic than Rivon’s. So I grabbed Juniper by the shoulders and shoved us both off the platform. She screamed, tried to scratch me, but the next moment we hit the smaller branch and Juniper sagged with relief.
Rivon pressed a hand to her cheek in mock worry, “Are you sure you’re cut out for this? To be so shaken by a firestarter path…”
Juniper shoved herself upright. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” Rivon turned and walked away from us, so we had to hurry after her. “Hundred Eyes know better than to just rely on the shadow paths.”
She led us from one narrow walkway to another. Some twisted together in helpful intersects but at other points we had to drop from one to another or use hand and footholds to climb up. Most of them were artfully hidden by being tucked up against the larger branches or with various arrangements of pine needles and sap. Some didn’t have a helpful branch that grew where varying paths needed to connect and in those places tunnels made out of thickly woven layers of pine needles crossed the distance. I hated the way they closed in tight around us even as the needles shifted underfoot, but I glared at the back of Juniper’s head and kept a tight leash on my memories.
Occasionally we ran across a firestarter hurrying in the other direction. Every time they noticed us they’d freeze as if they weren’t sure what they were seeing before they’d nod respectfully to Rivon and wait for us to squeeze around them before they continued on their way.
Juniper was miserable, but she seemed to be handling her fear of heights better in the Seedling Palace than she had back when we were first learning how to walk the shadow paths. Given the way she kept a death grip on one side of the railings that hemmed us in, it seemed like a barrier between her and falling helped.
I was frustrated. I didn’t like that I hadn’t know how interconnected these paths were that the firestarters used nor that Rivon could parade through them without getting lost. I had known about them, but I had though they were mainly for places like the Gathering Spot that the firestarters were still expected to tend to but couldn’t reach without a whisper woman’s help. This maze we wove through showed that these hidden paths connected to a lot more than that. A way for firestarters to get from place to another without typically needing to worry that a whisper woman might delay them.
Juniper protested just once when Rivon wanted us to drop again from one branch to another. “Taking the shadow paths would have been quicker.”
Rivon smiled back at her. “And less informative.”
“Perhaps she didn’t want us to know that she can’t take us both through the shadows.” I had no evidence for that claim nor did I want to plant myself even more firmly on Rivon’s bad side, but the words slipped out regardless. Something about her made it very easy to say the things I shouldn’t. The things I thought I had gotten better at keeping behind my teeth.
Rivon blinked wide, innocent eyes up at me from where she was already on the other branch. “But I could have taken you both, and more besides. I just thought a stroll through the Seedling Palace would be nicer than those dark, misty shadows.”
I fought against the glower that wanted to rise up and got it down to pinched lips. Protests weren’t going to get us anywhere, so I turned to Juniper. “Do you need me to push you again?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“No!” She glared at me before she heaved a deep breath and dropped down to the next branch. I rolled my eyes and followed after.
We ended up in the lower branches of the Hundred Eyes’ tree, just a step up from where the firestarters made their homes. A sap building made up of various bubbles perched on overlapping branches in a wide area.
Rivon focused on Juniper and gestured to the building. “Archivist Sharron asked for help organizing her records. You’re now the help. Tell her I sent you and you might get to eat and sleep before you look at enough records to make your eyes bleed.”
Juniper glanced from me to the building and back again. “Now?”
Rivon also looked at me and pouted. “Did I stutter?”
Juniper’s expression shuttered closed as she shook her head before she hurried off toward the building. I moved to follow but Rivon slipped in front of me.
“Not you. I have standing orders to get you to our illustrious leader if you chose our sect.”
I snapped to attention at that. “What? Why?”
There was no reason for me to meet the Hundred Eyes’ sect head. Not as a newly joined Sapling that hadn’t even received an invitation. I had fully expected to be ignored and dismissed while I tried to grind my way up through their ranks. History had certainly pointed to that pattern, especially when my mentor ban hadn’t been lifted. I already had more brief contact with sect heads and their seconds than most seedlings, and I wasn’t exactly keen to increase that experience without warning.
Smugness shouldn’t have fit Rivon’s soft features so well. “I guess you’ll have to follow me to find out.”
And then we were back to winding our way through the hidden paths, though this time we worked our way upward until we were about halfway up the tree. In the end, we did have to use a public path to reach the sect head’s quarters as there wasn’t a hidden path leading right up to her doorway. There wasn’t anyone else to see us on the main path, which made me wonder why Rivon had been so dedicated to taking the other ones, but the question died on my tongue as I laid eyes on the sect head’s residence.
It had to be the most lit up place in the Seedling Palace. Giant pine cone lanterns ringed the area while smaller ones hung from poles made of amber sap in fiery bunches. Every corner and curve was lit at least twice over and the customary deep shadows I was used to seeing in the Seedling Palace were nonexistent here. At best there was some very pale gray splotches that I doubted could count as a shadow for even the most experienced whisper woman.
The sap building was also odd. Rather than the dome I was used to seeing, this building seemed to spiral in on itself before branching out again after various pinch points. Nothing would ever dare to attack the Seedling Palace, but if something was stupid enough to this place’s security would hinder them further.
Rivon led me into the spiral until we reached an area with a door so heavily knotted closed it should have taken hours to untangle, but Rivon had me turn around and then, a handful of heartbeats later, she was already ushering me through the now open doorway. She locked it back up on the other side while I wasn’t looking.
We had ended up in a room full of knickknacks. Carved figurines and bits of shell, rocks and old weapons and children’s toys. Other things as well along with clay tablets and scrolls that had been mixed into the debris. It was more random stuff than even what a family would keep back in the tribe. More stuff than you could have if you were traveling every season for protection from the storms.
In the back of the room was a tall giant of a woman with light brown skin and dark hair pulled absently back into a bun, so that now it looked like half of it was about to fall back out. She was sitting at a low table, tablets and scrolls covering the surface, while she stared absently at them. A couple cushions sat on the side of the table closest to us and Rivon settled down on it as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t manage quite the same ease when she pointed for me to sit next to her.
“Dawnli,” Rivon called out softly to the other woman. “We got her.”
Dawnli blinked and seemed to come back from some place far away as she lifted her head. She studied me for a long, long moment before she smiled brightly. “Glad you could join us.”
“As if my deductions would be wrong.”
I whipped my head back to the side to stare at Rivon. They had predicted this? Wanted it? Since when and why?
“Pride and all that, Riv,” Dawnli admonished before she added hopefully, “Tea?”
“Since you asked.” Rivon levered herself up and over to a small cooking stone that was randomly placed in one corner, though the rest of the clutter carefully circled around it. Then she set about boiling water and getting out cups.
I kept staring at her like she had grown a second head when what I really wanted to do was either sprint out of the room as fast as I could or demand answers. Ever since Rivon first spoke to Dawnli, her voice had lost the quality that made me certain she was lying and that made me itch to rip into her with my words. She wasn’t even posturing or exaggerating her reactions. She seemed almost…placid.
It took until she clinked a cup of “bitter bark tea” in front of me for me to find my words. Words that hopefully wouldn’t put me on the bad side of a Sect head and her second.
“What is this?”
“Good tea.” Dawnli demonstrated by taking a long sip of hers.
I couldn’t quite stop my glare at her blatant misunderstanding. “No, what I meant was: why did you want to meet with me?” I turned to
Rivon. “And what is wrong with you?”
Rivon sighed, long and low. “Masks are hardly fun if I have to continue them in private.”
“But why show me?” I pressed. “Why now when I hadn’t even figured it out yet?”
Dawnli tapped the table. “You’re more useful to us this way. We have some hopes for you and they’ll be easier to communicate if Riv doesn’t have to drop a veiled threat or feign boredom or outrage or whatever else every other minute. We don’t need you on edge. We need you listening.”
It felt like my world had been tilted sideways. I wasn’t supposed to be needed—not by these people and not when I hadn’t yet had a chance to prove myself. It didn’t bode well for whatever they might want to ask of me, but unless I wanted to completely ruin my chances with the sect I just joined I had little choice in at least hearing what they had to say.
So I stayed where I was, didn’t touch the tea, and waited to hear what grand plan they had in store for me when they couldn’t be bothered to invite to join their sect in the first place.