I went back to the front of the tribe and sat against the ravine wall opposite of the narrow left path. A family of other tribe members blocked my view of the path, so if anyone did go inside I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see me. The family gave me the side eye a couple times before silently agreeing to ignore me just as I was ignoring Fellen. She had, for some foolish reason, decided to trail after me after I passed her earlier and was now leaning back against the wall, just close enough that the family might think us a pair.
“Go away.”
She didn’t. Instead she opened her mouth to say something, so I cut her off.
“I don’t want to talk to you. Don’t you have friends you can go bother?”
I was so focused on the way my arms and hands didn’t feel like my own, feeling like I was watching myself as the cold slipped and settled around my chest and stomach, focused on becoming someone new, that I almost missed her answer. It was small and, when I spared a glance at her, she looked ashamed.
“No.” She crumpled her dress skirt in a tight fist. “They all said I was too much of a baby to be fun to play with. That I was too slow. Sometimes we would play hide-and-seek and they wouldn’t bother to find me. But that’s not nearly as bad as what your mother did to you, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.” I didn’t bother to correct her that I didn’t have a mother anymore. It was a waste of breath and I refused to acknowledge her existence more than I had to.
Fellen didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t in the mood to talk. “When they would leave me in the forest or crouching behind a tent I would think to myself, ‘At least I’m not a healer’s daughter. At least I’m better than that’ so that I would feel better the next time they snubbed me.”
I let out an annoyed groan. I wanted to focus on my plans, think through what I was going to do next, not listen to her mundane sob story. “Shut up, Fellen.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, but instead of breaking down and leaving me alone like I hoped she turned to glare at me. “What I’m trying to say is that—is that while you might be mean and pushy you haven’t ignored me. We even have contests now. So even though I don’t really understand why your mother wouldn’t want you and I still don’t like you, I thought I should let you know that you won’t be able to get rid of me. I’m going to beat you in lots of contests and prove that I’m a worthy rival. And get you back for every time you beat me.”
Her little speech felt like a double punch to the stomach and the vacant feeling lessened. One punch for the galling idea that she would ever beat me in enough contests to make the score even, and another for her insistence that she wouldn’t abandon me. I gave her a dry look. “You know beating me doesn’t mean much? No one thinks highly of me, either.” I couldn’t help the sneer that entered my voice with that statement. “Besides, why do you seem think that sticking to me like a burr is supposed to make me feel better after what just happened?”
It did help, the tiniest amount, but she didn’t need to know that.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes, wincing a little when she accidentally pressed too hard on the black eye I gave her. “I don’t care.”
My eyebrows rose. “You don’t care?”
She crossed her arms, the perfect image of mulishness. “I don’t care. I’m your rival and I’m going to beat you, and you and everyone else will just have to deal with that.”
I snorted and we both let the conversation fall silent. I finally got to start working through what, if anything, accepting my blessing changed while Fellen occupied herself by practicing with her sling. Using a stone would make too much noise in the ravine, so she had to settle for just practicing the motion of it.
As I thought through my options I realized that nothing could really change in the short term. I still needed to learn as much as I could from Rawley, and my apprenticeship would likely last until I was taken to the Seedling Palace during the Dark Night celebrations in the middle of the cold season—if I got my first blooding by then. Being open about my blessing would really matter once I entered the Seedling Palace and earned my way to becoming a whisper woman. That was when it could affect which order I was accepted into, but I had no clear idea how those assignments were decided or what it even it took to graduate from the Seedling Palace. Whisper women didn’t return to their tribes and gossip about what they went through, nor did they have the time or inclination to talk about anything but official business with the common folk. And those that failed to pass were never heard from again. Some people speculated that they were trapped in the Seedling Palace until they finally managed to graduate while others just assumed they were killed—as always, the goddess wasn’t known for her mercy. I would have to be careful who I told about my blessing and how I phrased it. I might be determined to become ‘the whisper woman with the blessing that doesn’t let her die,’ but I wasn’t so blinded by the goal that I failed to realize the drawbacks attached to it. There would be those that thought it gave me too much life even without knowing my training in the healer’s craft, as well as those more than willing to put me in a dangerous situation simply so they didn’t have to risk their own neck. One didn’t reach the heights of power without being resourceful. I would have to deal with those situations as they came.
Rawley returned a couple hours later. I saw her look to where Fellen and I had been sitting by the left narrow path before catching sight of us and giving me a brief smile. She continued deeper into the tribe to report to Grandmother and Ghani. After another fifteen minutes or so I caught sight of her making her way toward us. Fellen noticed me sit up straighter and she tucked her sling into her belt so that she could also be ready when my mentor reached us. Rawley saw that I was about to stand up and motioned for me to keep sitting.
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I stated my new name as soon as Rawley stood before us. “Gimley.”
Rawley knelt in front of me so we were almost eye level. Eyebrows drawn together, she asked, “Gimley?”
The distance I still felt inside my own skin, the cold vacancy, allowed me to say her name without choking. “I won’t use the name Levain gave me anymore. So call me Gimley.”
The tiniest hint of amusement warmed Rawley’s gaze—and I knew she didn’t miss the similarity of my new name to her own—mingled with her deepening concern. “I will. But what brought on this change so suddenly?”
I wasn’t sure if somehow no one had told her what had happened or if she simply wanted to hear it from me. My gaze dropped to my left thigh, and the cold part of me flashed through the events leading to my decision, but it wasn’t strong enough for me to get the words through the sore wounds the memories had left. Pure logic and observation could only dull the pain of her second rejection.
Fellen, it seemed, had no such difficulty. She had barely kept the need to talk about what she witnessed behind her lips ever since she started to follow me. Even after our initial conversation I had seen her glance my way several times and almost say something before thinking better of it. “She went to tell her mother about some glowing purple moss we found, and her mother barely spared her a glance and a reprimand that she shouldn’t ‘cling to things you don’t have’ or something like that. I think she told her mother to help and the healer threw it back in her face in front of the whole tribe. Gimlea”—Fellen quickly corrected herself after a censoring look from both Rawley and me—"Gimley went pale and stalked away. It was like…it was…”
“Thank you, Fellen.” Rawley’s voice didn’t change—it was as calm and understanding as ever—but the air did. It was as if a calm pot of water started to boil or the tension line of a trap was beginning to fray. Something, that if overlooked or ignored, promised trouble and danger.
I looked up. I was used to her pale, intense gray eyes that always gave the impression they didn’t miss anything, but when I looked up I saw her gaze had changed too. It had gone hard and sharp—focused on a single point rather than taking in everything around her. She was looking over her shoulder and I didn’t need to look past her to know what she was glaring at. It was almost as if Rawley could see her through the clusters of tribe members and supplies blocking her view. In that moment I didn’t doubt that Rawley could do anything with that gaze and her silence alone. Even make Levain cross her wrists in submission.
But Rawley didn’t immediately go stalk through the crowd after her quarry. Instead she brought her intense focus to bear down on me as she lifted her hands to my shoulders. I could tell from the way her hands clenched that she wanted to pull me in for a hug as she had after I cut off my healer’s beads, but she restrained herself. “Gimley, this moss, is it important?”
It felt oddly right to hear her say my new name, enough that the cold receded a bit more. “Hanli’s Lament. It’s valuable and rare. Some of the strongest calming drafts for birthing mothers and wounded huntresses are made with it.”
Rawley smiled as if I had made a bad joke. “Very valuable then. I’ll inform Ghani about it, so that it gets collected before we move on. It wouldn’t be…smart for me to talk with the healer right now nor is this time to say what needs to be said. But I won’t surprise you again—I will be speaking with the healer once we make camp in the morning. You’re welcome to join me if you wish, but, if you don’t go, know that none of what I have to say would change with your absence.” She noticed my hesitation and added, “Think on it. There’s no need to come to a decision now.” Her smile softened into something more genuine as she squeezed one of my shoulders again. “I can wait.”
I knew she meant for more than my decision to join her or not. She would wait for me to be ready to tell her about the latest incident with Levain in my own words as well as about any of the other troubles had gone on before. She would wait and then she would listen, no matter how long it took.
Rawley turned to Fellen next and bundled the other girl off, so she could point out where to find the Hanli’s Lament and to give me some space. Her control of her temper was impressive. I could still feel her anger simmering just beneath the surface, but she didn’t let it deter her from what she needed to do. Instead, she seemed to redirect it into efficiency.
When she left with Fellen there was no wasted movement, no distraction, though I also didn’t miss the way plans were being played out and discarded behind her eyes.
Patience. Listening. Preparation. Flexibility.
She followed her own lessons well.
--
After Nole and the pack huntresses returned it was decided we would take Nole’s path. Rawley’s had been blocked by a waterfall and large pool of water that no one wanted to try to cross without crossing lines—which would take time to make—and the uncertainty of what might be in the water. Fenris and Yolay’s path had turned sharply towards the center of the maze which was enough to quell any desire to follow it. Nole’s path had also headed more gradually in the same direction, but she had found another path that branched off it that seemed to head back toward the northern side of the maze.
The going was slow even with Nole’s guidance as Fenris still had to make the more detailed version of the path and the constellations we saw as we went. The path also rose up on a gradual incline and, while I didn’t think much of that at first, the burn of hiking up it crept up on me. I might be more fit than I ever had been before, but I still tired more easily than what I wanted. That didn’t mean I wanted Rawley to worry about me more than she already was, though, so I gritted my teeth and did my best not to pant. I heard others pulling along the heavy travoises grunt with effort, and hated the comparison that would come if anyone noticed how tired I was despite the fact that I was only carrying a small pack.
Throughout the night we had to decide between turning onto another path that split off from the one we followed or staying on the same one several times. Each time an abbreviated version of going fishing was done. Fellen and I would go with our mentors to the first corner of each path and then they would go and check around a few more corners while we held their line. Training didn’t have to completely stop just because we were in Flickermark. The huntresses only decided to take one of the new paths once when the path we were on began to turn back on itself.
I didn’t go with Rawley when she went to see Levain. I wasn’t in the mood to make her think I was still trying to cling to what I didn’t have or to acknowledge her existence when it wasn’t necessary. She obviously didn’t care to acknowledge me. So I sat outside Rawley’s tent and tried to focus on scrapping the hair off a rabbit’s skin when more often than not I caught myself staring toward the back of the camp. Really, I knew I should be sleeping with the majority of the tribe, but Rawley had seen how restless I was before left and silently handed me the frame with the rabbit skin and the rock scrapper. I don’t know how long it was before my mentor returned, but I must have ran through at least a hundred different options of how her meeting with Levain would play out and how I would act when she returned. Despite that I still hadn’t decided if I wanted to know the details of what was said when she did come back.