Rawley sat down next to me, quiet and looking a little worn and sorrowful in the way her lips pinched together, her head tilted slightly to side and down, the slower pace of her stride before she reached me. I stayed quiet and fell still as—in one smooth motion—she undid her braid and bent forward, her hair falling to cover up her face and block out the light slowly crawling down the ravine walls. Rawley lifted her hands to make a second barrier and I didn’t need to see them to know she was cupping them around her eyes. Taking solace in, or cleansing oneself in, self-made shadow was a private thing and often only done inside tent walls, though I had seen a few instances when people did it in public to help them calm down from extreme emotion so they wouldn’t embarrass themselves. With everyone else but the sentries sleeping, where we sat was nearly as a good as being in the tent as long as you were mindful of the echo and talked softly. I didn’t miss that she didn’t hesitate before she put herself into the vulnerable state and thus expressed her trust in me. Long minutes passed as Rawley breathed in the shadow and cleansed herself. Then she lifted her head and pushed her hair out of her face.

Rawley smiled so gently at me that it hurt. “You might not believe me now, but you are strong and capable and talented in spite of that woman, not because of her. The skills you learned as her apprentice you would have honed regardless or not needed, and you wouldn’t have gained the scars that came with them.” She chucked me under the chin with a knuckle. “I can’t be your mother, but if you ever need someone to lend an ear or comfort, ask and I’ll be there. As your mentor, I can do that much.”

She well knew that was above and beyond the normal scope of a mentor/apprentice relationship even as she presented it as the bare minimum. It had nothing to do with a skill taught and learned, but I could tell that she meant every word. She would do what she could to support me and she had high expectations of my capabilities.

Pressure weighed down my back and shoulders. It would be so easy to let her down, for that gentle smile to turn into a frown of disappointment. What if I couldn’t open up to her like she wanted? What if I couldn’t learn a new skill fast enough? Failed to answer one of her leading questions correctly one too many times? What if—if I did open up—Rawley saw through the cracks and saw the same barely usable girl she had known? Rawley was observant enough. She could decide I was too life-ridden to teach.

Pressure locked up my throat as the cold and vacant feeling returned with full force. There was so much farther to fall, so much more to ruin, when someone thought well of you. And Rawley kept pushing her kindness onto me. I hadn’t figured out the best way to respond yet. I didn’t know how to deal with it. Didn’t want it. It might be sweet in the moment, but there was also traps and caveats hidden within the kindness, unspoken. Possibly unintentional, but still there and I didn’t know the rules that would allow me to correctly navigate them.

Nothing was unconditional.

Warmth enveloped my left hand and I blinked and looked down to find Rawley’s right hand enveloping my own and her other hand on the frame holding the rabbit skin. She took it from me along with the rock scrapper and gestured to the tent with her head. “Let’s get to sleep. We’ll need our focus tomorrow.”

At her words, I felt the cold vacancy recede as a small knot in my chest eased in relief. It was only then that I realized how afraid I had been to hear what had been said—to know if Levain had dismissed me without a moment’s hesitation again.

I nodded in agreement and the cold eased back to what it had been before Rawley returned. I had time; Rawley didn’t expect me to respond to her overtures now. I didn’t need to protect myself with every inch of distance I could muster. I had time to figure out my options. I followed Rawley into the tent, expecting to lay there for hours staring at the tent wall, but exhaustion overtook me in minutes.

--

The path we followed wound its way back to the northern side of Flickermark only to develop a new problem. It continued over a natural stone bridge that was between 3 and 4 feet wide. We knew the bridge. Our normal path through the maze passed underneath it on the third day if everything went well. We were a day behind and there was no easy way down to the path below. Our best choices were to test the durability of the bridge and send a fishing group to check where the path led, or hike back a half an hour and try the path we had found that led back to the west while hoping it linked back up with our main path. No one had supported going in the wrong direction before, but if the bridge route didn’t work out it was the best option now that we were back in the northern ravines.

Rawley and Nole took Fellen and me aside as best they could in the ravine. Nole spoke first, “You are both part of the advance group as our apprentices which is why you will have the honor of taking the first step onto the bridge rather than one of the Pack apprentices.”

So they wanted to test if the bridge could hold a child’s weight or two before one of the huntresses tried to cross to go fishing. It was as dubious of an honor as Nole’s task of always bringing the first and last of the crossing lines across the river. She was still healing from the injury that honor had brought her.

Rawley asked, “Which of you will go first?”

Going first was more dangerous, put you farther out on the bridge with open air and a long way to fall all around you. If the bridge did break the second person had a higher chance of making it back to the tribe while the first took the risk of being blocked by them or trusting their feet were fast enough to carry them to the other side. Whoever went first would gain more respect in eyes of the tribe and win this round of our rivalry.

Fellen glanced at me before raising her chin, “I—”

“I will,” I cut her off. If something went wrong, there was a higher chance there wouldn’t be a rivalry if I didn’t go first. Fellen wasn’t brave, I knew that, so I had to hide my surprise when it looked like she would argue. Our competitions pushed her farther than I had thought, but even though that impressed me, just a little bit, I couldn’t let her go first. So I gave her one of my meanest glares, ignored the flash of hurt on her face, and shifted my attention back to our mentors. “I will.”

Rawley noted the exchange before stepping aside to reveal the stone bridge. “Then step carefully.”

There really wasn’t much preparation needed to step onto a bridge. I walked forward and the abnormally quiet tribe got quieter. Was it because they thought I still had too much life in me that would bring misfortune or because they wanted to see who was taking the first step? Perhaps they were worried about the tribe encountering more delays and taking more time in the maze, or maybe they thought my blessing had something to do with bridge testing. I snorted softly. If only it was that simple.

I took my first step onto the bridge. Wind buffeted me immediately and I stumbled a step to the side before I caught myself. I didn’t have a lot of weight to hold me to the ground, so I angled myself so I was a slimmer target and braced myself against the wind. I took a few more steps before I stomped my feet, testing the bridge. It held. I repeated the process until I was in the middle of the bridge. The bridge was at its narrowest point here, but it still held after I repeatedly stomped on it as hard as I could. I crouched down to make myself an even smaller target for the wind and looked back to see Fellen making her first tentative step onto the bridge. She learned from my example and immediately braced herself against a gust of wind so she didn’t stumble. Fellen did her best to stomp on different places of the bridge than I had. The bridge held the first few places she stomped, but the fourth time she met my gaze with a determined look and then jumped as hard as she could onto the bridge. For a moment after she landed everything seemed fine, but then I felt something shift beneath me.

“Fellen! Stop!” I tried to warn her but the wind whisked away my words and she was still a couple arm lengths away—still too distant to grab and stop or push her closer to the tribe.

She took a couple steps closer and stomped again. The bridge gave more and, given her wide eyes, I knew she felt it that time. We stared at each other for a couple heartbeats before I came back to myself. Lifting a hand from the bridge I gestured for her to back the way we came, slow and steady.

She did. At first. But then she must have put too much weight on a single spot because something in the bridge shifted again and it startled her enough that she lurched backwards. A loud cracking sound broke through the whine of the wind. I took that as my cue to start moving and sprinted for the other side as I heard stone crashing onto the path below. I reached the other side only to look back and see that Fellen was still on the bridge. More accurately, she was clinging to the side of it—half on, half off.

It looked like the part of the bridge she had lurched onto had collapsed leaving only a strip of stone little more than a foot wide holding that side of the bridge together and Fellen up in the air. She was still closer to the middle of the bridge than the tribe, and to get back to them she would have to brave that narrow strip of stone and hope it held. She would also have to turn around or attempt going backwards. Fellen slowly pulled herself fully back onto the bridge, facing me, splayed out as flat as she could go.

Then she began to make her way toward me, each movement as slow as if she was wading through sap or honey. Toward me. I tried to wave at her to go the other way, but all that did was cause her to go from panicked to mulish. I could see the cracks slowly spreading out around her as she crested the middle of the bridge, but she didn’t lurch out of fear this time. She just kept going, doing her best to minimize the damage to the bridge. Fellen was still at least seven or eight feet away when the bridge started to crumble.

“Run!”

She heard me that time—or the loud cracking sound from behind her. Fellen scrambled forward, more on her hands and knees than her feet, in a last ditch effort to reach me. She nearly made it. I saw the stone give out beneath her and she clawed at the remains of the bridge, desperately trying not to fall. Even without the broken stone bridge to break her back on, the height alone was likely to kill her. I leapt forward as she slipped off.

I managed to catch hold of her pack and her hair. She yelped even as I began to slide forward with her weight. There was nothing for me to gain purchase on nor did I have the strength to pull her up.

“Climb! Hurry!”

If she didn’t we would both be going over the edge soon. Fellen’s flailing hands locked onto one of my arms and a small handhold left in the broken stone. She pulled herself, using me and what purchase she could find in the stone as a ladder. I adjusted my grip on her pack and hair as she went, doing what I could to help leverage her up as I did my best to press my body into the ground to keep from sliding into the open air.

I slipped a little too far just as she managed to get fully up onto the path, and Fellen had to catch me and pull me back with a tired grunt. We laid on our backs for awhile, looking up the night sky, catching our breath, before we realized that we were being whistled at. We sat up and were finally able to take in the fullness of our situation.

Most of the bridge was gone—only a few feet on either side still remained, where the bridge had been the thickest. Luckily, it looked like the fallen remains of the bridge hadn’t completely blocked the path below, so we hadn’t ruined two potential paths for the tribe. Not that mattered for us—unless this path happened to connect with the one below. We had no way back over the gap to the tribe, no rope to climb down to the path below and back up the other side nor a way to anchor it, no guarantee we could find our way back to each other in this maze. We had no maps, no shelter, little food and water. We were apprentices—twelve and ten years old—on our own in Flickermark.

Rawley was whistling at us. It cut through the wind and distance better than words did. She repeated five different signals in order.

Go. Tribe. Follow Tracks. Good Hunting. Confirm.

Fellen and I both understood her meaning well. The tribe couldn’t wait for us even if they assumed we could make it out of Flickermark on our own. The cold season was coming and it didn’t wait for anyone. They would be more likely to get out first as they had the maps and better resources. If we got out we should follow their tracks to Grislander’s Maw, possibly catch up to them, as a party of two moved significantly faster than a tribe slowed down by transporting all of their possessions and herds. ‘Good Hunting’ was the best compliment and well wishing a huntress could do through whistling.

We confirmed. Nole repeated the three sharp notes that meant good hunting and we whistled them back to her. Others took up the whistle while the tribe turned and began to head back to the other path. There was a small knot of three people who looked like they were struggling. Two men were dragging away a woman who looked ready to try to leap across the twenty foot or more gap. Grandmother stepped through the crowd to the foot of the ruined bridge.

She only whistled one thing after pricking both her wrists with a prayer needle and letting the blood fall onto the ruined bridge below.

Pray.