“Oh, open your eyes, will you?” Hana’s impatient voice came from my left. “We can’t go anywhere with you crouched down like that.”

I opened my eyes. Swirling smoke surrounded us in various from deep black to ash gray to bright silver. I could only see a few feet in every direction. The ground beneath our feet was highly reflective and slick, like a dark oil, but it wasn’t wet.

She smiled knowingly down at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer, but asked my own question instead as I prepared to stand. “Shadow paths?” There wasn’t much else of an explanation for how we were no longer standing in the Grove. And while the smoky fog might be mesmerizing, my irritation was flooding back with the realization of how powerless I was in my current situation.

I tried to stand. My legs shook and burned, but I stood—for one blackly satisfying moment. Then they gave out and I slammed hard onto my knees. Hana didn’t even shift in an attempt to catch me. She had broken my momentum and now—without support—there was nothing to keep pushing my body passed its limits. What little energy I still had that hadn’t gone to healing my wounds was spent.

Hana’s smug look grew. “Where else would we be?” She gestured to the fog in front of us. “I could even take you to the Seedling Palace now if you wanted.”

Impatient with my legs’ failure I tried to jerk my wrist out her grip, so that I could shove myself to my feet with both hands. If that didn’t work at least I wouldn’t have to be touching her anymore. I didn’t break free.

Hana tightened her grip and scowled down at me. “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. You don’t have anyway out of here—except for me—and chances are if I lose contact with you I won’t be able to find you, much less protect you. The shadows don’t take kindly to those without their essence.”

Another failure.

It was easy to feel the shadow of her second look of disappointment in Hana’s gaze. Another failure in a whole string failures, and once again I was surrounded by signs of the goddess’s power and on my knees. Failure to take extra precautions at the bridge, failure in hunting and navigation, succumbing to fear, losing our supplies, failure to protect Fellen and I from the wolves, useless in the caves, fainting in the Grove…

Bile rose in my throat. I could say “just keep going” and keep pretending like I knew what I was doing, but trapped in a tree’s shadow and at the mercy of some other’s whim, even I couldn’t delude myself any further.

Pitiful. Weak.

That’s all I was.

Useless.

I didn’t deserve Fellen’s gratitude or the new mark on my chin. It was luck and circumstance, and the end I still hadn’t progressed from being the sniveling girl at the goddess’s procession. I felt the same painfully sharp clarity cut through me that shown me the truth when Grandmother confronted me about the healer’s beads and when I was rejected twice over.

I would always be at someone’s mercy under I was strong enough to over power or out think them, and until I got the same powers as the whisper women, I would be at a severe disadvantage with them. I resolved to remedy that disadvantage as soon as possible.

But that did nothing for my current situation.

The self-assurance Hana exuded faltered for a moment when my glare cut back to her. “Have I entertained you enough or can we get back to the Grove?”

At the very least I refused to break my promises. I had told Fellen I was going to get Ressia to help her, so I didn’t have time to waste here.

Hana recovered as her expression soured. “Actually, you’ve been rather dull. I could take you anywhere, I’ve shown you something few outside whisper women get to experience, and all you care is leaving.”

“Why should I be impressed with this when I’ll be able to do the same in the future?”

Hana looked as if I had shoved a handful of rotted fruit under her nose. “As if you’ll ever be as good as me.”

Then she shifted to one side, dragging me with her, before stomping her foot through the oily floor. It felt like the world tilted as suddenly I was being pulled through the cool, slippery floor and my sense of balance kept changing. What had been down changed to feeling like I was falling sideways before quickly becoming up as Hana finished stepping through a tree’s shadow and dropped me onto the ground by her feet. It took me a moment to orient myself enough to notice that we were no longer under the Grove’s branches, but at the tip of one of the tree’s shadows near where the whisper women camped by the back edge of the Statue Garden.

Hana strode forward and disappeared around the side of the nearest tent. I laid on the grass for a while, trying to swallow my pride enough in order to attempt to crawl, before I heard footsteps and lifted my head to see Hana, mood much improved, and Ressia making their way toward me.

Ressia’s eyebrows rose as she noted my reopened wounds. “I would have thought you would know better.”

More shame squeezed my stomach and burned my throat, but I forced myself to speak past it. “Help Fellen first. I’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t like I didn’t know the consequences of failure. I had just managed to delay them this time. Denied learning the healing craft until I completed some long brain-numbing task, denied all attention while the twins soaked up praise, enduring rants and snapped comments about how disappointing and difficult I was.

Dwelling on the past could be considered a type of failure too.

Ressia turned to Hana. “Thank you for showing me where one of my charges disappeared to.” She grinned at the whisper woman. “I’m looking forward to the trip back to the Seedling Palace. Yours are always the smoothest.”

Hana smiled back. “I’m glad you recognize skill when you see it.”

She left again as Ressia bent down to pick me up. When Ressia saw I was about to protest she shook her head. “Bleeding patients get tended to first.”

I opened my mouth to protest anyway when she settled me into her arms, but the similarities to when Grandmother carried me cut me off. Struggling hadn’t done anything then and, given how weak I was, I doubted it would have any effect now. Ressia was surprisingly strong.

Instead, I kept quiet as she carried me back to the tent, and treated and re-bandaged my wounds. By the time she finally left to go retrieve Fellen, I had sunk deep into all the things I could have differently in the past few weeks.

Fellen tried to ask me what had happened with Hana and thank me for getting Ressia, but I kept my gaze focused on the tent wall. Not responding was easier than having to explain to her that I hadn’t done anything.

--

The cold season started the next day with high, eerie keening. Ressia looked up from checking her supplies with wide eyes and a grin.

“You’ll want to see this.”

She helped Fellen, and then carried me, to a spot where we had a clear view into the Grove but where still a little ways off. All of the whisper women settled in a group near us, bless marks bared and wrists turned up to the sky. Their fire starters watched from our other side, excited murmuring running through the group.

Ressia quietly filled us in as we shifted, trying to figure out where the keening noise was coming from. “This is only the second time I’ve been able to see this. The whisper women aren’t allowed to take part.”

Fellen asked, “But what’s making the noise?”

Ressia chuckled. “You’ll see.”

We did, soon enough. Fellen was the first to pick out movement among the shamble men. Following her shaking finger, I saw a tall shamble man lurching its way through the others toward the Grove. Once we spotted that one, it was easy to follow the various keening noises and find their source—different shamble men all heading toward the Grove.

Fellen swallowed audibly to regain her composure. “I thought they didn’t move.”

Ressia answered her unspoken question. “Goddess’s orders. I’m sure she could do what they’re going to do herself, but this way she doesn’t have to deal with the annoyance while creating the storm.”

Ten shamble men lurched their way into the center of the Grove and formed a small circle, keening all the while. Once the circle was made the noise split, some of the shamble men trying for a deeper tone. Horribly, one of them also began to clap as the others swayed. Each clap was a sharp crack followed by a dry raspy sound.

Dark billowing clouds began to form overhead as the shamble men continued and the wind picked up—the goddess’s work. Fellen and I shivered and huddled deeper into our cloaks. Next to us, the whisper women began to clap and slap their legs in rhythm.

If Fellen and I had been in Grislander’s Maw, we would have seen everyone hurrying to the meeting hall with the last preparations for the First Flurry festival. I would have been in the back with the healer families as everyone chanted and stomped with the Echoes’ beat. The Grandmothers would have taken turns spinning the tale of Lady Frost and her garden as well as the First Flame. There would be plenty of food and drink, and once the storm passed all the tribes would join together in the first snow berry hunt.

I looked forward to that festival every year, but seeing the odd display and building of power before me, I didn’t give it more than a passing thought. The shamble men’s song, if it could be called that, reached a crescendo. Something sparked overhead, and we saw a see-through gray film unfurl overhead until it covered the entire Statue Garden in a dome. The shamble men stopped keening and the whisper women sat still.

I looked back down in time to see all ten crumble away into dust.

When I looked at the sky again I saw that thick, heavy snow had begun to fall but not a single snowflake got past the new barrier. They seemed to melt upon impact and roll to the edges of the dome. It was beautiful in an odd way. Fellen and I sat and watch the phenomenon until Ressia forced us back into the tent to keep warm and rest.