Rawley pulled back to rest on her heels. “I understand that Grandmother will collect your story tomorrow. After that, if you wish, you can join me in the lone huntress quarters in the meeting hall until you're fully healed. The healers will be closer there and it would suit Grandmother not to have her business interrupted everyday for an outsider to tend to you.”

Part of me was tempted at the thought of inconveniencing Grandmother, but the more logical part of me definitely preferred the option of staying with my mentor rather than dealing with Old Lily’s attentions and awkward encounters with the other wards.

I gave Rawley the slightest smile. “I’ll join you.”

She smiled back. “Good.” She was still for a moment before she patted my knee. “It’s good to know you’re breathing. Nole’s apprentice?”

“We returned together. Fellen’s injured but alive.”

“The best we could have hoped for, then.” Rawley glanced over at Grandmother before focusing back on me. “I’ll look forward to hearing how you survived once the tale is yours to tell.”

The surrealness of actually talking to her helped me to openly admit something I normally wouldn’t have. Not explicitly. “Your teachings helped us a lot. Fellen and I wouldn’t have survived without them.”

Rawley rose her eyebrows and teased gently. “All of them? It seems I might have to get advice from Fellen if she got you to ask for help.”

I flushed and, more angry at my reaction than Rawley’s teasing, I scowled at the ground. “I didn’t have much choice.”

She chuckled. “I see.” The whistle that the evening meal was ready sounded outside and was taken up again my multiple people throughout the camp. Rawley pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll take that as my cue to go, for now. I’ll look forward to catching up with you tomorrow.” She shifted to fully face Grandmother. “Thank you for informing me that my apprentice returned and allowing me entrance to see her. If there’s nothing more you wish of me, I’ll take my leave now.”

Grandmother’s sharp edges softened slightly at the formal address. “You may go, huntress. There’s no need to thank me when my ward will be imposing on you soon enough.”

A quick smile flashed across Rawley’s lips before she nodded and ducked out of the tent.

Grandmother’s gaze quickly became derisive when she looked at me. “You were lucky when that woman chose to be your mentor, girl. Learn from her, follow her lessons, and you might actually manage to become someone others respect regardless of the marks you carry.”

“And if the marks are enough?”

“Then you’re foolish and you’ll wear the respect they give you thin.” She gave me a sidelong look. “You should realize that better than most. After all, for all that the mark on your thigh gives you entrance to become a whisper woman, it did little enough to help you when you had those beads in your hair.”

I didn’t have a good answer to that and she knew it. Grandmother ignored me then in favor of gathering up the other wards and Old Lily to go to the evening meal. They left and I laid back down, unable to do anything but wait.

- -

It felt like the sun took longer to rise in the sky the next morning, it passed by so slowly. Old Lily only let me pretend to sleep for so long before she insisted on checking my bandages and feeding me breakfast. After that I was set to a few small, easy tasks that I could do with one hand, so my hurt shoulder wouldn’t be pushed too hard. A few minutes into sorting through the basket of snow berries Old Lily gave me I was already bored.

Much like the day before, my gaze kept flicking to the tent entrance, but instead of anticipating Rawley’s return my thoughts were on the games and contests Fellen and I would have while we were recovering to keep us occupied. That, at least, hadn’t been utterly mind numbing. However, there didn’t seem to be much opportunity to play those games here. I still preferred to not interact with the wards if I didn’t have to, and even if I wanted to risk Old Lily’s attention she was too busy managing a variety of different tasks and she had to keep leaving the tent.

So I kept quiet and the morning kept progressing at a crawl. It didn’t help that the whole situation felt eerily similar to when my foot was recovering and that, in turn, kept causing me to have to pause and fight off mini flashbacks of the time surrounding that injury. I knew I wasn’t truly stuck in Grandmother’s tent, but my current lack of mobility and not having anywhere else I could go didn’t make it feel that way.

When a courtesy whistle sounded from outside to let us know that someone was waiting to enter and Old Lily whistled back for the person to enter, relief ran through me. I had little doubt to who it was. I set aside a new basket of snow berries as Fellen stepped into the tent. When the tent flap opened I saw her mother standing close behind her, but she stayed outside.

Fellen tied the tent flap closed again as Old Lily gave her a questioning look. “Your mother?”

Fellen gave her a tight smile. “She insisted on helping me walk here, but she’s going back to our tent to wait.”

Old Lily nodded in acknowledgment. “She was inconsolable for the first few days after you were separated. There’s little wonder that she doesn’t want to take her eyes off you now.” Old Lily gestured at me. “You can wait by Gimley. Grandmother should be returning soon from the meeting hall.”

Fellen settled by me with a grin and, annoyingly, I felt my shoulders relax. She picked up the basket of red snow berries before she took in my piles of unblemished, blemished, and ruined snow berries.

“How many baskets have you done?”

“Three.” Her eyebrows pinched and she frowned slightly, so I pressed her. “How many have you done?”

“Two and a third. I was in the middle of my third basket when it was time for me to come over here.”

The sweet taste of victory made me smirk. “I win this one.”

Fellen gave a forced shrug. “I’m still in the lead.”

I snorted. “Since when?”

She looked affronted. “Since I won the carrying contest yesterday.”

I rolled my eyes. “That was hardly a contest—and besides, if it had been than I would have won since Grandmother carried me.”

“It wasn’t about who carried us, but how.”

“Why because that’s what makes you win?”

“N-no!”

“I wouldn’t have thought you could be so shameless with the rules. It makes me wonder what other contests you might have bent to think you were only one away from beating my record.”

“I didn’t bend any rules! I really was one away if you count the time—”

Fellen cut herself off as Old Lily got up at the sound of footsteps crunching through the snow toward the tent. It still amazed me that she could so easily recognize the sound of her sister’s footsteps. Old Lily untied the tent flaps a moment before Grandmother pushed her way through them, her stride unbroken by any hesitation that they might have been still tied. Her gaze swept the tent, taking in the few wards still tending to their own business, Fellen and I, and Old Lily.

“Take the wards to the meeting hall. This tale is for my ears only until I share it,” Grandmother ordered Old Lily.

“Of course, sister.”

Grandmother settled on a thick bear fur as they hurried to put on their cloak and gloves before leaving the tent. Once the group left, she indicated for Fellen to retie the flaps again and for me to come sit closer. We did as she wanted without arguing. Grandmother waited until Fellen was sitting beside me again before she began.

“Tell me everything that happened from the time you stepped onto the rock bridge. Don’t tell me every corner and path you took. It’s not your place or mine to give away the secret to the goddess’s trial.”

Fellen and I glanced at each other, and because I stepped on the bridge first, I began to tell the story. We spoke of the bridge breaking and our panic and resolve. We each talked about our lack of supplies and our struggles to survive and find our way. Fellen talked about our rivalry more than I did, but we both skimmed over the argument we had been having before the shamble man first appear. We also brushed over my flashback in the thin ravines and I was quietly thankful to Fellen for that. We spoke of our prayers to the goddess, and Hana appearing from the shadow of a newly grown pine tree. Our narrow escape from the bane pack and falling over a waterfall into unknown underground passageways. The great room with the false night sky and the rivers falling into darkness. We spoke of finding the hidden path, but not where it was located or how we realized it was there. We told Grandmother about the room of various doorways, and that we need blood to find the correct path, but not the path we chose. Finally we covered making our way through the shamble men and making an offering to the goddess in the Grove. During that part I lessened the extent of Fellen’s panic to return the favor she had given me by brushing over my earlier weakness. Occasionally, Grandmother would ask us questions to clarify our perspective or a point in our story, but for the most part she sat still, soaking in our words, and reading every expression that crossed our faces.

She was quiet for a time after we finished, eyes closed, and I was tempted to break the silence just to see what would happen, but Fellen cast enough warning looks my way for me to quell that impulse. When Grandmother finally opened her eyes again, she seemed to relax.

“Thank you for sharing your story with me. There will be a celebration tomorrow night to recognize and share with the tribes that we now have two with trial marks in our midst. I will share your story then as well.”

Fellen blinked. “A celebration?”

I was just as shocked. “So soon?”

Grandmother chuckled. “I’m good at what I do and it wouldn’t do to wait longer than necessary to recognize boons from the goddess. If we didn’t have at least a celebration to honor what She gave you, She might take it ill.”

Fellen and I both knew firsthand how terribly things could go when the goddess didn’t seem to care about outcome of Her actions. That knowledge combined with the stories that warned of when the goddess had been in a foul mood? The rows of shamble men in the Statue Garden still rose clearly and horrifically in my mind. We had no desire to bring the goddess’s ill will on us, especially while we sat in the maw of the beast that had led to that disastrous change of temper.

Grandmother took note of our pale faces and reached over to pat Fellen’s knee. “All you’ll have to do is stand there and show off your new mark. The rest will fall on me.” Her gaze become piercing. “And when have my stories not left you in awe?”

Her utter confidence eased the brewing fear in my chest.

“Never, Grandmother.”

“Never,” Fellen echoed me.

Grandmother helped Fellen to her family’s tent after that with no more time for contests or debates. Already I could feel her slipping from me, but I squished that worry down into the pit of my stomach so that I could no longer feel its aching. She was returning to where she belonged, where she would be safe. I had to remember I had no part in that.

Rawley came to collect me shortly after that. It didn’t take me long to gather what little I had taken out of my backpack. She carried me on her back to the meeting hall and even though I didn’t like having to accept such obvious help, it wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as when Grandmother carried me into the valley the day before.