Rawley brought me to an outcropping of rock high up on the western side of the mountains the day after the festival ended. It provided a good view of half the valley in the early afternoon light and as she settled down to sit behind me, I was reminded of our first lesson together. However, this time she didn’t ask to fix my hair.

Instead, interest and command mixed in her tone as she said, “Tell me what you know.”

And I did. The information poured out of me as I was able to talk freely about plants and other ingredients and their uses for the first time in over half a year. I told her about Black Root, the ill effects caused by the mingled scents of ghost petal and ember weed, the nausea and fever from a mixture of feverluck and spiritflower. Rawley listened with quiet patience as I listed out the mixtures and poisons I knew and wasn’t supposed to use, the uncomfortable and terrible effects they could have from an upset stomach to delirium to bleeding sores, and the ingredients I knew could have ill results beyond a certain dosage but hadn’t been taught what those were. The process was made easier as well by the fact that I didn’t have to worry about trying to read Rawley’s reactions from her face; she was simply a solid…reassuring presence behind me.

When I finished, she stayed quiet for several long moments as she got her thoughts in order. When she did speak her voice was more cautious than I expected. “You have more knowledge than I had realized.”

Defensive pride stiffened my own. “I was eager to learn. A couple times I mixed herbs or changed doses during practice to see what would happen—she didn’t want to waste time telling me. After that she took to explaining every last thing about a plant to me, so that I wouldn’t have a reason to experiment.”

“A smart choice. The huntresses wouldn’t have been kind on you or the healer if they learned you infringed on their domain.” A chill slipped down my back at her words. “Have you used this knowledge—in any small way—since those experiments?”

I was quiet a beat too long as the couple pranks I had played over the past months came to mind. At the time, I had just thought of them as unconventional uses of my knowledge, if not strictly advised. “No.”

Rawley gently flicked me on the back of the head. “Don’t use it again. Not without dire need and this—”

She held her right wrist out and pulled back her sleeve so that my attention was drawn to her mark. It was the first time I was able to truly look at it. She had the huntress mark, a spear head that, in her case, was decorated with a line trap, but it was a shock to see that she also had a crossed out Pack huntress circle around the design. I knew that she had once belonged to a Pack, but to see that stark symbol ruined grounded the finality of that decision—similar to the loss of my beads in a way. She also had a smaller spear head on the opposite side of the dot on her wrist as a sign that she had taken on an apprentice. What I think she wanted me to pay attention to, however, was the three leafed plant tucked around the point of her huntress spear head. I didn’t recognize it as any specific plant, but given our discussion it seemed important.

Rawley pulled her wrist back. “I will give you the three leaves of poison once I think you deserve them. Get caught dabbling in poison craft without them and you can expect to be exiled. No one wants the goddess’s wrath to fall upon the tribe because someone untrained or unfocused thought they were making a draft to temporarily immobilize an opponent and instead stopped their ability to breathe.” She let out a long breath. “Poison is a strict and precise craft that encourages perfection. Do you understand why?”

I stared out at where the meeting hall rose up near the river in the valley. “We don’t have the right to heal whatever we break.”

She hummed a noise of approval. “Nor the knowledge in most cases. Given your history, you seem to have a more in depth knowledge of plants and how to apply them to different uses. For huntresses it is different. We don’t have the luxury to experiment, so what we know is uncompromising in its execution and those…recipes we learn are passed from one generation to the next. For example, spiritflower. Take five mature blossoms and crush them until they are ground into a mushy pulp. Strike a medium sized beast such as a boar with no more than three weapons tipped with the pulp and it will become sluggish and disoriented in less than hour.”

“But what if the boar is hit with more than three spears? Or you’re hunting larger prey?”

“Than the meat could be ruined or the hunt dishonored as the huntresses’ didn’t use their own strength to make the kill or both. For larger prey a different recipe would apply as we can’t know what to change the dosage of spiritflower to.” Rawley rested a hand on my shoulder. “These recipes are what I would teach you. Are you still interested?”

It wasn’t quite what I had hoped, but it was also still the best opportunity I had to work with plants and expand my knowledge. “I am.”

“Good.” She took her hand away. “What do you think the three leaves of the poison symbol stand for?”

I clenched my jaw as I struggled to find the the correct answer. All of the leaves had looked the same and other than her warned the topic of the symbol had barely been brushed on. “The right to use poison.”

Rawley chuckled. “Yes, but individually?”

Any answer was better than none. The different colors of healer’s beads meant the different parts of the body we healed and the plants we used, so perhaps… “The different types of poison you use?”

Her approval warmed my back as she elaborated on my answer. “We use poison to induce three states: slowed, weakened, and immobilized. Each poison you learn will fall into one of these categories—and they are not to be mixed unless a recipe specifically induces more than one state.”

The lesson continued on from there as Rawley picked several of the plants I had named and taught me through pure repetition a few different recipes they could make, a recipe for each type of state. Spiritflower to slow, a large dose of ember weed to weaken, and a large dose of Black Root with two leaves of ghost petal to immobilize.

Each day I learned the theory of poison craft, but I wasn’t allowed to touch any plants or make the recipes I was learning. Instead, I had to prove over and over and over again that I knew the correct doses and the correct part of the plant to use and how to apply it. Most often that was through a cut on the skin or having the poison imbibed. Some, however, could use smell or touch but those were more dangerous to handle and Rawley refrained from delving too deeply into them so early into my training.

Nor was my regular training completely put to the side—in fact, it ramped up after the Heartsong Festival. The late morning free time I had to spend with Fellen changed to dual training in games of stealth and tracking as well as tests of quick, strategic decision making. I won more of those games and tests than Fellen, but somewhat irritatingly she made up for it in the early afternoon when we practiced with sling and spear. Her accuracy had passed mine though Rawley assured me that I was still quite good at the sling for how long I had practiced it. The spear was another matter. Like with dancing I was decent at it, but I lacked the knack to intuitively know how to improve, so each point of progress took longer than I liked. We split in late afternoon so that each huntress could focus on teaching her apprentice about her specialty. Fellen and Nole went to the Pebbled Eye and the river to practice spear fishing and diving while Rawley took me all over the valley and mountains to showcase different types of traps and their uses. I learned about trip wires, pit traps, snare traps, deadfall traps, claw traps…by the end of it I no longer wondered how they had become her specialty. The sheer variety and her dedication to maximizing the use of each one spoke for itself. After the evening meal we had even more training in the form of endurance tests followed by stretching as we answered our mentors’ questions about various animals and plants.

I think my impending departure and Fellen’s unwavering dedication to her new goal was what pushed the urgency behind the lessons. Rawley was determined to fit years of training into less than two months and Nole was ill-pressed by Fellen to ramp her training up to a similar pace for the time being. All in all, I liked how busy I was during those weeks and how little I stayed inside a tent. Crest, Keili, and Veris joined in as well during the group training and kept the conversation lively at meal times.

But the goddess was always keen on reminding her people that easy, enjoyable times were fleeting and to be treasured. A little over a week before the Dark Night celebrations the sentries in the west mountains sent word that they spotted a severe, fast moving storm heading our way. The news spread through the valley like wild fire as everyone knew we could have only a handful of hours before the storm hit. Ghani’s voice could be heard over the growing wind as she directed us and tents were dismantled and lashed to the ground in organized groups—by tribe—on the lee side of the meeting hall and herd holding pen. Herders drove their animals across the river and shallow lake; those that were granted access to the holding pen took their herds there while the rest were guided into the artificial pens made by the lashed tents.

The Root and Branch clans streamed from the mountains to join the rest of us in the meeting hall, but the Spire clan, as always, kept to the right side of the eastern mountains. Often the bad storms would tire themselves out climbing over the western mountains and then spend what was left of their strength in the valley, so it was safer for them to stay put.

I huddled with Fellen in the lone huntress area of the meeting hall. We had been in the middle of morning training with the huntresses when the warning came. Crest, Keili, and Veris immediately left to ready their things, but Nole and Rawley’s things were already in the meeting hall, so we went to help some of the older members of the tribe ready for the storm. Once they were safely inside the meeting hall we stayed put as well. Trying to find family or friends in the organized chaos helped little and generally made the confusion worse—there were instances in the past where someone got stuck outside because they were looking for a family member who was already in the hall and misjudged how fast the storm was approaching. So now it was enforced by the huntresses that entering the hall was the priority and once the thick skin flaps covering the doorway were tied closed people could search for and gather with their loved ones if they weren’t already together.

I noticed when Grandmother entered the meeting hall with Old Lily and some of the other wards, but I didn’t go to her. For one, I preferred to stay with Fellen and Rawley and two, it was better to wait until everyone arrived, as Fellen had to do. The meeting hall filled as everyone rushed in, frantic with bits of news about the storm. Finally, the last stragglers came in and the huntresses at the door judged that the flaps couldn’t stay open any longer. A hush fell as everyone watched them cut off entrance into the meeting hall and the whistle of the wind. Gloom truly settled over the space with only the glow stones and a few fires to light it. I wondered how long we would all be stuck in here.