The Seedling Palace denied expectation. I had grown up with myths, had traveled through Flickermark numerous times, had watched the goddess darken the sky without even a gesture during Her procession. I had thought I knew Her work but, in comparison to the Seedling Palace, Flickermark was simply cracks in the ground and night during the day a transient change of lighting.

Prevna, Wren, and I stood near the whisper women who had brought us to the Seedling Palace in a pool of shadow on a branch of smooth bark, wide enough that it would have taken me at least ten long strides to cross from side to side. The branch was flattened on the top where we stood and a railing of amber sap rose from its edges to a grown adult’s waist level to prevent accidental falls. The shadow we stood in pressed up to the trunk of the tree, which was impossibly wide but also had pathways that wrapped around it and doorways carved into its sides—none of which connected to where we stood as far as I could tell. Pine needles, oddly deep purple and blue-black, sprouted everywhere from smaller branches; they severely limited how far you could see through the branches and shrouded some areas completely. However, to our right there was an open area where you could peer down into the branch pathways below. They all wove together, clearly not all coming from the same direction or the same tree. From what I knew from the myths, the Seedling Palace was a copse of six trees, impossibly tall and sturdy, that tangled together in the circle. Just like I knew there should be a gigantic lake that had once been mistaken for the edge of ocean close by, but the branches were too thick and the sky too dark to make it out.

The more I looked, the more that caught my attention. The branch we were on only had a handful of other branches that connected with it, limiting access to areas higher and lower than us. Some places at a glance only looked like they could be accessed through shadow. Nor did all the branches have railings, though the sap did bubble up at places where it looked like the branches had been flattened out into platforms and it seemed almost like coincidence that those bubbles formed buildings with entrances and windows. Some of the buildings were semi-translucent while most of them were opaque—all in varying shades of amber from soft yellow to gleaming orange to reddish brown. From what I could tell around half the buildings had carvings decorating their walls and entrances while the rest were left to showcase their natural, simple beauty.

I had expected the air to be as cold as it had back in the valley, but despite the fact that it was in the middle of the cold season and we were undoubtedly hundreds of feet in the air, the temperature felt like a cool warm season day. It wasn’t even enough to make me shiver. To add to the oddity, vines of ice wrapped around the tree trunk and branches, draped across them, without melting. Not to mention that everything was being lit up by giant pine cones with embers of fire shining out from beneath their shells, but the pine cones didn’t burn to ash. In fact, the pine cones and needles and branches might well as have been stone for all the damage the fire did.

I was breathing in the earthy, clean air—it sometimes had a hint of salt but there was too much to pay attention to more than make a mental note of the oddity—when the whisper woman who had taken me through the shadows spoke.

“Come.” She beckoned us forward.

The blond whisper woman flicked her hair over her shoulder and followed half a step behind with the brown haired one who could have been the leader’s twin. We followed in their wake as they led us around a gentle curve in the pathway and it was only then that I took time to notice the other arrivals. They might have been my competition, but taking stock of them paled in comparison to a first glimpse of the goddess’s work.

Some had been on the branch when we had stepped out of the shadow while the rest had arrived while I…took in the Seedling Palace. Regardless, there was twelve of us in all. One other group had arrived as a set of three while there was two pairs of two and the last were brought on their own. All looked to be between eleven and fourteen. Wren was the only one with an obvious animal companion and I was one of the shortest. One girl had hair a color I had never seen before. It was orangish-red and fell in soft strands to her waist, held out of her pale, freckled face with three different bone brooches—like she had stolen a bit of the sunset for her hair. She was on the smaller side as well and her mark swept up the right side of her neck in star shaped dots that gradually got smaller the closer they got to her ear.

Another girl that caught my attention right away was one of the two that had been brought on her own. She had a body that spoke of doing more push-ups than I had ever cared to count and dark eyes that were restlessly alert, like we might be attacked at any moment. I doubted anything would attack us in the heart of the goddess’s domain, and mess up her twin brown braids and tanned skin, but I didn’t want to miss anything important, so I kept a watchful eye out as well.

After we rounded the curve in the branch—and I could see past the needles in the way—we found two wide platforms, one on either side of the branch somewhat off-center to each other, before the pathway continued on and was gently overlapped by another branch perpendicular to it. The overlapping branch had a tunnel carved through it while the right platform held four domes of sap and the left stair-stepped down before ending in an oval stage.

A whisper woman stood in the middle of the branch, blocking our way to the left platform and the tunnel. She looked to be middle-aged with wrinkles crinkling around the corners of her yellow eyes and black hair messily pulled back into a bun. Interestingly, though jewelry was rare at the best of times, her left nostril and earlobe were pierced with small bone hoops that looked shaped like a bird’s wing. The hoops were connected by a delicate black leather cord with small teardrop knots regularly tied into its length. The jewelry contrasted well with her warm olive skin tone. She wore the whisper woman’s common gray and black dress that swirled like mist around her and a light weight dark blue robe that fell just past her hips and was held closed by a white belt about four fingers wide with a pattern of gray pine trees. One side of the robe had slipped down off her shoulder and she was bare foot. All in all, she looked like she had just woken from a nap and hurried to get dressed, and I had a sinking feeling that this wouldn’t be the only time we saw her.

I blinked in surprise, however, when her appearance was immediately contradicted by her cool, commanding voice.

“You may leave.”

Wool and fur rustled around us as the whisper women who had brought us to the Seedling Palace bobbed their heads in acknowledgment before striding back the way we had come. The whisper woman who had brought me gave me a suppressed grin as she passed. As they left, the whisper woman in charge took us in with a flick of her bright gaze. For some annoying reason it made me want to flinch. I resisted the impulse though I noticed a few of the other girls didn’t, including Wren.

“You may call me Jin, or mistress, depending on how bad a temper you put me in.” Wry humor suffused her voice as she took in the mix of confused, determined, and shocked faces. “Welcome to the Seedling Palace, young ones.”

Irritation flitted through me at the description, given that we had all recently stepped into adulthood and still could not avoid being belittled.

Jin clasped her hands together. “I am to be your guide and mentor here, at least for the first short while. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to ask me, within reason, and I will provide you with what answer I can. My first bit of advice I will offer freely. If there is one thing you remember from your time here, remember this: a seedling’s growth is its own. It might not be able to pick where it started to sprout, the soil that it grows in or how much water it will receive. But its growth is its own. It might put out roots to make sure it gets the water it needs and grow straight and tall or, despite being wracked by storms and growing crooked, it might continue to persevere. Or it might die.”

The last line came out like a blow without anything to soften the impact. Her gaze was cool and hard as she swept it over all of us before she continued, “We are not here to coddle you. Our training—the water we provide if you will—could just as easily give you what you need as drown you. It is up to you to make the call for much you need and can withstand.” She opened her arms wide. “Training starts midmorning tomorrow. If you want to partake, your first task will be to find me.” Jin gestured to the side. “Housing is to your right; three people to a building. The rest of the time is yours.”

She stepped backward into the shadow made by the overlapping branch and disappeared. We stood there, wide-eyed and shocked for several moments before murmurs began to rise between the girls who seemed to know each other or were outgoing enough simply strike up a conversation. I turned to look at Prevna and Wren, but Wren already had her arm around the redheaded girl in a very over familiar gesture. Prevna glanced back at me, gave an apathetic shrug, and followed the pair as Wren steered the other girl towards the yellowish bubble of sap that was the second one in from the left. Another group of three was already claiming the leftmost red-brown dome for themselves.

I turned to look at the remaining girls, but as I did so a group of three passed by. Which left me staring awkwardly at the final two. One was the buff girl I had noted earlier while the other was distinctly more willowy in nature. The willowy girl had skin slightly darker than Wren’s acorn skin tone and her black hair was cut super short. That surprised me as most people I had known had let their hair grow and then bundled it out of the why in a plait or bun rather than go through the hassle of regularly cutting it. Her adult clothing was also different from my own whereas most of the other girls’ had been generally similar. She still wore a dress though it clearly wasn’t the undyed, shapeless child’s dress I was used to. Hers was fitted around her bust and waist with teeth clasps with an over and under layer. The under layer was dark brown with carefully stitched green vines covering the thick dress. The over layer left the fabric over her chest and the front of the skirt visible while it covered her arms and the rest of the other layer in deep green. She looked to be about my age and wholly out of place.

Her lips pursed thoughtfully as she gazed back at me before announcing, “Loclen.”

The other girl rolled her eyes before also stating her name. “It’s Sanii but call me ‘Nii’.”

“Gimley.”

They nodded and we headed for the last available dome: the rightmost amber colored one. We weren’t really a group, but I liked it better that way. I didn’t need to take on the hazards of another friendship so soon after I had ruined the last one—not to mention that it would be an unneeded distraction that I couldn’t afford with my training. So we entered the dome and set up our spots quietly independent of one another by the slightly wavering light of a fire pine cone that hung from a hook in the ceiling.