The days began to fall into a pattern, much as they had when I was training with Rawley before the Dark Night celebrations. Early morning was time we had to ourselves. Some slept in while others explored more or worked on their own personal training. I was typically one of the first to the cooking area—only Breck or Dera occasionally arrived before me. I would eat quick and leave before any of the other Seedlings had a chance to arrive. Then I would spend the rest of the time I had before Jin’s training poking around, trying to discover hidden areas or pathways or clues to what the passwords could be for the blocked paths. So far I hadn’t found anything so interesting or helpful other than a small nook off one of the paths near the outlook point. It was tucked between two branches where one grew from the other and then dipped and curved under the original. A sap railing blocked access to the secondary branch, but something about the slightly flattened top of the smaller branch had caught my attention, so I had climbed over the railing and very carefully checked out the possible path. Which revealed the small platform tucked underneath and blocked from view by needles on most sides. It wasn’t big enough for me to actually throw stones with my sling, but I had enough clearance to practice the motion without watching eyes. The platform was round and around six feet wide, more than enough room for a single person. Sometimes I spent my early morning in the nook, reviewing the things I had learned in private to keep them fresh.

Midmorning found everyone gathering on the training platform, unwilling to fall behind by missing Jin’s lessons. Normally, she began with some sort of strength building exercise or endurance training while she lectured us about a new topic. There was no guessing what topic would be covered. It could be anything from one of the sects to a specific whisper woman to the Beloved and the goddess to knowledge of terrain to skills like public speaking. Once she was satisfied that the majority of the group had absorbed the lesson—or was unable to continue the exercise satisfactorily—we were given a short break before participating in a team building challenge. She thought up some bizarre activities. Other than the human knot we also had to get objects over a finish line without using our hands and keep a heavy clay ball in the air without touching it twice. Other times we had to act as each other’s eyes and ears while trying to build a tower of twigs or fall back into our partner’s waiting arms without stumbling.

I always stumbled. Idra and Ento never did.

Nor did it escape my notice that I was always the last pick when it came to partners, more so than my own tendency to hang back could account for. Most of the group who had been present when I told Andhi to get touched by a shamble man wanted nothing to do with me and I knew word of the incident had spread to the rest of the girls. Despite our team training and Jin’s advice for us to bond the other seedlings were content to leave me alone. No one wanted to be the next to be unwittingly burned and they had all already picked their favorites.

Juniper had the luxury of always partnering with Idra or Ento, and the odd one out of their insular group would join up with an indifferent Breck. Loclen and Nii often paired together as did Ulo and Andhi. Wren partnered with Dera every chance she got, though sometimes she would give me a quick, unreadable glance during the transition between activities. So, I was often left with Prevna, whose lips would often quirk in a sarcastic and knowing way. I knew the sheer number of times we were partnered wasn’t a coincidence. Most of the others were also at least a little wary of her and willing to let the Picker deal with the odd, mean, unpredictable last member of the group. Still, I didn’t appreciate the feeling that Prevna was doing me a favor.

After team building we moved on to weapon practice. Apparently, whisper women were expected to be able to defend themselves in all manner of situations, just in case, along with being proficient at surviving on their own. Ento, Nii, and Breck were the forerunners in those lessons followed by Prevna, Ulo, and me. We all had skill with a sling as well as few different weapons. Nii was the champion of ranged weapons, thanks to her blessing. It seemed all she had to do was see where she wanted her shot to go and that was where her stone or spear or needle would land. It didn’t take long before Idra egged her on by asking if even a plate would land where she wanted it to. I think the egotistical girl was hoping to humiliate Nii, but the plate smacked the target dead center, exactly as intended.

Ento was skilled with an odd style that used a dagger in each hand. I wasn’t sure how it could have helped her with hunting, but fighting other humans with daggers begged for someone to accidentally trespass on the goddess’s right to death. Breck was skilled with more weapons than I thought a girl a year or two older than me should know. Spear, sling, knife, needle, stone hammer, lasso, if it could be used against an animal she had trained with it. The spear and lasso were where most of her skill lay, by far, but she was still better at the sling than I was despite splitting her focus between so many weapons. She was also better at the spear than Ulo and I could tell that aggravated the other girl.

Some of the girls, like Dera, Loclen, Juniper, and Wren had never hunted before and thus had had no reason to touch any weapon other than their eating knives. They had to learn everything from the ground up. I kept a blaze of gratitude to Rawley behind a blank face when I found that out. Jin ended up splitting us up into different training groups: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Beginner was focused on building their skill with the basic weapons of sling and spear. Those of us who already had some skill with those were placed in intermediate. We were tasked with advancing those skills as well as learning at least one more weapon. I chose the knife since it was simple and practical and traps apparently didn’t count. Prevna took up the whip, as did Andhi, while Jin opened up one of the trunks in the training area and gifted Ulo with a pair of gloves that had chips of stone stitched into the leather over the knuckles. Idra looked a little too happy when she first got her hands on the stone hammer she would be training with. The advanced group consisted of Ento, Nii, and Breck, and they were given free rein to practice on whichever weapon they wanted each training period.

After weapons training we were starving, sore, and more than ready for a late midday meal. That was when the cliques within our group became the most apparent. For the most part everyone sat with their housing group though Nii would join the third dome group so she could chat with Ulo and Loclen would settled down to talk with Prevna, Wren, and Dera. It was the rare day when they both joined the same group or sat with me instead. Loclen normally only sat nearby on the days that Prevna decided to sit next to me and amuse herself with my discomfort along with the annoying reminder that I had agreed to be allies. No one dared to try to break into the first dome group.

Then it was time for us to tromp back to the training area so that Jin could grill us with different challenges and scenarios that tested our problem solving and strategy skills. Practicing tracking and other intelligence gathering skills were also thrown in sometimes as well. Given Rawley’s focus on preparation and flexibility—along with the fact that such training had been one of her favorites—I excelled at that training. So much so that sometimes I earned glares from the others even before I had a chance to speak when Jin presented us with a new scenario. Not that I was perfect, but often I was able to develop a decent answer and justifications for it along with another possible approach while they were still parsing through the question. A product of my childhood conditioning, no doubt. However, when it came to stealth, Loclen and Juniper were the most skilled by far.

The last section of training was the most unexpected by far. We were taught how to write and draw on wide pieces of slate with sticks of chalk. Reading, of course, came with learning to write. When Breck and Idra balked at the lesson, Jin gave them extra work in the form of having a slate full of evenly spaced, small characters by the lesson the next day. She made it very clear that whisper women were expected to be able to communicate in a variety of ways and that drawing would help us share information and use maps in the future—never mind that in the tribes only healers and Echoes used writing to store and remember limited information. Healers for their labels and recipes, Echoes on the rare occasion Grandmothers needed to share secret information or a story with another Grandmother in another region or before they gathered for the cold season.

I took pains to hide the fact that I already knew the eighty-six basic characters; I had no need to disguise my wobbly lines and poorly sized shapes when it came to drawing, however. Prevna was the only one who knew about my healer past and I wanted to keep it that way. Still, I found Jin giving me a shrewd look shortly into the training, both during the writing lesson and the times when I used my knowledge of plants to come up with an answer to one of her riddles or scenarios during the strategy lessons. Apparently, years of reflexive training weren’t so easy to hide, though the other seedlings made no sign that they noticed a difference between my writing and theirs.

During the evening we were left to our own devices again. After the evening meal most chose to get some extra personal training in, or sit in their dome or the stage area and talk and work on simple tasks like washing clothes, repairing tears, tending to their weapons. As seedlings the fire starters weren’t obligated to take care of such menial tasks for us and there was comfort in the familiar work. Taking a dip in the bathing pool was also a popular activity, and laughter and splashing often drifted from it after meal time. I went later. The desire to see what the others’ bless marks looked like wasn’t enough to push me into such a vulnerable spot. Knowing their blessings was more than enough—though I had yet to figure out what exactly Ento, Idra, and Breck’s blessing entailed.

I spent the time in my nook going over my huntress training or poisons or plants or…healing. I knew I didn’t have the beads anymore and that if I ever actually indulged in healing someone again I would be in a mind numbing amount of trouble, but there was a…sense of comfort in thinking through the recipes and plant preparations. Comfort in knowing that I had knowledge and a skill set that I had earned, that none of the other girls could rival—not that they would have wanted to. Comfort in knowing that even though I was skilled at hurting and breaking others to protect myself, if I really needed to, in a way, I could put them back together and protect them too.

Of course, doing so at this point wouldn’t amount to much. What was my healing skill in comparison to a goddess’s wrath? My hand slipped down to touch the pouch the felt leaf I had cut was tucked into.

But if I really had to, if there was no other option, as long as I kept up my knowledge, I could. It wasn’t like I had anything else worthy of an apology.