Roots didn’t lash out from the ground and smother me in their embrace. A sudden squall didn’t form and strike me down with lightning or freeze me into a statue with icy snow. The goddess’s forest didn’t shift and darkness didn’t descend. My mark didn’t even prickle.

Melka breathed, but I hesitated to relax and join her as I waited for the goddess’s censure.

Had I escaped Her notice?

I was only a seedling. Perhaps I was insignificant enough to the goddess not to warrant punishment or vigilance. She might be thought to have an all seeing eye, but just because you could see everything didn’t mean you could pay attention to it all.

Then my eyes caught on the whisper women who had been carrying Melka and I knew I hadn’t escaped judgment after all. What the goddess didn’t care to do, we were perfectly capable of doing for Her.

Condemnation and distrust marred the expressions of all three whisper women. The wide eyes of one even burgeoned on fearful while another looked like I had just spit in her eye.

I knew those looks, that stiff body language, the stance caught between wanting to move away and rush forward to remove the threat. I had grown up with them when I still had healer’s beads to justify the response.

Too much life. Unnatural. Dangerous.

Those looks said it all.

And I didn’t have the beads to keep them in check. To mark me out as one sanctioned to do what I’d done, no matter how distasteful it was to everyone else.

Funny how I had never thought of the healer’s beads as being symbols of protection before. Though that was hardly surprising given the amount of scorn they elicited—even among some who wore them.

The need to run buzzed through my exhausted legs.

I never should have pointed out my shortened lock of hair or done anything remotely close to healing in front of others. I don’t know how else I could have gotten them to put Melka down or gotten the dying woman alone, but I knew down to my bones now that despite the impulse to save her, I shouldn’t have done it. Not as I had.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t used herbs and had said it wasn’t healing. Who could trust the word of a healer? Likely, they had seen other healers do something similar and they knew they would never have done it, if they even knew how.

Melka was breathing now because I had given her breath and I had no beads. In their eyes I had healed her. You could not practice healing without the beads. Doing so merited swift and brutal judgment. A cold and clear line of logic. That was enough for them.

In saving a woman I barely knew, I had condemned myself.

Phantom eyes began to bore into me, snide comments and whispers flinting on the edge of hearing as memories rose, trying to pull me into their depths. Unlike with the fog there were plenty of memories tied to the looks levied at me. They pulled at me, trying to override my senses and make me believe I was a healer’s child again, shameful and pathetic and tainted.

But I had no mother and there were so many memories it oddly made it easier to shove them back from the forefront of my mind. I could not be at the end of the line waiting for the dregs of the tribe’s midday meal while I was also at the edge of the lake watching the other children play water games and pointedly ignore me. I could not be in the tent enduring her favored look of disappointment while a limping huntress I was supposed to help bring there recoiled from my touch while the sun shone overhead. On and on and on.

Indignation sparked in my chest.

Who were they to bring the memories up against me, even unwittingly? Who were they to level looks of horror and disgust at me when I had just delivered the final blow to the Lady Blue’s sea snake?

I had protected the goddess’s forest. I had saved Melka, one of their own and the second-in-command of a squad. I had saved the commander from a deadly fall off the root wall and completed her trial with the crawler. Further back, I had completed the goddess’s own trial to escape Flickermark with nothing but the clothes on my back.

They had no right to judge me. Not with every other act I had done to counteract this one.

The need to run still itched at me, but exhaustion pulled at me harder and I knew I would never outrun them, especially with my hurt leg. Besides, the indignation burned hotter as Melka rolled onto her elbows, spluttering the last of the water out of her lungs and I drew in my own breath of sharp, cold air.

I glared back at the three whisper women. “That wasn’t healing.” I gestured to Melka. “She’s getting the water out all on her own.”

The one who had been carrying Melka’s feet protested, “But before—”

Beyond caring about being sensible or her sensibilities, I cut her off. “That wasn’t healing. Or don’t you think the goddess would have punished me by now?”

The talkative one snapped, “What was it then?”

“First aid. Like bandaging a wound.”

They stopped short at that though I could tell they didn’t fully believe me. Bandaging a wound might not belong solely in the healer’s domain, but did what I had done fall in the same narrow category?

Bandaging a wound and changing bandages didn’t often count as healing because it could be argued that the body was still healing itself without any outside help so no surplus of life was being generated. The body itself was maintaining the necessary internal balance between life and death. Personally, I also thought it was because being able to bandage yourself or others was only practical, especially when it came to more grievous injuries, if you wanted a better chance of survival rather than gushing blood for an ideal.

However, it was also true that not everyone carried bandages and were more likely to bring their trouble to a more specialized person if a healer wasn’t immediately available, someone known to hold more death than others. Like the huntresses or Grandmother or an Echo like Old Lily. Better the risk fall on someone less likely to punished rather than the common person who didn’t have any death in them to spare.

These whisper women didn’t know where in the balance I fell. All they knew was that I was a seedling, which meant I had less death in me than them, and that I had alluded to having healer’s beads at some point in the past--all of which pointed to me having more life in me than was safe or good for this situation.

So I touched a finger to my chin and felt them all lock onto the trial mark that decorated my skin there. It presented a silent argument. How could I be life-ridden if I had completed one of the goddess’s trials at my age and been recognized for it? Surely, such a thing meant I had death in me to spare just like those other people who might bandage a wound if a healer wasn’t at hand. And that meant, if giving breath for breath was like bandaging a wound, there was little risk to what I had done.

They thought and considered and at least one, the one who had supported Melka’s head, didn’t like it. The middle one relaxed as she thought through the implications and seemed to accept my assertions. The last one gave me a long, long look before finally seeming to decide that this was my risk alone to bear.

I decided to push one last time and gestured to Melka again. “You should still take her to an actual healer.”

More than one glare was directed my way and the whisper woman who had become the main voice of the group spoke, “The goddess’s wrath may yet find you.”

I dredged up all the false confidence I could muster. “Then I’ll accept Her anger then.” I waited for a moment before adding, meeting her gaze. “But there is no fault for Her to find here.”

The whisper woman’s eyes narrowed as her lips pressed into a line. “That’s for the goddess to judge.”

At that point Melka had regained enough presence of mind to rasp out, “The snake?”

“Dead.” The corner of my mouth curled up in a vicious little smile.

She blinked slowly, processing that, before asking, “The others?”

The whisper woman swooped in and helped her to her feet before I could answer again. “Being found and brought back to camp, just like you.”

She wrapped Melka’s arm around her shoulders while the whisper woman who had previously supported Melka’s feet stepped in to support her other side. They began to guide her forward while the last whisper woman was directed back to help the other rescue efforts and I was promptly ignored.

I doubted this would be the last of the issue though. There had been too much distrust in their manner. Once everything calmed down someone would bring up the fact that I had saved Melka and not everyone would simply accept my thin arguments that I hadn’t actually healed her.

Not when I wasn’t even entirely sure on which side of the healer’s domain my actions actually lay. The goddess hadn’t killed me where I sat, so according to common knowledge that meant I hadn’t healed someone without healer’s beads. But there was still the truth I had only seen healers perform the act before and there was still the fact that the knowledge of what I needed to do had been passed down from a healer.

At the same time I could believe my impromptu arguments about why it wasn’t actually healing. I hadn’t used herbs and I had merely made it so Melka’s body could do what it normally would on its own. Plus, I wasn’t as life-ridden as I used to be. Ever since I cut off my beads the life in me that had built up from my years as a healer’s apprentice should have been ebbing away. I wasn’t healing enough to sustain the taint and though people from a healer’s family were thought to naturally have more life in them, that also should be fading now that my connection with them was broken. Her extra life couldn’t spill into me anymore.

Raised voices broke into my thoughts and I shoved the dilemma away to focus on what was happening.

Mishtaw had been found! Tasha, in her hawk form, was lifting the squad leader out of the ravine. Mishtaw looked half-drowned, blood matted hair stuck to the side of her head and neck where her braid had come loose, another long cut bloodied her protective jacket on her left thigh, and her right shoulder looked dislocated as she was only hanging from Tasha by one talon.

But otherwise she looked alert and was breathing.

A line of tension loosened in my shoulders. No one had died despite the terrible odds of the fight. Frankly, I was a little amazed that Beet and I seemed to have gotten away with the lightest of injuries out of everyone—unless Juniper and Idra hadn’t been too badly hurt from being head butted across the snowy cliff top.

I stayed where I was and waited. There wasn’t any need to make another spectacle of myself when one of the whisper women who had seen me possibly heal Melka was still around and Tasha and Beet had both cast appraising looks at me when they talked before. I wasn’t sure if they thought I was lying about killing the snake and trying to take the credit or if they believed me and now were uncomfortably interested in my potential. I didn’t need more people trying to influence or use me.

I had had more than enough of that already.

Once Mishtaw touched down on the ground and Tasha returned to her human form, they gathered the handful of remaining whisper women and began to walk and talk as they headed back to the outpost camp. Mishtaw had to be in a great deal of pain but she hid it well and refused to let anyone help support her, though she did have a slight limp with her injured leg. No one moved over to help me either, but when Mishtaw noticed me she gestured for me to follow. I didn’t miss the guarded surprise in her expression.

I followed, slow and limping, as we made our way back though I never quite caught up enough to hear what was said between the whisper women. When it was time to travel through the shadow paths it was Tasha who gripped my wrist. If she hesitated before doing so, it was too quick for me to catch when I was focused on putting one foot in front of the other rather than lying down to sleep for an entire day like my body wanted to do.