The entire group’s attitude toward me shifted after Yolanda’s pronouncement. The change was as subtle as it was discomforting. If I had been mildly infamous before, now I was positively marked out as something to pay attention to in the group’s eyes.

Like a snowstorm roiling through the sky and smothering everything in its wake.

I was in the goddess’s eye and that was where no one wanted to be, not unless they had the recognition of being Chosen. Disaster and destruction and death lay that way for everyone who hadn’t reached the heights of their power before drawing Her attention, because if it wasn’t appreciation of skill that brought Her gaze, then it typically was her ire.

For as powerful as the women around me were they couldn’t help the fear that they might end up as collateral damage if they stayed in my vicinity. There was no way to tell how long the goddess might stay interested or if She might have already moved on before Yolanda even stated the matter finished.

Despite that, and the thought that kept chasing itself around my head—no healing, none, or I’d be unable to move my eyes, take a breath, the cold—I noticed that fear wasn’t the sole reaction even if it was the most unanimous. Jin’s mouth twisted with disgust and Yule seemed…envious. Esie had taken a half-step backward and lifted her hand from my shoulder before catching herself and staying near, possibly out of concern or pride or solidarity. Mishtaw and Melka seemed concerned while the commander and Rivon had increased notes of interest in their posture. The accusatory whisper woman simply seemed horrified and Yolanda kept impassive.

I didn’t like any of it.

Didn’t want or need it.

If, in that moment, I could have handed Her attention and the group’s focus over to Yule like she seemingly wanted, I would have. No healing and no excuses.

With Her attention even actual first aid might be counted as suspect. That thought, in particular, made the realization I kept trying to discard come back in awful focus.

I could only be a whisper woman.

Perhaps I could dabble in poisons or recite all the knowledge I had learned about plants and mixtures until I had no breath left, but they were but hollow echoes of what I wanted to do.

Every cure I made and every wound I had healed had been mine. My work and my knowledge and effort. The product of long hours of study on a craft others knew little of. Even when I helped her, we both knew my skill had a hand in the outcome despite her downplaying that fact. I let her claim the patients, she and no one else could take my work.

But then my beads were gone, so I had to harbor the slight hope that maybe, just possibly, every now and again I could slip a small act of healing under Her notice. I gathered the ingredients and told myself I wouldn’t actually act on the impulse. That having them close was enough. But if ever things got dire…I was only a Seedling and surely one tiny act wouldn’t catch attention.

Of course, now I knew the idiocy of that line of thought and it made my skin feel tight even as my insides wanted to float away into dust. What was I supposed to be if not a healer’s daughter? What did I have?

For all of the time that had passed since I had been brought to the Seedling Palace by Esie the first time, “whisper woman” had gained very little meaning. The whisper women I had met seemed to hold little in common and Jin’s teaching, if it could be called that, hadn’t yielded many new tidbits of information about the different sects or how to become a part of one. I could assume different skills were important, but not much to go on to figure out which ones different sects would prefer or even which sect I might want to join.

I knew that was by design. As a new Seedling I was supposed to be focusing on honing the basics. Basics that only held functional interest to me or that I had already learned. Teamwork and weapons, endurance and writing, communication and tactics. A smattering of knowledge about whisper women from our lessons and history from the scrolls I painstakingly worked my way through.

It wasn’t enough.

With healing I could clearly picture the end goal, could see how all the different pieces of knowledge and skill worked together. All I had now were disparate pieces that couldn’t come together to make a goal.

I might only be able to be a whisper woman, but I couldn’t even be that if I didn’t know how to be it.

Useless.

Her voice hissed through my mind, unerring in its timing and accuracy. It wasn’t as if I could be useful when the one thing I could count on being good at had just been truly taken away by the goddess’s storming eye.

“Now for the third and final matter.” Yolanda’s clear voice cut into my spiraling thoughts. “It is rare for a seedling to accomplish something great enough to be recognized and awarded.” Irony didn’t coat her words, but given what had just happened with her second pronouncement I thought it should have. “You claim to have recognized the lack of wind and alerted your group early during the Fog Incursion. After, you made sound enough arguments to convince the squad leaders with you to focus on the caves which then led to the region’s wind being released and a sea snake killed before it could harm the goddess’s forest.” She turned to Mishtaw, Melka, and Tasha. “Do you still corroborate these claims?”

A distant note of surprise pressed through the tumble of my thoughts as Tasha stepped forward. “I do, mistress. The snake was already dead when my group arrived, but of those we rescued no one else has claimed to kill it or were in a position to make a killing blow.”

Mishtaw set her shoulders and stepped up next to her. “She might be impulsive, but Gimley also seems to have a mind for tactics and no one else from our party would have been…given to jumping into the snake’s mouth.”

Melka agreed, though she also looked a little ashen after the goddess deigned to pay attention to a healing performed on her. “Aye, mistress.”

Yolanda nodded gravely. “Then the scales must be balanced. Nadia, as the—”

“You can’t mean to reward the heathen. She healed—”

Yolanda’s impassive gaze became stone as she cut off Jin. “That matter is settled.” Her eyes cut over to the commander. “Can the Peacekeepers not even keep the peace among their own ranks?”

The commander’s voice was as sharp as a spear piercing flesh. “You are dismissed, Jin. If you cannot know when to exercise your brand of peace and when to keep your mouth shut, then I will shut it for you.”

Jin’s jaw worked for a long moment before she inclined her head the shallowest amount. “Yes, mistress.”

When she rose, the bite of of her false smile promised pain and spoke volumes of the idiocy she thought everyone who supported me was committing.

I saw Rivon watching her striding departure with a cruel smile of her own. “A pity that she seems to have a lack of wit as well as decorum.”

“Jin has more wit than you, Rivon, she just also happens to have more conviction,” the commander supplied.

Rivon’s face darkened with what I thought was her first true show of real emotion, but she kept her voice airy, “Should we not focus on the trial?”

“Indeed.”

Yolanda turned to the commander again. “As the leader in charge of the battle front where these events occurred, do you have a suggestion for how to recognize this seedling’s accomplishments?”

The commander seemed to relax slightly. “Of course. I propose that she is awarded with a proper mentor that can help her improve the skills that helped her change the course of the battle.”

Rivon tutted, of all things. “It’s already been ruled that she can have no mentors.”

“Unless she proves herself worthy of one.” The commander held up a placating hand. “Please don’t strain yourself trying to keep up.” She focused on Yolanda. “The scales have changed with these corroborations, correct?”

The Scales sect head nodded. “Do you have a name in mind?”

The commander smiled. “That is something for her patron to decide.”

Yolanda looked to Esie who stepped up smoothly next to me. “The Lady of Calm Waters prefers that Mishtaw continues her teaching of this seedling after the trial of Seed Landing is completed. Is that acceptable?”

I did my best to keep my eyes from flying wide open. Mishtaw as a mentor? I had assumed I wouldn’t see her much now that the battle was over. She had been more understanding than Jin, though that wasn’t difficult, and she had been decisive in taking action when I did something stupid, but I wasn’t sure that she would want the position. She hadn’t exactly wanted to be in charge of seedlings when we were first placed in her care.

Mishtaw spoke, “I wouldn’t be able to mentor her every hour as I have other obligations, but if this proposal is accepted, I would accept the responsibility.”

Yolanda considered for several long minutes as she had done before while I tried to work through why Mishtaw would ever want to be my mentor with all the dangers and complications involved. I didn’t come up with an answer other than the possibility that she felt an inordinate amount of responsibility for me.

Finally, Yolanda made her decree. “This last matter is settled. Mishtaw will become the seedling’s mentor to help develop her skills so that she can be of further use to the goddess. However, the seedling will still be denied other mentors unless another ruling is made.”

Esie winked at me.

The gathering dispersed quickly after that. Mishtaw came over to promise that she would try to meet with me soon after I drank the shadows and Melka offered awkward congratulations for the mixed results of the rulings. We all did our best to ignore what had happened in the middle as they talked and I tried to wrap my mind around it all. I barely noticed the image filled tunnel as we returned to shadowed area we had arrived at. Then Esie took me back to the Seed Landing, bid me goodbye, and left me to my own thoughts.

They kept up a familiar refrain.

No healing, but I had a decent mentor. No healing, and the goddess was watching me, had frozen me in that storming state. No healing, so I didn’t know what to focus on. No healing, but I definitely had an enemy or two and I was next to useless unless you counted simple thinking and impulsive, desperate acts.

I let out a breath, but the refrain continued as I made my way to my nook. After all that, I had little energy to spare for anyone else I might see.