Prevna stayed quiet longer than I thought she would after I told her about the trial. She seemed pensive and a bit worried, but not so much that she couldn’t bury it under her usual smile.

“And I thought you kept things interesting when you were kicked out to the shore.”

I pressed my lips together and didn’t respond to Prevna’s comment. Fury, now directionless, still burned in the back of my throat and under my ribs, though it had lessened somewhat after we made it across the thin paths and I laid the events of the trial out to Prevna.

In the past I always knew what was expected of me, what I needed to achieve next. I might not have liked the next step, but I had known what it was. Heal this person, learn that myth, work on these exercises.

The only time I felt close to the same as this was when I stopped having a mother. But even then there had been a few clear steps I could take: abandon her back, learn more skills that might help me once I reached the Seedling Palace, and do what I could not to get hurt again.

Not all of the steps had been successful.

Losing the healing beads…I swallowed. That had been even clearer in what I had to do to move forward, simply because of what I was no longer allowed to do. I might have done my best to avoid that clear fact and work around it, but the simple truth that I needed to move my focus to something other than healing had been present from the beginning.

The goddess’s punishment merely put a shining focus on that truth without allowing for loopholes or fine lines to edge around.

In a way, it felt like I had lost my healer’s beads all over again and I didn’t like it. At all.

But I couldn’t blame the goddess or her or Grandmother.

None of them had wielded the eating knife. I had.

So it was my own storming fault that emptiness and fury were scrambling around in my belly and no matter how many sacks I pictured I wouldn’t be able to tie them up and burn the feelings into oblivion.

Part of me wanted to stomp through the opening to the garden and destroy it all—why should anyone else be able to use it if I couldn’t—while another part of me shriveled up at the thought of ruining so many plants.

I might not be as limited as I had felt before, but the lack of something distinct to focus on made my fingers itch. Crossing the thin paths was already done and gone, so now I needed something else, anything else, to feel like I was moving forward with becoming a whisper woman.

“Gimley?” Prevna caught my attention. “It’s not like this is the first time you’ve caught the goddess’s attention, right?”

I blinked at her. “Not if Flickermark counts, but She didn’t act directly then.”

Prevna’s smile grew a little more genuine, a little more mocking. “She didn’t act directly this time either. The Head Priestess created the ice and you said that the Scale sect head made the declaration. So as long as you do what She wants, like you did before, you’ll be fine.”

I nearly sighed. “I would have died in Flickermark if not for my blessing.”

She shrugged. “You would died from Her punishment if not for your blessing. Perhaps it gets taken into account.”

“That’s not encouraging.” Even the memory of being frozen made my spine run cold. I did what I could to shake myself free of it. “Besides, I don’t know what She would want from me this time.”

Prevna gave me a look like the answer was obvious before she ticked off her points on her fingers. “No healing. Become a whisper woman.”

I glared at her. I knew that.

Prevna’s expression shifted to one that said I was an idiot as she added, “Finding all the stones would be a good place to start.”

My glare intensified. “I know.”

She snorted.

I hadn’t forgotten about the stones. I just hadn’t had any luck finding the remaining ones so far and I didn’t appreciate the lack of…control I had over the situation. It wouldn’t surprise me if most, or all, of the remaining stones had been found by the other seedlings already. Which put even more pressure on the need to convince them to join us and I wasn’t in a diplomatic mood.

After several more moments of long silence Prevna leaned back slightly and crossed her arms. “What now?”

My thoughts began to spiral, again, at the question, but I cut through them with a slash of my hand and gestured to the entrance that led to the garden. “We’re here. Let’s go look.”

Prevna gestured for me to lead the way, so I did—only to stop short as I stepped into the garden. The sweet and stringent scents, the taste of clean water in the air, the abundance of green carpeting the ground between the brown amber of the artificial tree’s roots where the water didn’t pool…

All of it hurt. All of it brought a dozen different recipes to mind; this recipe for swelling or that one to soothe a burn. This preparation or that alternative. This leaf during this time in the season or that stem as the cold season drew near.

I had thought that I could just push past it, stride forward and pretend like there was nothing there to affect me. But the sheer clarity that I couldn’t even indulge in partial preparations like I had before galled me. Nor did it help that, for whatever reason, Loclen, Dera, and Juniper were sitting together under the amber tree and gawking at my sudden halt. I vaguely noted that Ento and Idra weren’t close by in their usual guard positions, but the sheer lack pressing on me made it difficult to focus on the others.

My breathing picked up.

The impulse to destroy everything spiked, if only to make it so I didn’t have be confronted with all the things I couldn’t have for another moment. It was a small blessing then that I didn’t have the common blessing of fire or the garden likely would have gone up in a blaze.

Mother—

“What’s wrong?” Prevna’s voice.

I focused on it like a drowning idiot latching onto a line. Better this present than whatever memory my mind was about to dredge up. “Let me out.”

Prevna’s fingers caught around my wrist and she pulled me back through the pine needles, so that the garden was no longer in sight. As soon as I was through she dropped my wrist and asked, “Too much?”

I made a noise of agreement, still trying to get my mind in order. All of my anger was gone, drowned out by the shock of my reaction to the garden. They were just plants! Tools, nothing more.

Or at least that’s what they should have been.

Lying to myself didn’t make the loss any less. I might still be able to make poisons, but poisons hadn’t been my child solace. Even with her as my teacher, the motions of healing had been comforting and now I didn’t think I had anything else that filled that need.

“You should give yourself more time. The trial only ended a short while ago.”

And what? Meekly go back across the thin paths? Waste the day searching areas for stones that I had already looked through?

Prevna stepped into my space, not touching, and spoke sternly. “Gimley. If you take so much as a step through those pine needles I will poison you.”

Contrariness sparked and I relished the feeling. That was something I knew.

I crossed my arms. “As if I would let you.”

Her jaw set. “I will.”

I shut my eyes and stepped to the side through the pine needles. I felt them move as Prevna chased after me so I skipped back a few more steps and nearly plunged my foot into one of the pools. After that I risked cracking my eyelids open, just in time to dodge Prevna’s reaching hand.

Weaving to the side, I sprinted up one of the paths through the garden and did my best to focus on Prevna rather the plants surrounding us. She was determined to catch up with me and, with her longer limbs, she covered more ground more easily than I could. It wasn’t long before I had to duck past one of her reaching hands—only to be caught along the cheek by her other hand.

Fatigue billowed out from the point of contact, so strong and sudden that my knees buckled. Prevna caught me and I couldn’t summon the energy to push away from her. Couldn’t summon the energy to identify the poison other than that she had given me a large dose. It could have been anything from Sleeper’s Vine to Mourner’s Flower.

The others shouted something at us and Prevna replied before tugging me along with her. Whatever she said, none of them interfered though I did feel someone new slip under my free arm and support me from the other side.

I wanted to rage at Prevna for making me so helpless, for standing up to me, for finally making the edge of loss lessen, for doing what I couldn’t. I didn’t fall asleep, not while they were moving me, though I couldn’t keep my eyes open and an embarrassing yawn burst out part way through. Finally, I felt the comforting press of a thick pile of pine needles at my back and that crippled my resistance to sleep.

- -

When I woke Prevna was sitting against the needle bed they had laid me on. She noted that I was awake at the same time I noted that she was there but we both kept silent. The knowledge of everything that had gone wrong with Fellen rushed to the front of my mind and kept me from lashing out at her for what she had done, but I also couldn’t bring myself to thank Prevna.

For her part, I liked to think she looked a bit worried and guilty…and possibly a bit annoyed. She twirled a pair of pine needles between two fingers before flicking them away.

Then Prevna looked me straight in the eye. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but don’t make me do that again.”

I opened my mouth. Shut it. Gave a quick nod.

She relaxed slightly before glancing back toward the garden. “Can you make it through again?”

My jaw clenched. I had thought I had gotten rid of the limitation but, instead, I had only pushed it further back.

And now I was on the wrong side of it. “Not today.”

Prevna nodded like she had expected that answer. “We—”

“No others.”

She scowled at me. “They’ll notice. Loclen already helped me carry you here, so we can bring you food until you’re able to cross back over or we get the hidden passage unlocked.”

I turned my head to the side so I didn’t have to look at her.

After a couple more minutes I heard her get up and start to head toward the garden. I couldn’t help but ask one last question. “What poison was that?”

She stopped to reply, “Sleeper’s Vine.”

I let out a breath. The pollen from Sleeper’s Vine had no severe side effects. I would likely only have to contend with increased drowsiness for the next two or three days, given the large dose she had given me. It was normally used to help sick children rest or other fretful sleepers, if they allowed themselves to be treated. Of course, for the actual plant its prey typically didn’t wake up before it ate them, but nothing larger than a rat could fit in its petaled “mouth”. I remembered seeing one such plant up in one of the amber baskets on the tree and wondering how it survived there. Perhaps the Black Handed Healers took care of the plants, or fire starters, though none had come into the garden when I had been there. I also wondered how Prevna had recognized the plant, but she was already gone and it wasn’t the time to press for details.

Better to put plants out of mind as much as I could for now.

Better to focus on finding the stones and the fact that I had access to the library.

Better to do anything than let myself show such weakness again.