Walking down the covered staircase with the whole cohort was an odd experience. Breck led the way with the pine cone lantern while Prevna and I followed a few steps behind the rest. On one hand, the slide of the light through the narrow space and the crowd in front of me was eerily similar to traveling through Flickermark’s exit tunnel. On the other, that same light revealed that I wasn’t in that horrid place or with my tribe.

Still, I had to keep focused to make sure I didn’t panic and slip into any memories. Prevna stayed close as well. Presumably to help pull me out of it, which wasn’t always possible until I realized what was happening, or to cover for me if she couldn’t. I let her keep the position despite the twist of tension that came with it and my resolve to deal with this particular issue on my own. I had traveled down the stairs on my own before and had been fine. It would be the same now.

I concentrated on each step downward. No one spoke. The usual chatter within groups shut down with the significance of what we were about to earn. Better to be quiet and respectful on the way to earn the goddess’s boon even if I had to fight Ulo to get us going.

The patch of wall with the inlets for the stones wasn’t remarkable at first glance. Branches twisted in and around themselves to make the wall, same as everywhere else on this annoying pathway. Look a little longer, however, and the twists and knots of wood were no longer a chaotic mess. Some of them formed eyes, with holes in the middle perfectly sized for the stones we carried. Others connected the eyes together so that each one punctuated the point of a branch of a pine tree.

Idra considered the design. “Does it matter where the stones go?”

Dera spoke up, “I-I don’t think so.”

Andhi shrugged. “Let’s just try it out and if it doesn’t work we can try a different order.”

Idra looked tempted to make a snappish comment at her, but Ento tapped her on the back and she subsided. I was still tempted to make my own observation about how interesting it was that she was eager to get this over with now when it had been her group holding everyone up, though.

Wren broke into the conversation before I could say anything. “It didn’t matter where we put the stones before. As long as we gave them a drop of blood they glowed. We just couldn’t do it twice.”

Chirp twittered to accentuate her words.

Andhi smiled a smile at Wren that she would never direct my way and nodded. “Do you want to go first then?”

“Why not?” Wren answered and slipped past Ulo and Nii to stand in front of the symbol. She also got Dera to step up and start the process with her since they had found this spot together.

That, at least, was better than anyone from Ulo’s group going first or taking charge. I didn’t know why Andhi was suddenly involving herself in getting things going but I didn’t like it. She and the others had caused enough trouble as it was.

Wren and Dera pricked their marks and swiped a bead of blood across their stones before slotting them into two spots on the left side. A silver gray glow immediately began to shine out from behind the stones. The pair pulled back and the stones stayed in place despite looking like they should roll out of their sockets.

One by one the others stepped forward to add their bloodied stones to the wall, Juniper and her group leading the way. Breck made eye contact with me as she placed her stone. I gave her a small nod of acknowledgment. Ulo moved quick and sharp when she went to add her stone, the look on her face daring someone to challenge her. The challenge itself was tempting, but I wasn’t keen to start another fistfight. Not when she would probably win this time around and we were so close to getting something much more important.

It didn’t take long until Prevna and I were the only ones that still needed to place our stones. I took a long, deep breath as Prevna pressed forward through the group and then followed after her. The rest of the cohort moved out our way as best they could on the narrow staircase, though Nii had to give Ulo a meaningful look and draw her backward before they were out of the way.

I unhooked the flap on my left thigh and pricked one of the diamonds that made up my mark before smearing the drop of blood over my stone. My gray stone settled into the wall and was followed quickly by Prevna’s clear stone. Both began to glow.

Then the silver gray light began to expand. Sliding behind the entirety of the eyes and tree to outline them all in a soft glow. The pine cone lamp went out as the tree’s shadow stretched to cover all of us to some degree.

And then I was falling. As if I had been pulled into the shadow paths, but there were no whisper women here to take me with her, to direct our path. I flailed but there was nothing to grab onto to stop my fall.

Soft needles and poking twigs broke my fall. I shoved myself up to my knees immediately to get my bearings and—froze. Like at Flickermark, like at the Seedling Palace, the goddess’s work made me unable to do anything but stare in awe.

I had landed on a large pine tree that pressed up from the oil slick ground I recognized from the shadow paths. The pine tree was pressed flat, closer to the symbol that had connected the eyes together than one of the natural ones I was used to. The tree stretched all along the ground until its base and roots met the tree of darkness and shadow. That tree rose proudly up and up, deep black branches and needles brushed by a nonexistent wind. It was like the living tree and shadow had swapped positions.

Where the two trees met a statue of the Beloved stood, stark white as the tapper she had shoved into the shadow tree’s side. Black liquid, so dark it seemed to suck in light, poured steadily from the spout and onto her waiting hand before streaming over the living tree’s roots. The statue had her other hand pressed against the trunk of the shadow tree, bracing herself, while she twisted to look in our direction. An inviting smile on her already black lips.

The swirling mists of the shadow paths blocked out the horizon in every direction except for where it thinned out to cling to the shadow tree like clusters of pine cones. Stars glittered brightly between the unnatural tree’s branches.

Dimly, I realized the rest of the cohort was spread around me as they began to stir and stop in awe to gaze at the scene all around us. I stood on the uneven branches and tried to get my mind to focus as they all gawked. This wasn’t the first time I had seen one of the goddess’s miracles and I doubted it would be the last as I continued on the path of becoming a whisper woman.

Surely there was more to this than walking up the Beloved’s statue and taking what she offered? Would the goddess really make one of her boons so easy to obtain?

“Chirp isn’t here!” Wren’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“He didn’t make an offering,” Juniper said. “He’s probably still on the stairs.”

Wren groaned. “He isn’t going to like being left out.”

Loclen rolled her eyes. “He’s a bird, Wren. Birds don’t get blessings.”

“He could have been the first.”

Loclen snorted and the conversation died away.

Breck started making her way toward the statue and I was quick to follow her. Better to get a closer look than stand around dumbfounded at our sudden change in surroundings. Better too than worrying about how we were supposed to get out of here when we didn’t even have the boon yet.

The statue was similar to the ones I had seen before though the color change for her lips was new. All the other statues had been monochrome, but perhaps it was supposed to be hint for particularly idiotic seedlings?

Prevna came up behind me and leaned at little bit against my shoulder as she peered at the scene in front of us. “That tree is even more creepy up close. Do you think we’re supposed to give it an offering?”

“The goddess should get one at the very least.” I shrugged my shoulders and Prevna got the hint as she let her weight slide off of me. “And you shouldn’t call Her creations creepy.”

Prevna gave me a sidelong look. “I don’t the goddess cares about my opinion.”

Breck pointed to the hand the statue had pressed against the shadowy tree as the rest of the cohort caught up. “Tree takes it for the goddess.”

I peered closer to where she had pointed. A thin line dribbled down the Beloved’s forearm from the bottom of her palm. No color distinguished it from the rest of the statue and I had to privately praise Breck’s sharp eyes. If the statue had been anything other than the goddess’s work it could have been easily dismissed as an oversight of the maker but the goddess didn’t make mistakes. Her gaze was too omniscient.

Juniper, Andhi, Nii, Loclen, and Wren spent a long while hashing out what our prayer should be since just an offering of blood felt too lackluster. I kept out of it even though leaving the decision in someone else’s hands rankled. I didn’t want another case of the unexpected trial in Flickermark.

I spent the time looking over our fantastical surroundings. How the roots of the shadow and living trees twisted together, always side by side, like the living tree really was the shadow cast by the other even though there didn’t seem to be a strong enough light to make a shadow. I didn’t take too long examining the Beloved’s statue in case the goddess got annoyed with my attention before I turned my attention to the mists around us. It really did look like we were somewhere in the shadow paths even though the mists didn’t press as close as they had during my previous trips through them. When I walked up to the mists’ edge they seemed to puff up and thicken where I stepped close, pushing back when I tried to push through. I frowned at the odd sensation and tried again with my hands but the mists didn’t let me get even an inch into their depths.

“Looks like the goddess doesn’t trust us not to get lost.”

Idra tossed a pebble up before catching it and launching it into the mists in front of us. It sailed forward without even a hint of a barrier impeding its path before I lost track of the stone in the mists.

I didn’t really want to talk to her but I doubted she had come my way if she had nothing to say. I raised my eyebrows at her. “Something to say?”

She gestured toward where the pebble had disappeared. “Thought I did.”

I waited and Idra paused after pretending like she was going to saunter away. “Good job doing what needed to be done. I would have finished it if you hadn’t.”

It didn’t take a genius to know what she was talking about. “I can fight my own fights.”

Idra rolled her eyes and muttered something I couldn’t catch before she spoke louder. “Leave some excitement for the rest of us.”

“Get to it faster than me then.” I smirked.

She glared at me, huffed, and then started wandering back toward Ento. I kept testing the mist barrier a bit longer, just because it was something to do, until Wren gathered us all back together next to the two trees. As far as I could tell there weren’t any other puzzles for us to solve unless we could make our way through the mist once we drank the shadows.

It didn’t take us long to learn the prayer that had been decided on. After much debate, short and too point had been picked as our best bet. It took us longer to all get situated around the tree so we could press our palms to it at the same time. Ulo grumbled and was overruled when she tried to insist we didn’t need to offer the prayer at the same time. Perhaps we didn’t but after how the colored stones worked we didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances.

We all pricked our marks and smeared the blood on a palm before Wren counted us down to say the prayer.

“We gift this blood to the goddess in thanks for the great boon She grants us. May it grant Her strength.”

I couldn’t see the others beyond the statue next to me, but Prevna stood on my other side and we pressed our hands against the shadow tree at the same time. It was smooth and cool and sent a thrill of unexplained fear down my back as soon as I touched it. Then it moved and I snatched my hand back in time to see my blood get swallowed into the shadow.

I swallowed hard and locked terrified gazes with Prevna before we scrambled back. A few of the others had cried out in alarm and it turned out everyone had the same disturbing experience. The blood hadn’t crumbled to dust but we hedged that the tree taking meant our offering had been accepted. No one, not even Breck or Nii, were particularly keen on putting their hand against the tree again.

We inspected the spout and black liquid and the area around again but nothing seemed to have changed. The trees didn’t reverse position, the mists didn’t open, the spout nor its pitch black liquid did so much as change color.

Surprisingly, Loclen was the one who first started to insist that we might as well drink from the spout now. “I don’t want learn what happens when we spend too much time in here.”

She got to stick her hands under the Beloved’s first because of that. Not wanting to seem intimidated, I went next and I didn’t miss the way she shuddered when the liquid shadow touched her hands. Still, I kept any hesitation out of my step when I followed her and placed my own cupped hands beneath the flow.

It was lighter than it looked but also oddly dense. Sort of like holding an armful of sheep’s wool or fluffy snow. It also felt similar to the tree we had just gifted our blood too: smooth and cool and just a little bit undefinable.

Pressing my lips together at the hair raising sensation, I carefully stepped through the uneven roots and out of Juniper’s way so that she could get the next handful. None of us really wanted to do so much together, but it had been decided that since we had done the stones and the prayer together we might as well do this last step together as well. Better safe than sorry.

After all, half of Jin’s spiel had been about getting us to work together. She might have been a terrible mentor but didn’t mean we could ignore absolutely everything she had said.

Part of me just wanted to slide my hands apart and let the liquid shadow fall through while I waited. The rest of me chided that foolish part and made sure I kept my hands together.

A bitter smile strained my lips.

Ambition is nothing without discipline, indeed.

I had planned on drinking the shadows since I was nine years old. I might not have been able to picture how odd it felt to hold liquid shadow in my hands at the time, but I storming well wasn’t going to let a bit of discomfort ruin my chances at becoming a whisper woman now. Not when I was so close.

I might not like how well her lessons had ingrained themselves in me, but for now that one at the very least was serving its purpose. I could be disciplined, especially if it meant gaining something she could never even dream of having. She might get the plants and treatments and beads and be willing to throw them away if she thought she could have been anything else, but I would have the shadows and the main mark of a whisper woman.

I could have something outside of the healer’s gifts. It wouldn’t be solely my own, but the number of whisper women was likely lower than the number of healers. It would be rare and useful and serve me better as a whisper woman. Perhaps walking the shadows wasn’t the boon I wanted the most but, when I couldn’t have what I wanted, it certainly made a difference from having nothing interesting to focus on.

One by one the others got their handful of liquid shadow and joined me and Loclen in making a circle next to the living tree. Breck, Loclen, Ento, and I seemed the most eager to drink after we got over the initial sensation. Prevna seemed hesitant. She had touched her gray lips as she waited for Dera to fill her cupped hands. Still, she stepped forward when it was her turn.

Dera, Idra, Andhi, and Wren were also somewhat hesitant and hid it with varying degrees of success. Juniper, Nii, and Andhi gave off an air of determination more than anything else. Like this was a task they might not particular enjoy, but they were going to complete it perfectly anyway.

Finally, the last member of the cohort completed the circle. Wren lifted her cupped hands in the air. “For the goddess!”

We echoed her, “For the goddess!”

And I brought the liquid shadow to my lips and drank.

Sharp daggers of ice stabbed at my lips and throat as the shadow slid down. Not as cold as when I had been frozen, but close. So very, very close. I gasped and collapsed to my knees. Thumps around me told me that others had done the same.

It burned. And at the same it felt like I had drank sticky oil that refused to go down all the way no matter how I swallowed. I tried to touch my lips before snatching my hand back with a hiss as the touch sent a new spike of pain through the sensitive skin.

I don’t know how long I knelt there doing what I could to breathe through the fire and ice and cloying wetness, but at some distant point I realized I could sense the ground under me and the shadow tree in a way that my other senses couldn’t account for.

They felt like gateways. Like if I just pressed hard enough and focused I could slip right through. To where I didn’t know, but I knew what the sensation meant.

My lips, no doubt finally as dark as the goddess’s own, smiled in pure victory.

I had gained the goddess’s first boon.

-- End of Book Two --