Dawn broke over the woodland. Rosy gold swept over deep green pine needles and hints of red and purple peeked through the branches from the undergrowth. The air tasted clean and fresh and, even though I hadn’t slept, it gave me a bit of energy back.

I took a couple of minutes to just take in the vastness of it from our vantage point. Nothing blocking the edges of my vision, just trees as far as the eyes could see. A few landmarks helped to break up the sea of green: a handful of boulders scattered towards where the First Shore Lake would be and some structure off in the distance, further into the Big Wings’ territory, that had been only a smudge of darkness the night before. It wasn’t as tall as the statue, but it did stand out over the trees.

It had to be the Rookery.

Nothing else stood out from the woodland and I doubted that giant birds would take to roosting in something small enough to hide within the trees. They might settle in the trees themselves, but if there was nothing separating the Rookery from the rest of the woodland then we didn’t have much hope of finding it before the seasons changed.

Breck noticed the curving structure too. “We could make it there in two days if we pushed like we have been.”

I nodded. “But first we need to get down.”

Breck made a short circuit around the top of the statue. She paused on the side where the tree had been. “Looks like the goddess might have made short work of the corpse gorger.”

I raised my eyebrows at her and joined her in peering over the edge.

The dual colored pine tree had shattered on the ground below. A handful of large branches had been flung across the large clearing the statue sat in while it looked like others had pierced the ground and held their section of branches in place. I couldn’t tell which was the part that had already been breaking away from the tree. The pine’s trunk was split open and splintered into two halves. One lay on its side trailing roots and a few rocks.

The other had impaled the corpse gorger.

From this distance it was difficult to tell if the thing was still alive, but I didn’t see the absurd amount of mouths moving nor did it look like the sludge-like body was trying to pull away from the trunk. Part of me didn’t want to believe the corpse gorger was dead, not if two squads of whisper women really had been lost and all it had taken was a falling tree to kill the abomination.

But then again, Her will couldn’t be denied. And if She blamed the monster for Her tree’s destruction, I could only be thankful that She hadn’t deigned to notice us.

The goddess had condemned a whole region for one tree before, but that had been the result of intentional burning. Perhaps this was seen as accidental, so She took her revenge solely out on the creature She held responsible—even if that did make the fact that She could have killed the corpse gorger before Her whisper women died fighting it even more apparent.

Not that anyone could dictate the goddess’s actions other than Herself. Not even the Beloved.

I muttered, “It could have been luck.”

I don’t think either of us believed me.

We turned our attention back to getting down. We could go with our original plan of climbing down the crumbled side of the statue, but, in order to do that, we needed to be able to reach it and right now we had the crown braid and a wide gap from the edge of the statue’s hair to where the stone wall started to contend with. We could also try to get to the statue’s back and climb or slide down the back of her dress. That would probably be more stable. The trouble again was with getting there.

Breck moved next to me and I turned to find her holding her lasso in hand.

I blinked. “You brought that?”

I was used to seeing it hang off her belt, but I hadn’t seen her use it except in practice, so I didn’t expect to her grab it when we were woken up in the middle of the night.

She shrugged. “Up high, you always bring rope.”

I made a mental note to get a hold of rope and bring it with me next time. “Why didn’t you mention it before?”

Breck tilted her head toward the rising sun and I took her meaning. It was safer to climb in the sunlight and I could have paid more attention to what was on her belt if I really wanted to.

We decided that going down over the statue’s face and onto her outstretched arm was our best bet for finding a spot where we could start climbing down. Breck’s lasso only reached down to her mouth, but it would have to be enough.

Breck hooked the lasso around one of the glass wheat pieces. “Try to stay on the mouth if you can. I’ll come down after you and help you the rest of the way, so you don’t have to jump.”

Her gaze strayed to my bruised hip. My lips pressed tight together, but I didn’t deny the need for help. I started climbing down.

Between the rope and the upward tilt of the statue’s face it wasn’t a terrible descent. My hip ached from the pressure I had to put on it to brace myself against the stone, but it wasn’t enough for it to give out yet. I couldn’t help but shudder a bit as I climbed over the large carved eyeball. It was pretty lifelike for being made of stone. I also made sure to stay well away from where the middle of the face crumbled into nothing.

As I climbed down I noticed that the stone I was climbing over was oddly pristine. It didn’t seem worn from the weather or discolored. There were cracks, but they mainly stemmed from the half of the statue that had been destroyed. Lichen didn’t cling to the cracks or ledges. I didn’t even even see any bird droppings.

Did the goddess give this statue of Her sister—the betrayer—some protection? Did the other goddess somehow protect her image within her sister’s territory?

It was an odd, disturbing thought, and I put the questions out of my mind as I reached the statue’s mouth. After wedging my feet into the crevice between the lips and hooking one arm tightly over the edge of the upper lip, I kept ahold of the rope with my remaining hand and called up to Breck to let her know I was in place.

She surveyed the face again along with where I was before, to my surprise and growing horror, she unhooked the rope from the wheat.

“What are you doing?”

Breck ignored me in favor of widening the loop on her lasso and slipping it over her shoulder so that it hung across her chest. Then, before I could get another word of reason in, she started her descent.

Three large steps over the forehead, drop over the eyelid, press off toward the nose and open air. Push off the nose into a controlled slide and catch herself using the small ledge created by the upper lip and drain any remaining momentum by swinging herself down next to me to stand on the bottom lip.

I glared at her and put every curse and praise I wanted to say into it. She didn’t need to know I was impressed. Not when I also wanted to throttle her for doing something immensely stupid.

She caught my look and had the gall to look smug. “I’ve dealt with worse in the Cliffs.”

That was when I remembered that Breck had run across the thin paths in the Seedling Palace that I had to inch my way across. Heights and edges and dangerous falls didn’t have the effect they should have on her, not when she had probably been contending with them since she was a child.

I wanted to rub my forehead, but I didn’t dare to release my hold. “Just…why?”

She glanced back up at where we had come from. “No point in leaving behind good rope when we don’t have to.” Then she gestured with her free hand to below us. “Now you can get down without jumping.”

It was true that the rope should reach the statue’s chest from here, but that didn’t explain how Breck was going to get down. The rock was too smooth as far as I could tell for her to climb across it to the statue’s neck and down. Dropping from where we were down to the statue’s body without the rope seemed like a good way to break a leg, gain too much momentum, and roll off her chest only to take the much longer fall to the her lap or the ground.

Breck pointed to statue’s armpit. “When you get down tie a loop in the rope and wedge yourself as best you can there. When there’s enough slack on the rope slip it on like I have it and don’t let yourself slip. Got it?”

I got it.

But I didn’t like it. At all.

I still climbed down the rope as quickly as I could while she held it in place from above. The rope ended a foot or two shy of the bumpy texture of the statue’s vine clothing, but I was still able to reach up and tie a wide enough hole after I got my footing. Unfortunately, the lasso wasn’t long enough to reach from where Breck was perched to the spot I needed to wedge myself in.

I really didn’t like the somewhat feral grin creeping onto Breck’s face when I looked up at her.

She called down to me. “Just run for it!”

Of course, because I had such even footing and flat ground in all directions to run on with a hip in perfect condition that would let me go at my top speed.

Breck gathered herself and shoved off of the statue’s mouth with as much force as she could muster. I started to run in as straight of line as I could towards the statue’s storming armpit. As soon as I felt the rope go somewhat slack I tried to slip it over my head, tripped, and nearly fell flat on my face before I gave up that and scrambled to keep running with the rope in my hand.

Breck soared through the sky towards the statue’s remaining arm. Over the arm. Past the arm.

I slammed into the arm, vision fuzzing as my hip screamed in pain. I might have screamed too but I was too busy making sure the rope loop got over my head and shoulder to note if it was me or Breck. Maybe both.

The rope pulled tight. I ground my knee into the crack between stone arm and stone body, dug my fingers around the nearest carved vine, to keep from being pulled after Breck. I could barely breathe. The rope cut into my chest and stomach even as it pulled me tight against the stone arm. It shifted from side to side before finally, blessedly, going slack.

It took me several long moments to collect myself enough to lift my head and glower at where Breck knelt on the statue’s arm. Curses pressed up against my lips and I couldn’t help but spit the worst one I knew.

“I hope you get touched by a shamble man.”

Breck grinned weakly at first before it got stronger and stronger, and a laugh burst out of her.

“You’re a good anchor.”

“So much for not making my hip worse.”

“Can you walk?”

I pulled myself up onto the arm before trying to put weight on it. The pain made me hiss out a breath. “Barely.”

She sat upright. “Climb?”

My lips pressed together again, but I told her the truth. “It’ll be easier if I rest it first.”

She nodded and ducked out of her end of the lasso. “Great. I’ll go check that then.” She pointed towards the harp.

“Breck—”

She didn’t stop to listen.

Gone was the bored girl who barely cared about anything around her. Breck had found her excitement and she wasn’t going to let go her chance for adventure easily. I debated whether I should limp after her or stay where I was. In the end, pain and practicality kept me in place. If she fell or did something else stupid while she out there on her own then that was on her.

I did keep my eyes on her though as she poked around the giant harp. It still played whenever a gust of wind blew across it. At first, she just looked around it and its frame, but when nothing interesting held her attention there Breck turned her attention to the strings.

One weak, but high, note chimed through the air.

I waited for the goddess’s wrath to strike her down for playing music outside of the Heartsong Festival, but one moment stretched into two and then ten and nothing happened. Breck waited a couple more heartbeats before she tried two more notes.

Two low thrumming notes rang out.

We waited for judgment to descend again but the sky remained calm and clear, and the statue’s hand didn’t crumble out from under Breck’s feet. Breck’s attention caught on something else.

A couple minutes later she called over to me, “Can you read this?”

I rolled my eyes, but I got to my feet and brought her lasso with me as I limped my way over to the statue’s hand. Breck was pointing to an archaic word carved into the base of the harp. I handed her the lasso and she set about untying my loop while I puzzled over the word.

I hadn’t revealed to the cohort yet that I could read and write all the basic characters, but if I managed to figure out this archaic word then that might be a logical conclusion. However, it wasn’t one I could easily connect with one of the basic characters I knew. It’d make sense if it was connected to music or sound or something along those lines, but those weren’t words that often came up with healing.

I shrugged. “No.”

Breck seemed like she held in a sigh before she hooked her lasso back on her belt and poked around the rest of the hand. Nothing of interest caught her eye. I rested for another ten to fifteen minutes while we debated which way we should get down.

In the end, we decided that going down the statue’s back would be easiest and best. Less of a chance for the stone to crumble out beneath us that way.