Just like Kaylan predicted, Tufani started our training in full force the next morning. She didn’t care one whit that most of us had stayed up late the night before celebrating and that the sun was barely peeking over the horizon when she rapped her cane against the front of the hut we had been given.

She kept it up until the entire cohort had stumbled out of the hut, bleary-eyed and barely put together. Loclen looked more than a bit murderous at having her sleep interrupted but she kept whatever retort she wanted to make to herself after being confronted with Tufani’s implacable face.

I would have been in better shape, given that I was used to rising early, but Prevna had been determined to pull me into the festivities when she spotted me just after Esie left. She hadn’t missed the fact that I hadn’t joined her as quick as Kaylan said I would and, while she didn’t press me very hard when she asked what I had been up to, I don’t think she was satisfied with my vague answer of “being in the woods”. I could have said more but there had always been others around and I didn’t want to sour the mood more than I usually did.

Spilling my guts about the odd way they twisted with envy and isolation when I saw Prevna easily fitting in with the others or the quiet panic as more and more people attached themselves to me hadn’t exactly had a favorable wind. Instead I took the simpler route of eating a stomach bursting amount of food, talking with Prevna when she focused on me, and keeping to myself the rest of time.

By all rights Tufani should have been as exhausted as us given how long she had been up making the rounds between her tribe and her birds, but she was as put together and no nonsense as when we first met her.

She thumped her cane against the ground. “I will expect you to be up and making your way to my hut at this time from now on.” Loclen groaned and Tufani’s gaze cut to her as she continued her lecture. “You will not be allowed to use your boon. You will run all the way to the cliff, up the cliff, and to my door. Take too long and you will miss breakfast. Cheat and everyone will have to run around the upper lake, down the cliff, around the lower lake, and back up.” My eyes went wide. That would take forever, if I even had the stamina for it. “Are we clear?”

Everyone was clear.

“Questions?”

Idra lifted her chin. “Why the focus on running? It’s not like we’ll need to run when we’re flying.”

“It builds character.”

“Why should we all be punished if one person decides to be selfish and lazy?” That was Ulo as her eyes drilled into the back of my head.

“It builds character.”

No one had any questions after that.

Tufani gestured toward the cliff and we started running. Breck quickly took point with Ulo and Ento steps behind her. I lagged behind with Dera, Juniper, Wren, Loclen, and Prevna. Prevna and Loclen could have joined the middle pack with their longer legs, possibly Wren too, but Prevna seemed to want to stick with me and, between my short legs and the cliff looming in front of us, I wasn’t keen on sprinting. Loclen didn’t seem all that eager to push herself either given her sheer amount of yawns and the glower on her face. Wren said she was more used to riding elk than running, but she also kept close to Dera.

Running up the cliff was its own kind torture. My stamina might have increased since I was stuck in a tent day after day, but that didn’t much when I still wasn’t as used to long distance running as I should be. And it felt like the switchbacks had multiplied overnight.

By the time we got up to the top I think I was going slower than if I had just walked up the thing. Prevna gave my shoulder an encouraging pat, too out of breath to say anything, and kept running for the Tamer’s hut. The long grass looked very inviting and soft, but I didn’t want to be the only one to not make it, so I followed in her footsteps. Even Dera was puffing along a little ahead of me.

The front group already had cakes made out of pounded roots and dried berries in hand, sprawled out around the Tamer’s hut, by the time we arrived out of breath and sore. Tufani handed each of us a cake as well though judging by the sun’s position we should have been too late to break our fast.

Dera stared at Tufani as she accepted her food. “How did you get here before us?”

Tufani smiled wryly. “You don’t think an old woman with a bad leg could pick up root cakes and beat you here?” Dera flushed and looked away. “Well, you’re right! Don’t forget you’re not the only ones with black lips here.”

Which meant Barra had brought her through the shadow paths.

For some reason Dera looked even more flustered at the reminder and she shuffled off to nimble on her cake in silence. Once all the cakes had been handed out and everyone had found a spot to recover from the run, Tufani made her next announcement.

“Tomorrow I will expect you all to get here sooner. The next day even quicker and so on until we find your limit. Even by a handful of minutes is fine—I don’t expect you to be like Egeli and out pace the rabbit in a day. For now eat, rest, and then we will work on your upper body strength next. You can’t fly if you can’t stay on the bird’s back.”

Ulo tried to make a derisive comment about my speed as soon as Tufani disappeared into her hut, but I ignored her and Andhi was quick to distract her from her ire with a question about her spearwork. I think it was less of her coming to my rescue and more that she didn’t want to get in trouble for a fight. Tufani could still easily hear us if we got loud.

I took the time to set up my first shadow walking practice with Juniper, Prevna, and Breck that evening. Prevna still clearly didn’t like that she had to keep whatever she learned to herself, but she didn’t press me about it again in front of the others. Idra and Ento also clearly didn’t like the idea of Juniper going off on her own, but they were mollified by the reminder that they could watch from afar.

The upper body training was just as exhausting as the run to Tufani’s hut. First, she took us through some of the stretching and strengthening exercises that Rawley had taught me back at Gabbler Shore. After that came the planks, push ups, pull ups, dead hangs, and half a dozen other exercises design to help strength our arms, core, and grips.

Then we went down the beginner shoots, though it was less exhilarating and more terrifying to slide down them when my body didn’t want to properly listen to me. Tufani said we needed to get used to the quick changes of direction and speed that the birds could do in the air as well as learn how to properly shift our weight and lean into a turn. On our return trips back up to the top of the cliff we were given baskets of supplies for the birds and their caretakers.

I started to hate the cliff switchbacks and the idiocy of separating the tribe from where the birds nested. Even if having them closer might mean that a bird might land in the wrong place and put a foot through a roof.

After the shoots came learning about the birds’ equipment, which mainly meant the saddle and any travel supplies we might have. The storm birds were largely self-sufficient when it came to feeding and cleaning themselves, so we wouldn’t have to provide that on a journey. Still, getting to touch the large leather saddle was fascinating in itself. The design was simple like I first thought: two long wooden handles wrapped in leather and fastened to the main part of the saddle. There wasn’t any extra padding where we would lay between the handles, so long trips probably wouldn’t be the most comfortable. The ladder to get up and the ties that would help hold us in place also tied to the handles. The saddle could have fit around two or three reindeer depending on how long you let the straps be.

Tufani’s exacting, no nonsense attitude came out more on that lesson though she also told a couple of tales, one cautionary about a whisper woman who didn’t tie her saddle properly, and one amusing about a tribe member who got a little too full of herself.

We had to learn how to care for the saddle, how to secure it, and properly repair it in case of emergency. How to quickly and securely tie and untie the various knots that would hold it, and us, in place. Tufani expected us to get to the point where we could tie ourselves back in place with one hand without looking while in the air just in case a tie came loose while we were flying.

She was more of a teacher than Jin ever could be. She asked for questions and would honestly answer them even if we didn’t always appreciate those answers. She explained her expectations and how to do what we were expected to learn. If someone struggled she would put the lesson in different terms for them or work with them one on one. The Tamer didn’t have Rawley’s patience—though I doubted many did—but she did have her passion for making sure we knew what she wanted to teach us.

After the midday meal, it was time for chores, which meant helping the Rookery with a variety of bird related chores. That included everything from shoveling poop and cleaning nests to repairing equipment, gathering up the birds’ favorite treats, and generally helping whichever tribe member who was in charge of the area we were assigned to. That was also when we got to get to know the birds and their behavior and personalities. Naturally, all the birds immediately began to love Wren. Chirp quickly got jealous and gathered enough courage to cheep at them. From what I could tell that got a range of reactions from dismissal to amusement to thinking he looked like a tasty snack. Wren kept him safe and told the birds in no uncertain terms that if anything happened to Chirp they would regret it.

In the couple hours before the evening meal we had whisper women training that rotated depending on the day. Sometimes it was weapons training, other times it was time to work on shadow walking or our writing and reading or strategy and critical thinking skills. Tufani grumbled about it, but she said that she couldn’t send us off with all of our skills forgotten and disused. Barra was nominally in charge of those training sessions, but she let us split off and train where we wanted. I sincerely doubted that the whole cohort was practicing what we were supposed to the entire time, but I wasn’t about to round everyone up and teach them the eighty six basic characters.

The groups during those times fluctuated. The core groups that we had from our time in the Seed Landing were still there, but sometimes the others would gravitate to those they had journeyed through the woodland with or that they thought would help them with a certain skill.

By the end of that first day everyone was exhausted and more than ready to go to sleep early, but everyone in my shadow walking training group still dragged themselves to their feet after the evening meal. I led them over to the tree line. We were on the lower level of the Rookery and I had no desire to hike back up the cliff. Besides, I figured it’d be easier for them to practice traveling to the goddess grown tree than some other random one in the woodland.

Loclen, Wren, and Dera had caught wind of what we were up to, so they joined Ento and Idra in watching us at a distance. A sliver of guilt twisted behind my ribs at keeping Wren and Dera in the dark, but I knew that if I included more people than the three I named, Prevna would push to get the whole group included again. They could ask Barra, and, besides, Wren had gotten the same lesson from Fern as I had. She, or someone else from my group, could teach the others.

Juniper, Prevna, and Breck stood in front of me as the shadows crept longer along the ground. I didn’t have much faith in my teaching abilities, so for Prevna I borrowed what Fern had told us about needing to make our paths and her to practicing. For Breck I knew that she could already walk between the shadows, so I asked her what she wanted to focus on. She said her speed, for now, so I told her about how I visualized the shadows in different ways and that had helped me transition in and out of the shadows smoother and quicker. Breck started on her practice and then it was Juniper’s turn.

I crossed my arms. “Why do you think you have trouble with shadow walking?”

Her lips twisted. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You have to make it make sense. You make the path, that’s the whole point.”

Juniper gestured to the shadow under our feet, short, swift, and angry. “I try to find the shadow, but there’s never anything there except for the one I came through. How am I supposed to make a path to nothing?”

I held in a frustrated sigh and decided to try a different approach. “When you enter a shadow what does it feel like? Entering a tent, slipping under water, unraveling a knot?”

“Falling down a hole.”

“Fine. Make that hole into a tunnel and place the other opening in the shadow you want to exit from.”

I doubted it would work, but I needed to offer her something. I hadn’t like the feeling of falling when I entered the shadow paths, but I didn’t want to take the one concrete thing Juniper had from her. Maybe picturing her path like would go along with the new bit of advice that Esie had given me. I still wasn’t quite sure how to wrap my mind around it. Picturing a place without actually picturing it? Trust the blessing?

I wasn’t sure either was possible, but I doubted Esie would purposefully give me bad advice.

Juniper obviously doubted my idea, but she went along with it anyway. I watched her close her eyes and I was tempted to interrupt and tell her do the visualization once she was in the shadow, but curiosity won out. Maybe you could craft your path before you even stepped into the shadow. That would certainly speed up how long it took to go through.

Five minutes turned into nearly ten and I was tempted to start my own practice even as I was impressed by Juniper’s focus. Then she disappeared into the shadow and a handful of seconds later I heard a scream coming from the feathered tree.

I closed my eyes for a brief moment.

Not again.