Caw fidgeted in the bed, her legs feeling like a nest of ants were running up and down them.

It had been a week since she’d entered the circular room of the spire. A miserable week of nettle tea, smelly ointments, aching joints, and pissing in a pot beside the bed. It would be fine if they allowed her to piss alone, but no, the acolytes had to be present. For all of it. This was Oak’s punishment, she was sure of it. Oak killed with kindness and worry, wearing her victims down with the love of a doting mother. Caw wondered if Oak would up the ante and have her swaddled like a babe. At least Rock would find it funny. She hadn’t seen Rock all week either. He could have at least scaled the wall and poked his head in the window. Say hi.

Oak definitely wouldn’t have approved, but it would be worth it.

Returning to the Anquan always felt like a last resort, as if they were admitting defeat. Yes, it was home, her tribe's home, the only place her people could live in peace away from the Shen hunters. But it didn’t feel right. In the forest was freedom, life, wisdom in the trees and the earth that Caw could feel in her chest and in her feet. The earth had a spirit, a voice. The Senlin all knew this. It was taught to them by the elders when they came of age; when Caw had just begun to experience the magic. The fluttering little flame, a tiny spark, brought on with a growth spurt and an ache in the lower abdomen. All Senlin youths learn to hear that voice, and they learn to understand it, understand the name of a thing and its secrets. But there was something else, too. Something she wasn’t able to put into words or translate with anything tangible. More a sense than a feeling. And Rock felt it too. When they were running through the trees, that was where they were supposed to be. The nights they’d spent laying still in the canopy, watching the stars and listening to the tree frogs singing, the night creatures scuttling about below. Something natural and good.

The desert was dead and hot. Everything that lived there seemed to hate it, except for the camels. But they were crotchety, ill-tempered creatures anyway, who spat and bit for no reason.

Laying in bed all week, doing nothing in the heat but reading and staring out of the window, Caw could have spat and bit too. A week in the cave would have been preferable, at least in the cave she could see the sky clearly, and not from an awkward angle. Caw thought of the bookshop in the quiet village with the fountain, its inviting bakery and happy looking residents. As soon as her legs healed, she’d be heading right back. She wasn’t sure how, but she’d convince Oak to give her some Gen money, then she could finally buy something off the old man.

The sound of footfall on stone steps echoed from the corridor outside, and the door creaked open. Oak glided in, a gentle smile on her face as she greeted the acolytes and headed to Caw.

“How are you feeling today, Caw?” she asked.

“My legs itch, and I am feeling restless, but I feel better. My legs don’t feel swollen anymore.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Oak nodded to the acolytes, and they pulled away the blankets. Caw sat forward, desperate to snatch a glance at her legs. They looked good. She leaned back, satisfied. Oak’s expression remained passive, short a flicker of her eyebrow.

“They look almost fully healed,” she said. “One more day and I think you will be fine.”

Caw sat up. “Another day?” she said, “you can’t be serious!”

“There is still some bruising and redness,” replied Oak, her hand up. “And, we needed time to study this new poison. Would you like to know where it came from?”

“Yes,” said Caw, leaning forward.

“It is spider venom.”

Caw’s face twisted with confusion. “Must be an enormous spider to produce that much venom. The hunters had many of those darts on them.”

“I wondered the same thing,” replied Oak. An acolyte handed her a small tray with a bowl. Oak took it and massaged the ash-coloured ointment into Caw’s legs. In an instant, the itching stopped. “I believe they have found a way to recreate it, make more of it,” Oak continued. “It is the only thing that makes sense. They wouldn’t forgo the older darts overnight for no reason.”

“But how?”

“That, I do not know.”

Oak turned her face to the window arch. Caw frowned. A week she’d been in that room, in that bed. A sitting duck. Whatever the venom was made with, it was dangerous.

“We can’t keep living like this, Oak.”

“We don’t have a choice, Caw.”

Oak left the window and left the room. At the doorway, she paused and said, “One day you’ll understand.”