Nine Claws and Malady didn’t waste time at the hidden village. By midmorning the next day, they had secured their guide and were gone as suddenly as they had arrived on the mountainside. I wasn’t sure if they really didn’t care about what happened to us or if this was another test to see if we could handle the independence. So, when Nine Claws gave me a perfunctory nod, I gave one back and that was all the goodbye we got except for Malady informing us that they would be checking in in about a week’s time.

Which left Prevna and me in our commandeered campsite with no idea where our supposed two guides were and two Pickers who didn’t want to be abandoned in a village that held no love for them.

Kuma crossed her arms. “As much as I’d like to get back to the Red Hand that isn’t feasible right now. Nerco’s too smart to keep the band in place with the purge spreading across the whole Cut—and even I don’t know which retreat she’d have deemed the safest.”

Jika stared moodily at the ground. “As if we’d make it there without getting attacked even if we knew.”

Kuma made an acknowledging gesture and Prevna gave me a significant glance. First, she focused on the direction Nine Claws and Malady had gone before she flicked her gaze back up to the main part of the village. I rolled my eyes back at her but I got up from where I had been crouched over our bags. Better to glare my way through the village in search of our missing guides than have Prevna subjected to the hostility. She could deal the pair’s pity party. If I stayed near the whining much longer my tongue wouldn’t stay behind my teeth—and I didn’t want to start a fight in this unnatural place.

So I left Prevna to get Kuma and Jika to shut up or make a decision while I stomped my way up the main path into the village. I’d start with the building we had our meeting in the day before and, if that ended up being a bust, I assumed there’d at least be someone who could order our missing guides to show up.

I could also go look for them if all else failed but I didn’t think the men wanted me poking around their village any more than I wanted to waste my time tracking down Tike and Deamar.

A handful of the men made a show of being obscene again as I passed them but I didn’t give them the satisfaction of staring or looking shocked. I just kept marching on by with only a dismissive look to take in their antics, so they wouldn’t think I was ignoring them out of embarrassment.

I think that’s what they wanted out of us. Embarrassment, disgust. Helplessness in the face of their different standards here. Something to confirm all the horrible rumors about how women had treated them outside these valleys.

No, that was about as far from my reaction as it could be now that I had gotten over my initial shock. Rather than anything so meek, so trite, rather than the icy distance I had clung to when I learned how healers were treated in the Seedling Palace, it felt like my blood was on fire.

Here was another example where the rules that had bound me growing up were treated as some puffed up bit of wind. Something to ruffle the hair and make you shiver but not have any lasting impact.

Here was another example of people full of life going about their business without a care that the goddess’s judgment might fall down on their heads. I had yet to see a healer here but when the goddess ignored all the life that must have accumulated here, the felled trees, the lack of worship, why would She care about someone with a bit more life than the rest?

If I had been a man, or even if I had just known about this place, I could have kept my beads and come here and lived. If I lost my blessing all it would cost me would be the pain of being on the edge of death without being able to die. I could have used the lava like the men did to create cooking fires and keep warm. Perhaps it would have been lonely and isolating, but that was what I was used to. The only difference would be the lack of judgment from the tribe.

I could understand why the men flocked here despite the fog and other unnatural surroundings. I could feel the draw to make a place for myself, to be who and what I wanted, without a thought for what the wider society deemed appropriate. If I couldn’t have been a Black Handed Healer, lauded for my skill and knowledge as much as a healer can be, I could have at least kept what little I had and damn the consequences by making my home in these cursed valleys.

But there was a much of a chance of that now as in finding solace in the goddess’s frozen wastes. Storms! The realization made fury course through my vines, made me want to break something.

A couple that had been making out carefully broke away from each other under my glare. I hadn’t even realized I had stopped to glower at them.

The taller of the two tried to glare back at me but his tone was hesitant, “What?”

“Count your blessings.”

You’d have thought I cursed them with the way they hurried away from me. Though they were blessed to take advantage of this place, for all of its unnatural, unsettling drawbacks.

I was as bound to the goddess as anyone could be. She had staked Her claim with the mark on my thigh when I was born, and now anything could threaten that had been pared away. Either I’d succeed with my training and obtain all the boons to become a whisper woman or I’d fail and likely serve Her as a Carver. Or She’s rescind Her blessing and I’d die, but death was Her domain too so I’d be just as trapped then as I was alive.

The same could be said of the other seedlings in the cohort as well. No matter what Juniper wanted or what the others might have aspired to as soon as we had received a unique blessing we had lost the other options that even Pickers could count on, however difficult they might be. The choice to leave the group, what skill to learn and master, the opportunity to bear a marriage brand. Even healers had a choice we couldn’t act on: the choice to opt out from the path they were born into.

All we could do was decide if we’d put the effort into being the best—and tie ourselves even more to the goddess—or do just enough that we wouldn’t be punished for the lack of effort.

I couldn’t do the latter. The thought of being incompetent grated at me, but I also hated the feeling that I was giving into the goddess’s designs by trying to be the best. If She even had designs. The goddess barely seemed to care about those that lived in Her territory except for when we raised Her ire. It could be just as likely that the marks were random, but the effect was the same. I wasn’t sure if that was worse but it was true that the goddess was awe inspiring, terrifying, all powerful and we were all bent to Her will by virtue of bearing Her marks and living on Her land.

Except, of course, those that had apparently snubbed Her blessing and what Her territory offered and gotten away with it. For the most part.

I doubted She’d have such leniency for someone who was only alive multiple times over due to Her blessing. Someone who had drunk the shadows and accepted the boon of dark sight. After what the goddess’s sister had done it was well known that the thing the goddess had the least tolerance for was betrayal.

Even these men had been punished for turning their backs on Her, even if the punishments seemed light in favor of the goddess could have done.

The guards keeping watch over their leaders’ meeting hall flinched under the weight of my glare when I finally made it to the building.

“Where are Deamar and Tike?” I snapped.

Perhaps they wouldn’t have normally listened to a short fifteen year old that shouldn’t have even been in their village or perhaps they were among the more tolerant villagers like our guides that had brought us here, either way the one on the left immediately answered.

He pointed to the building at the top of the opposite hill, “Deamar is at his family’s home and Tike normally takes Klus down to the river in the morning when he’s not on duty.”

“Fetch them. We need to leave shortly.” At my demand the guard on the right started to draw himself up, but I was quick to cut him down again. “Your leaders promised us guides. If you want us gone, it’d be in your best interest to unite us with them quickly.”

I had no desire to cross the wooden bridge myself or wind my way back down the hill only to climb the other one. The guards had a quick conversation under their breath before the disgruntled guard headed for the house at the top of the other hill. Apparently, he had no concern about trodding all over the wooden bridge.

The remaining guard offered me an apologetic smile and I turned my back on him. I didn’t need condolences for rude behavior, I needed results. More men came and went from the meeting hall, giving me a variety of looks when they found me standing just off the path, but I ignored them as well. In less time than I expected, Deamar followed the guard out of the mud and wood house and joined me in front of the meeting hall. He had a traveling pack on his back.

I focused on the guard, “Have Tike meet us at our campsite once he gathers his things. As soon as possible. We’ll leave once he joins us.”

The guard sorely looked like he wanted to same something but his gaze caught on my black lips and he swallowed whatever he was going to say back down. Deamar didn’t have the same restraint. “You can’t speak to him like that.”

“Can’t I?”

He frowned and set his shoulders. “We’re not the men that just let you walk all over us because we’re too afraid to leave. You don’t have authority here.”

I titled my head. “And you do?”

The arrogant fool drew himself up even further. “My fathers—”

I snorted softly. “Exactly. Your leaders promised us guides and those guides failed to show up. So now I’m wasting my time gathering you together. If you don’t want to make them look even more incompetent, I’d suggest you tell that guard to hurry up.” I paused as if I had just realized something. “Better yet you could fetch Tike yourself. Let the guard do his job.”

He stared at me as if I had just told him to grow another head. Which confirmed my suspicions that Tike was something of an outcast in this band. Enough so that he got stuck with some out of the way guard duty and that the coddled leaders’ son couldn’t fathom being forced to retrieve him.

I smiled at Deamar, but I knew it wasn’t kind. “Or you could enjoy my company all the way back to our camp so that I can know you won’t disappear again.”

He scowled at me but it was as effective as a puppy trying to be intimidating. I almost scowled back at him, just so he could see what a real scowl was like, but instead I let him see my amusement. “Your choice.”

He huffed, he puffed, he looked to the guards for help but neither of them wanted to leave their post if they didn’t have to, especially if it meant going all the way to the river.

“Fine.” Deamar adjusted his pack on his shoulders, already uncomfortable with the weight, and stomped his way down the hill.

I let him get a decent length ahead of me before I set off after him. Better that than having to endure his company more than I had to.