While I did resolve to sleep some during the trial, I also decided to stick to my altered schedule. So while the others had their most intense practice in the morning, I slept and then I’d start in the early afternoon and make my own attempts long into the night, so I could still have hours when the space belonged to the wind spirits and me alone. That night, though, Juniper did join me for about an hour after the sun went down. Later she told me that it made it easier when everything was dark and she couldn’t easily where she might fall even when her blindfold was off, but she didn’t commit to changing her sleep schedule since she didn’t like sleeping during the day.

I used the first day and night after my enforced rest to keep perfecting my ability to sense the wind around me and take advantage when it fell still. As I did, I got closer and closer to the layer of shifting needles and leaves that blanketed the entire basin about halfway down. As Mishtaw said, the sprites had obscured the lower pathways so we couldn’t see how they might twist or where the wellsprings were. A second veil of the wind spirits own making.

I had spent some time watching that layer of pine needles and leaves ebbing and flowing but no matter where or how long I watched they didn’t stop moving. Which raised another question for my choice on how to proceed: what did I do when I was in an area where the wind never stopped? Where there were no gaps?

I could force a gap by blocking the oncoming wind with a shield or some other obstruction, but I wasn’t inclined to carry around wide, heavy objects, and it’d be a temporary solution at best since the wind could flow around it. Especially if the wind changed direction as the leaf veil tended to do. Perhaps I could always block the wind if I got good enough to react immediately to instantaneous changes in its flow, but I wasn’t there yet.

In a similar vein of thought, I could force my way through the veil and then resume my way of sensing the winds around me, but I was reluctant to throw away what I had been practicing just get past a crucial obstacle. It was like admitting that what I was trying to do wasn’t good enough.

If the spirits were amenable I could also ask them to part the leaf veil so I could pass through. It seemed like Wren and Prevna had done something similar to that when they managed to get through the veil earlier in the evening. The wind spirits also briefly parted the leaf veil when they were returning seedlings to the starting platform after they had failed below. I kept the idea as a back up plan.

What I really wanted to try was the next best thing to finding the pockets of still air: slipping among the weakest breezes, riding the edges of the strongest gusts so that they couldn’t push me with their full strength. The wind might be able to slip into any crack, but the idea of thriving where other whisper struggled was growing on me. It'd be good to be able to use the boon even when there was little wind.

Perhaps if there was another situation similar to the shore, where all the wind got sucked away, I might be able to tell where it had gone or still be able to communicate when the others. Or perhaps I’d be able to feel and use the faintest breaths of wind that others couldn’t even feel. Or perhaps if one of those wasn’t the ability earning my boon would grant me, perhaps instead I’d be able to help call the wind to an area that was barren of it, like the Wind Caller and Reforester, even if those had been their blessings and not the side effect of a boon.

But to find out what I might earn, first I had to get past the the leaf veil and then to a wellspring. Preferably the Mother Spring.

The wind spirits had thrown all their tricks at me, but this time I had reached the leaf veil. I could hear the vast, shifting crackle and shuffle of thousands of leaves and pine needles moving around near my feet. I’d have to step into it and then not get pushed off course as I descended, step by step, until it rose above my head. It made my slightly grateful for my height, since I wouldn’t have to spend has long in the shifting mass as Breck or Loclen would.

I felt the wind, tasted it, but I stayed where I was, frustrated. The leaf veil, at least the area in front of me, all moved at the same pace in compact swirls and zig zags. There wasn’t a weak batch of wind to take advantage of. Still, in the next moment, I did advance. Tried to stick to the edge of the streams of wind, but I only got up to my knees before I shifted too far to one side and got spun off the path by different wind gust.

I tried several more times. All with similar results.

The next time I waited…and waited. I pushed all thoughts about the trial’s impending deadline out of my mind as well as ideal worries that the others might be coming to start their morning attempts soon. Mishtaw had said everyone reached a wellspring and that would be true for me as well.

I could be patient. I could be still. Even if they were skills I tended to abandon when other options presented themselves. Rather than stubbornly forcing my way forward, I could stubbornly stay exactly where I was and create my own stillness while the winds shifted around me. Eventually, there would be a moment of calm or I’d have grown familiar enough with the way the leaf veil moved that I could move through it without being blown over.

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The wind spirits blew and gusted from all angles, but they refrained from tugging on me as they had in the beginning nor did they whip up the winds to such an extent that they blew me off my feet. At one point, they did take away the bubble of still air I had been waiting in so my hair blew into my mouth, but they kept the wind relatively gentle. It seemed focused around my feet and head, like they were confused about why I wasn’t continuing forward. I could feel that the sprites had wrapped the gentler breezes with stronger winds that arced around me and headed straight for the leaf veil, perhaps as a guide in case I lost my way.

I pulled the hair from my mouth and shook my head. “I know it’s there.”

The wind around my ankles became slightly more insistent.

“You know what I’ve been doing. I’ll try again when I can apply what I’ve learned.”

The rustling in front of me intensified and as it did I felt small gaps of stillness open in the leaf veil. When I reached out to feel what had changed, I felt a tower of leaves pressed together. The sprites had made their own approximation of tree trunks blocking their winds.

I pricked a wrist with my prayer needle and flung a droplet of blood into the winds. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

This time I took advantage of their favor and slipped into the gap closest to me so I could duck under the leaf veil and continue on my way. As I did, however, I continued to sense the winds around me so that, eventually, I could make my own way through without it being handed to me.

Below the leaf veil the trial changed.

The wind spirits stopped testing me for every step. In fact, the bubble of still air widened significantly so that I was sure the edges of it went past the edges of the path I was on.

And I could hear them.

The shock of it, after so long with just wind and silence, caused me to miss a step and I had to stumble to catch myself from tripping over my own feet.

The wind spirits laughter, their unintelligible comments, their questions and instructions, were faint but I could hear them. The block they had put on the air above was gone.

And there was one thing I could understand that they wanted, something that wasn’t words but an impression that seemed to find meaning anyway.

Look. Look!

When I didn’t move quick enough to remove my blindfold, a tendril of wind surged toward me and pulled it right off my head. I blinked as my vision adjusted to using my dark sight boon after hours of staring at the cloth over my eyes. The willful bit of wind spun the blindfold over my head once, twice, before throwing it at my chest as the sprite spun away. I caught the blindfold and stuffed it into my belt.

Peering around I couldn’t see as much as I would’ve liked. The wind spirits had pulled more leaves and pine needles into the vortex that they’d formed around me, so I couldn’t see much more than the path I was on and the air around it. But I immediately noticed that my ability to sense the wind had changed. It was more difficult to feel the minute changes as it shifted in the vortex. Just the act of seeing acted as a distraction, but I’d adjust, just like I would to the leaf veil, given enough time.

I took an experimental step forward and the vortex moved with me. It didn’t take me long to figure out why the wind sprites had given me my vision back.

There was less logic here below the leaves.

The stone path I was on narrowed to a point and beyond it were large leaves, as wide as I was tall, spinning lazily in the air. Some moved up and down, others side to side, but regardless of that there was wide gaps between them. If I still had my blindfold on then I would have plunged down into the abyss every time without being any wiser about what was in front of my face.

It seemed like Juniper’s nightmare, but perhaps the wind spirits had a kinder path for those that became hysterical when it came to heights. Even I was skeptical about whether the leaves and the wind spirits’ whim could keep me aloft. But that same kind of impression came again from the sprites that surrounded me.

Jump!

Unless I wanted to backtrack the way I came I didn’t have much of a choice.

I jumped.

The leaf was waxy and somewhat pliable under my weight, but I didn’t immediately fall through it like I half expected. Instead, I had to catch myself and shove myself forward so my weight didn’t pull me off the edge.

After that I had a choice of another two leaves while the sprites urged me to Jump! Jump!

I focused on sensing the winds, trying to figure out if there was a trick to which one to pick. The one on the left moved up and down while the one on the right moved side to side, and they were same distance from me. If the wellsprings were at the bottom of the basin then going down would be the best option, but I’d have to time my jump so I wouldn't have as harsh of an impact if I went for the left leaf. Timing would also be important for the right leaf but I wouldn’t have to worry about falling extra far.

I went for the left and landed with an impact that knocked the air out my lungs. After that there were another two leaves and another two. I focused on descending downward.

Then I jumped again onto a leaf with a red rim. It shuddered and then shifted with my movement. Not expecting the change, I fell off and the wind spirits caught me before ferrying me back to the starting platform.

It didn’t take me long to become wary of the leaves with similar borders. They all moved erratically and I noticed that there didn’t seem to be any other leaves near to them once I landed on them. Dangerous dead ends.

I entered the lower section of the spirits’ home three more times before the others came and I called an end to my trial runs. I’d sleep and eat, and then it would be time for what could be our last day to earn our boons if the wind spirits weren’t generous.