Fellen stared across the gap until the whole tribe disappeared around the corner. After Grandmother turned away, I placed my own attention on the path ahead. It continued straight and flat for about 50 feet before sloping down to the right. If it continued in that direction there was a chance that it would connect with the main path—not that I could remember every twist and turn of that path, but following it as best we could would give us the highest chance of making it out of Flickermark. We also only had a few more hours before the sky lightened too much for us to make out the stars.

To her credit, Fellen wasn’t crying when I turned back to her. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she knew it wouldn’t be smart to waste time crying now. She dashed the tears that threatened to fall and asked, “What do we do now?”

I took off my pack and started to take things out. “What Rawley said. We’ll make it out of here, follow their tracks, and catch back up to the tribe. First, though, we need to compare what we have.” Fellen didn’t move. “Quickly! There’s only so much starlight left.”

All in all, our supplies were meager. Apprentices, and children in general, weren’t expected to carry a lot in case they slowed down the tribe. As I had thought, our food was insufficient. I had a small pouch of dried berries and Fellen had a bit of dried fish. We normally counted on food coming from the cooks. We had more water than I thought—both waterskins were about 3/4 full—as the tribe had used the waterfall Rawley had found to replenish the water supply, but we no longer had the thirst quenching fruits and vegetables the tribe used to prolong that supply. If we were disciplined we could probably only make our current amount last for two days, at most. We both had our slings and stone pouches with five stones each as well as our eating knifes. Two bedrolls, two small blankets, two balls of wool thread and sewing needles, two cloaks, two small rolls of emergency bandages, two prayer needles, two small plates. Fellen had a spare dress and gloves. I had three arm lengths of spare leather cord. Other than we had the clothes on our backs and our packs.

We would need to find more food, fuel to cook it, water, and shelter as we went. As we put our supplies away Fellen and I compared our ability to navigate. I had the better memory to remember where we came from, but Nole had taught her a couple more of the constellations. I had knowledge about different myths connected to some of the constellations and stars, but the ability to point out those constellations had not been deemed important for those lessons. Nor was Fellen’s knowledge much beyond the basics that had been ingrained in us when we were really young—use landmarks, the twin stars mark the east, stick close to a river or stream if lost—and those basics were nearly useless in Flickermark. Depending on the paths we took we might not be able to see the constellations she knew.

I kept my ball of woolen thread out. “I’ll knot this for the different turns we take. You do your best to follow the stars.”

She nodded, face grimmer than I had ever seen it. “I’ll try.”

I had to clamp my lips together to keep from saying, Don’t try—just do it! as I gestured for her to take the lead. She did before she paused to look back.

Her voice was soft when she spoke, “Thanks for saving me.” She hesitated before adding more strongly, “But don’t grab my hair again! I think you pulled some out!”

She ran a hand over her right braid as if to smooth away lingering pain even though I knew it couldn’t still hurt.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll grab your hair again if it means saving you from breaking your neck and back.” I made a sharp gesture to the path ahead. “Let’s go.”

“I—” Fellen shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Okay.”

The path did continue down to the right after we went around the first corner, but after a bit it leveled off and turned left. My best guess was that it was running adjacent to the main path. When the path we were on curved farther to the left and then split into a series of smaller paths we did our best to pick paths that kept us on the northern end of Flickermark. The last thing we wanted was to end up stumbling into a bane pack’s territory or one of the other predators that fought for dominance in the ravines. There were still predators and other animals in the northern side of Flickermark but, from what we could tell, they were smaller and less temperamental than those closer to the Statue Garden.

As we went I also kept my eye out for conditions that would point to the growth of various edible plants as well as the plants themselves. There was food in Flickermark if you knew where to look for it. Fellen didn’t object to the use of my knowledge even though I didn’t doubt that she knew I couldn’t have learned it all from Rawley in the past few months. We needed food and I wasn’t gathering the plants for healing, so she did her best to help me gather what I found without comment. If we had been at Gabbler Shore or in the hills, she probably would have been able to find her own share too. A part of me had balked at using the healer’s knowledge so soon after being told not to cling to what I didn’t have, but the larger part of me understood that not starving held priority. Besides, it was my knowledge and it would be idiotic of me to purposefully not use all the resources I had at my disposal.

Those first few hours before dawn went as well as could be expected. We got lucky in that a few of the different paths we followed, we could see the twin stars over the lip of the ravines, and by tracking the corners and turns we had taken we thought we were still near Flickermark’s northern edge—though we never made it back onto the main path the tribe had taken the past two times we passed through that we could tell. We added several handfuls of edible flowers and moss to our food supply. There had also been a shaded pod crawler climbing up the side of one of the ravine walls. We peeled open the oval pods and ate the sticky insides there rather than risk one getting split open in our packs and ruining our other supplies. Besides, once we ate our fill there weren’t any more pods within reach.

We holed up in one of small nooks that pocked the sides of the ravines once we lost what help we could glean from the stars to the brightening sky. I took first watch as Fellen curled up on her pallet, but she didn’t fall asleep right away.

“Gimley?”

I kept my gaze on the path in case anything came near. Most of the animals in Flickermark were nocturnal, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. “What?”

“Why did you make it so that you went onto the bridge first? It wasn’t to just to win the contest, was it?”

“Going first was supposed to be the more dangerous position. Not that it turned out that way.”

“Oh.” I heard her shift a bit. “But you don’t like me. And that sounds like you were protecting me.”

I crossed my arms. “Just because I don’t like you, it doesn’t mean I want you dead.”

Her tone turned defensive. “You didn’t think I could make it off the bridge if something went wrong?”

“Whatever I thought doesn’t matter now.”

More movement and I felt her hand on my shoulder, trying to turn me. “I want to know!” There was a pause and then her hand clamped tighter on my shoulder. “Did you know something was going to go wrong?”

Her hand wasn’t enough to move me, but my incredulity was. ”No! If I had known that why would I have even stepped onto the bridge? Why would we be in this mess?”

“I don’t know! Maybe you thought we could make it back to the tribe and you wanted to prove you were better than me by making it back from the middle of the bridge.”

I sighed and shrugged off her hand. “Do you really think I’d do something that stupid?”

She glared at me. “Well, it makes more sense than you going first to protect me. You don’t protect other people.” Fellen took advantage of the pause throwing that in my face had created to add, “And even if you did, I don’t need help from you. I’m going to beat you fair and square.”

That gave me something to latch onto. “You can’t beat me fair and square if you’re dead!”

“And what makes you so sure I would die and not you? I could have gone first and had the same chance as you.”

“No, you couldn’t.” The certainty in my voice made her pause. “Going out onto that bridge was less risky for me than it was for you. Going into any dangerous situation will always be less risky for me than it is for you.”

Her posture, her tone, everything about her conveyed the idea that she was determined to prove me wrong. “How do you know?”

I was so used to not talking about my blessing, to thinking about my mark without associating it with the power that came with it—trying my best to blend in with everyone else so that maybe I would be treated like the twins—that it felt odd to come right out and say what it did. But I was Gimley now and with that name came ownership of my blessing. I couldn’t very well be the whisper woman known for her mark if I never told anyone what it did.

So I looked Fellen right in the eyes and told her. “My blessing doesn’t let me die.” She blinked rapidly and what I said didn’t fully seem to sink in, so I said it again after I pulled up my skirt to reveal my mark. I pointed at the seven black diamonds. “My blessing doesn’t let me die.”

She shook her head and scooted back a little. “But that…” She lost her words and had to try again. “Why would the goddess give you something that goes against Her own aspect?”

I shrugged, trying to make it seem more nonchalant than lost as I covered my leg again. “She’s a goddess. I don’t think we’re meant to understand all of Her choices.”

Fellen mulled that over for several long minutes before another thought occurred to her. “How do you know that’s your blessing?” I gave her the briefest account of when I had lain sick with infection and the goddess averted Her gaze. It only seemed to help Fellen latch onto her idea even more. “But how do you know it doesn’t only apply to infections or that She’ll only avert Her gaze a certain number of times? If you get trapped under an icy lake and can’t breathe, will you survive even though there’s no way for you get air? What if you get crushed?” I saw another line of questioning spark before I had a chance to answer the first. “Of course, the goddess wouldn’t give you a blessing that heals, but does that mean if you fell from the bridge you would have been permanently crippled even if you couldn’t die? Would you survive even if you were bleeding out or if a bane pack tore out your throat? What about old age?”

I felt doubt uncurl in my gut and tangle with the certainty I had felt about my blessing when the goddess continued to avert Her gaze during my illness, so instead of answering I turned Fellen’s point back on her. “How do you know you’re a Spark? How do you you can’t make more fire at a time or do other tricks with it?”

The defensiveness returned. “I just do.”

I nodded, and ignored the seed of doubt. Even if there were limits to my blessing that I didn’t know about, there was nothing I could about it other than attempt to die in a multitude of ways and see if any of them stuck. And doing something that stupid did nothing to get me closer to my goal. “It’s the same for me. My mark doesn’t let me die.”

She connected the pieces. “So you thought it would be better for you to go first on the bridge? Because even if something went wrong and you fell, you would survive?”

I turned back to the path. “Like I said, you can’t beat me if you’re dead. Not that I’ll let you win anyway.”

“But you can still get hurt.” Concern. Something I never thought I’d hear directed at me from Fellen.

“Go to sleep, Fellen. The longer you stay up the longer it is until I get to sleep.” Side stepping that field of traps was for the best.

She stayed where she was sitting. “But—”

“Go to sleep or I will—and you can take first watch.”

Fellen mumbled something that sounded like a curse before she moved away and I heard her lay back down. I think it took her a long time to fall sleep, so I didn’t wake her up even when sunlight filled the ravine. My eyes might have been gritty, but it was easier to plan for Fellen’s potential reactions to me when she got up, and for the journey ahead, rather than lay down and try to relax enough to sleep.