Prevna, Wren, Loclen and I didn’t explore the rest of the area beyond the thin paths until a few days later. They were intimidated about seeing something as significant as the Beloved again, not that anything could really compare to that. Well, Wren was intimidated. Loclen was noncommittal and I couldn’t tell if Prevna was actually excited about something crazy possibly happening or if she was trying to drag our moods up. Granted, seeing the Beloved had been a long moment of glory, but there was a part of me that wondered if the goddess took well to having her ogled at. The sheer number of balconies on the goddess’s nest indicated yes, while every myth that hinted at her jealousy said no. I thought we should skip any covered stairways, because then we wouldn’t have to worry about ending up on the viewing platform, and everything would work out.

Things did not work out. Not initially, at least. With how my luck had been lately, I should have expected it. Prevna and Wren had already crossed the rightmost thin path and I was starting to cross it next when Loclen, grumpy and tired with this second early morning exploration, decided to take the tinner roped path so she wouldn’t have to wait. A handful of steps onto the path, I heard Prevna and Wren shout at her. Jerking my head up from focusing on my footing, I looked over to find Loclen rapidly stepping across the narrower path, a determined, irritated look set into her eyebrows and jaw.

I muttered something unkind under my breath before snapping at her, “You could have gone next!”

She didn’t pause when she scowled over at me. “Just keep going. They’re practically the—”

Her foot hit the side of the path and slid off. I jerked towards her, unthinking, in a bid to grab her that would have only worked if my arm was several feet longer. My own foot hit empty air and I wobbled. Bracing against the rope in one hand and staring at the void of thin branches and open air below me, I managed to shove myself backwards and find purchase on the path. After a moment of dangerous wavering my balanced steadied and I began to shake. Little tiny tremors running from my scalp down to my hands as delayed nerves tried to burst out of my chest.

That was when I realized the shouting hadn’t stopped. I forced myself to drag my attention away from how my hands were white-knuckled onto the rope and back over to what had caused my little trouble. Loclen was precariously balanced between her rope and the thin path. The rope was dug up under her right armpit and she was clutching at it with both hands while her right leg dangled, unable to find purchase, and her left knee was the only thing keeping her on the bridge. The rope creaked under her weight. She was trying shove herself back onto the bridge like I had, but her position wasn’t giving her much leverage to work with. Wren was scooching down Loclen’s path on her butt, one leg thrown over either side, so she didn’t have to worry about grabbing the rope and messing up Loclen’s precarious balance. It was undignified, but effective. Prevna called out suggestions and tried to be helpful from a distance while Chirp fluttered around anxiously and wasn’t much help at all.

Wren reached Loclen and steadied her, pulling her back onto the path by her waist. An annoying, ill timed, and idiotic flash of jealousy crackled through me at the sight, but I suppressed it a moment later. I wasn’t more than a weird classmate in her eyes and it wasn’t like I had done much to change that view.

Loclen copied Wren’s position once she was firmly settled back on the bridge even though it made her dress ride up. I thought I saw her skin darken with a blush, but Wren didn’t comment on it. Instead, she kept up a mostly one-sided conversation about what we might find in the unexplored side of the fork and how nice the day was. Not that we could really tell what the weather was like outside the Seedling Palace other than when it rained or was exceptionally windy. Even the snow melted by the time it reached the middle areas of the grove. I started side stepping my way over to Prevna as soon as I saw Loclen was safely on her path, so I beat them to the other side.

Prevna gave me a sideways glance. “Alright?”

I still hadn’t found a good time to press her about what she said when she was trying to help me on the staircase and her unsettling concern reminded me of it.

“Why do you care?” The question came out more terse than I meant it to, but she just shrugged and let it roll off her.

Then Prevna looked directly into my eyes, eyebrows quirked up, and a smile tugging on her lips. “Why shouldn’t I?”

I looked away first—not sure if a sarcastic remark or genuine kindness was going to follow next or which one would be worse. “Nevermind.”

She snorted, amused, and let the conversation drop which worked out well because Wren and Loclen made their way onto the platform soon after. Loclen demanded that we not mention the incident to anyone which the other reluctantly agreed to and I promptly did. If no one heard about Loclen’s mishap, they wouldn’t hear about mine either. Then we made our way through the garden—Wren was surprised by the sudden disarray of it—before passing by the shrine and down the right side of the forked branch.

What we found was decidedly lackluster even without comparing it to the finds we had discovered during our first exploration. The entire branch was made up of several different areas for sitting or relaxing. The first area was similar to the recovery platform connected to the training area. Benches of dark sap lined one side of a small branch while ice vine tendrils curled around the railings on both sides. It looked designed for boredom—all you could do was listen to the sounds of the trees and watch the dark needles sway in the soft breeze. The next area also had sap benches, but they were more like mounds with the centers pressed in. Each indent looked big enough to fit an average thirteen year old and was full of soft needles. Prevna proved my estimate correct when she tried laying down in one of the odd benches. Her feet and calves stuck out over the lip of the needle bed given that she was a year too old and tall for her age. Still, she said the pine needles were comfy. The last area didn’t have any benches and was nearly identical to where we ate near the cooking area. A large vaguely-oval shaped area with a variety of cushions to lounge on and nothing else. There wasn’t even a railing encircling the area. We pulled a few cushions together and sat to consider our options.

“Do you think it’s just a place to relax, get away from the other seedlings if you want?” Prevna flicked me a glance as she asked this.

Loclen considered for a moment before replying, “Maybe, but it could also for reflecting after going down to the viewing platform—or a place to rest after climbing all those stairs.”

“Or storytelling.” Wren put in and Chirp piped up to sing his agreement. “This could be a fun place to tell ice folk tales at night. There aren’t many pine cone lanterns close by.”

Once she mentioned it, I noticed that it was true. Most of the fire lit pine cones were further back along the path and over the other two areas. This spot looked to be relatively close to the open inner area inside the grove with the amount of sunlight that was already breaking through the branches, not that we could see any hint of the goddess’s residence. While it was irritating that I hadn’t noticed it right away—Rawley would have been disappointed—there was a kind of comfort to being in mostly natural light during the day. I think that’s also partly why I liked going up to the outlook.

Loclen smirked. “Ice folk tales? Those are for children.”

A flash of hurt crossed Wren’s face before she covered it with a confident smile. “Obviously, you haven’t heard about the burrowing one then.”

That was a tale I hadn’t heard; I had to stop myself from leaning forward. I had always been so focused on the myths and legends about the goddess and whisper women that there hadn’t much time for the more common children’s tales. Of course, I knew a few from when the twins had been told before bed time, but they had never been as grand as the ones I was supposed to know.

Loclen dismissed her point with a slight huff, “No, but my tribe was always more interested in telling tales about sea monsters.”

Prevna broke back into the conversation with a nostalgic smile. “Milwa liked to tell stories about Sticky Fingers. He could charm his way into getting anything he wanted.”

An uneasy silence fell as we tried to decide how to respond to her comment. A male Picker, especially that mythic male Picker, was more enemy than hero in our stories. Prevna might be part of our cohort now, but that didn’t mean our differing histories didn’t make things awkward sometimes.

She noticed the silence with a wry smile. “Don’t try to tell me there aren’t things you wouldn’t mind charming your way into getting.” She winked at me as she finished speaking and I rolled my eyes even as I fought a blush that threatened to rise up my neck and onto my cheeks.

Wren chuckled and the tension in the air released. “I mean you’re not wrong.” She shifted her attention to me. “What stories did your tribe tell?”

I shrugged and swallowed down the embarrassment clogging my throat. “I think they mainly told tales about the ice folk too.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “You think?”

“I learned more about the historical myths and the ones about the goddess, the Beloved, and Her whisper women. There wasn’t time for much else.”

Wren continued to press, still confused, “Not even for bedtime stories?”

I couldn’t choke back the derisive laugh that tasted like acid bubbling up from my chest. “I wasn’t told bedtime stories.”

Then I pushed myself to my feet and walked away to avoid their wide-eyed stares. I didn’t need their pity; the myths I had learned were perfectly fine. Some random childhood tale would have just made clutter in my memory landscape.

Chirp fluttered onto my shoulder and, rather than get a warning nip, I ignored him. He seemed satisfied with that though as he sang a bit and worked on making sure his chest feathers were in perfect order. The others watched me for a few moments before settling back into conversation and occasional glances. I walked the perimeter of the oval area, careful not to step too close to the edge.

Which was how I found the hidden pathway tucked up against the side of the platform. I felt a bit stupid as soon as I saw it—I should have checked all the edges as soon as we arrived on the platform, especially given my experience with the waterfall path in Flickermark. This path was that one’s twin except for the fact that it was made out of a hollow branch, cut open lengthwise, and there were footholds carved into the platform’s side rather than a straight four foot drop.

I considered trying to slip down the path alone, but Chirp was with me and I doubted I was stealthy enough to disappear from an open platform without them noticing. And there was the matter of Prevna and Loclen coming to find me a few days before. Owing a debt didn’t sit well with me and I was supposed to at least make a show of getting along with everyone else.

I turned and called over to them, “Found something!”

They scrambled to their feet and looked impressed when they saw what I had found. After that there wasn’t much discussion. Chirp flitted back to Wren and twittered something to her that made her smile. Then I made my way down the footholds and onto the smooth path first because I had been the one to find it. Prevna followed me, then Wren, and Loclen brought up the rear. I focused ahead, straining to see where the path led, while Prevna and Wren speculated about what we would find, and Loclen kept up the pattern with a shrewd silence on her end.

The path wasn’t long. It rounded the outside of the platform we had rested on, which was much more bulbous than I had initially thought. The path ended at an opening in the side of the platform, just under the walkway leading to where we had sat, and big enough for Prevna to step through without hitting her head. The opening was covered with needles on the inside, so I couldn’t see through. I waited an impatient moment for the others to catch up before I pushed my way through the needle curtain.

Prevna ran into me when she tried to step through after. Rather than move out of the way, I stayed stock still, too busy taking in the sight in front of me. Scroll after scroll was tightly rolled in a loop of leather cord bound to a strand that hung from the flat ceiling above. There had to be at least fifteen scrolls per leather cord strand and dozens of the cords filled the room. Interspersed between the scrolls were pedestals of amber sap and each one had a different miniature scene displayed on top. The nearest one looked like the Seedling Palace, complete with purple and blue-black paint for the tiny pine needles and a version of the goddess’s nest dangling in the center. Everything was lit up by small, softly glowing pine cone lanterns set into the ceiling above, which gave to rounded chamber an oddly cozy feeling.

“Gimley, move. Or I’ll push you.”

Not wanting to stumble into the scrolls or knock the miniature Seedling Palace over, I moved. Prevna stepped in with a relieved sigh before she also paused to take in the room. She got over her surprise quicker than I had, however, and stepped quickly out of Wren’s way. Wren thought it was interesting but Loclen’s awe was the closest to my own—which was interesting because I didn’t think she could read yet.

We moved further into the chamber, not wanting to repeat our earlier mistake and overlook something. In the center of the room was a cleared space. A young woman, older than us by at least a few years, looked up from where she lounging on several cushions like she owned them and moved her scroll to the side to get a better look at us. She was pale skinned with waist length wavy brown hair spread out over the floor behind her. Her features looked somewhat pinched and her lips were also black, but she wasn’t wearing whisper woman robes; a comfortable and fancy looking deep green tunic and black pants covered her instead. Her bless mark was a black circle around the base of her throat. She was an older seedling, most likely. Jin had said they were called Sprouts or Saplings depending on how far they were into their training.

She twitched her scroll back in front of her face. “Shawsh, you have visitors!”

I turned to focus on the old man—he had to be a fire starter—sitting cross-legged on a cushion and mumbling over a half finished scene of some icy mountains perched on a pedestal no higher than my knee. He was tall and thin with a scrawny look that his silvering black hair didn’t help. He held out a handful of tiny clay pieces to the woman.

“Ice blue, please, Clara.” He didn’t even look away from his project.

The older Seedling rolled her eyes before setting her scroll aside and rolling up into a sitting position. “He gets like this sometimes.” Clara accepted the clay pieces and closed her hand over them, she seemed to concentrate for a moment before she opened her hand and passed them back to the old man. When she did they were all a perfect ice blue color, just like he requested.

Clara gently touched the man’s arm. “Visitors, Shawsh.”

He started and twisted around, blinking in surprise before a broad grin broke across his face. “You found the library early!”