I glanced longingly over my shoulder at the back row in the stage area. I should have reacted faster when Prevna first got that glint in her eye when we got close, but she had hooked her arm through mine and clung on tight before I could slip away. She had tried to pull me to the lowest seats, but I sat once we were halfway down, leaving her with option to stand awkwardly stooped over or sit as well. She sat and now I couldn’t make my way to the back without making a scene.

Dera sat in front of us with Loclen as they chatted quietly. Wren had made her way over to left side of the stage to talk with Juniper, of all people. The conversation didn’t look tense though Ento and Idra watched every little gesture Wren made. Idra wasn’t pleased when Chirp fluttered down onto her lap. She tried to swat him off and earned a nipped finger for her trouble before the proud bird fly onto Wren’s head. She left the first dome group shortly after that.

Breck lounged near the top of the seats not far from them but didn’t let anything she heard slip past the bored look on her face. When Andhi, Ulo, and Nii stepped past her to sit in the middle area she glanced at them and kept idly flipping her knife in the air. She caught it without looking at it.

Ulo didn’t seem pleased to be taking time away from her all important training while Andhi looked apologetic for her companion’s sour disposition. Nii greeted Wren before sitting with the other two, her alert gaze taking in everyone’s positions in one sweep.

Wren stepped down into the middle of the stage area and turned to face us. “Thanks for coming. I learned something today that I thought you all should know.” She paused taking in our expressions before she drew herself up. “Jin isn’t really a mentor. She’s here to break us down, test how much abuse we can take.”

Ulo let out a scoffing groan. “Really? She’s gone for less than a week and you’re already spinning theories because you don’t like how she teaches?”

Chirp puffed up on Wren’s shoulder as her tone sharpened slightly. “She’s known as the Enforcer. She left us without a word and is off punishing the tree burner.”

Ulo flicked a glare my way before my way before dismissing me. “So she says.”

Wren also glanced at me but I was too busy glaring back at Ulo to read her expression before she said, “It’s true. She doesn’t care about us. Everything she teaches we could have learned on our own.”

Ulo looked about to argue again but Juniper cut in. “Everything we learn is currently on our own. During her lectures she pushes us until we give her the correct answers or she punishes us for not knowing. During weapons training the most she does is give orders and lecture us over our failures with no guidance on how to improve.” Juniper raised her eyebrows. “Does that sound like a mentor to you?”

Prevna murmured under her breath, “A piss poor one.”

I silently agreed with her. Even she had offered more insight and helpful new knowledge than Jin did. Sure, she had sometimes lectured on something none of us knew about, but she also didn’t bother to give much context so that new knowledge wasn’t nearly as insightful as I wanted it to be.

“Why go to her lessons then?” Ulo challenged, staring at Juniper.

Juniper shrugged. “Some lessons are better than none and there was always a chance it was a trial.” She gestured to Wren as if to prove her point.

Wren took that as a signal to keep going. “I think it’s a trial to see how passive we are…or how much we can endure.”

Nii crossed her arms. “They can’t expect us to beat Jin. That’s absurd. We couldn’t even beat the Sprouts before.”

A heavy silence fell over the group for a long minute as we all mulled over that fact. Idra broke it, “Then what? We endure, when that’s just the same as before?”

Juniper laid a quelling hand on her knee as she faced Wren. “We need to figure out the parameters of the trial. What else do you know about Jin?”

Wren repeated what I had found in the scroll, about Jin’s various accolades for keeping people in line and harsh punishments. The news that her blessing was Named didn’t quell any of the uncertainty and fear rolling around in the stage area, however. Even Breck betrayed a hint of alarm at that. Named blessings tended to be more powerful as their original bearers made enough of a ruckus that it caught the goddess’s attention and She approved of the power enough to pass it on to a new generation once the original bearer passed.

Ulo’s eyes narrowed as she talked. “Where did you learn all of that?”

Wren hesitated for a fraction of a second before stating, “The library.”

“What library?”

I couldn’t tell if Wren’s surprise was genuine or fake. “The seedling library. The one inside the wide platform at the end of the right side of the fork after the shrine?”

Recognition didn’t show on Ulo’s face, rather embarrassed anger shuttered it. “How could scrolls help you? You don’t know anymore of the basic characters than the rest of us.”

Wren’s chin lifted. “There’s pictures too.”

Andhi broke into the conversation, confusion filling her voice. “How could pictures show you everything you just told us?”

My shoulders tightened as Wren floundered for an answer. I should have thought of that discrepancy. Any involvement on my part would hinder the others’ acceptance of the information we were trying to get across, but if I didn’t speak up they might conclude Wren was just making everything up in some convoluted ploy.

Wren was offering some barely thought out excuse about the pictures being really detailed after Ulo pressed her about how she knew the name of Jin’s blessing when I interrupted.

“I read it. Third circle from the Seedling Palace carving, third column in from the right, eleventh scroll from the bottom.” All eyes turned on me, so I answered the question I knew was coming. “I’m a fast learner.”

Barely anyone bought the statement given the distrust and ambivalence directed my way.

Ulo made a noise of disgust and stood. “I’m not listening to anything she’s a part of and you shouldn’t either. Even if she wasn’t a lazy degenerate, the life in her will taint whatever she touches.”

Prevna leaned close to my ear. “You should ask her to tell you how she really feels.”

I ignored Prevna as Ulo stomped her way up the terraced benches, Nii on her heels. Burning warmth pressed up under the cold floating between my ribs but the heat wasn’t enough to dissipate it. Andhi, surprisingly, hesitated for a few moments before she cast a guilty, apologetic look my way and followed them.

Ento addressed Wren in the tense silence. “I don’t know what you expect us to do. Taking on Jin sounds even stupider now, given what you told us, than it did before but continuing on with lessons when she returns isn’t an appealing option either.”

Wren didn’t quite meet her gaze. “We just thought you should know.”

“A plan of action would have been better,” Breck criticized before she also go up and left.

Juniper rose with Ento and Idra, following the new pattern. “We’ll think on what can be done.”

Once their footsteps faded away Wren walked over to the four of us who were left. “That could have gone better.”

Dera immediately leapt into giving her assurances while Prevna faced me, expectant. “What are you going to do?”

My lips pressed together in irritation. Hating what I was about admit. “I don’t know.”

“Hm.” Prevna considered my answer. “I’m going to talk to Clara and Shawsh. Coming?”

- -

“Tell us what you know about Jin.”

Clara groaned with exasperation as Prevna finished her statement. She wasn’t reading this time; she held a slate in her lap while Shawsh used whatever was drawn there as a reference as he carved and molded a small piece of clay.

Clara looked pointedly at me. “I already told her.”

Prevna snorted and settled down on the ground. I sat beside her as she spoke, “Not everything. You’re what…a year or two before us? How did you deal with her?”

Clara rolled her eyes. “I didn’t. Yetti was still in charge of the seedlings when I was brought to Seed Landing, your lovely little area. Jin only made the stages for Hunter’s Quarry then.”

Prevna prompted, “Yetti?”

Shawsh paused to sit up and stretch his back. “She was good mentor. Once the seedlings learned all the basic characters she would take you on a tour down here to the library, so you could learn more and practice.”

“She actually knew how to teach,” Clara added. More than a hint of bitterness seeped into her voice as she continued, “That metaphor Jin probably spouted at you when you arrived? ‘A seedling’s growth is its own’. That was Yetti’s to begin with—I bet Jin made it sound like a threat.”

I kept silent, soaking in the unexpected windfall of information as Prevna kept the conversation going.

“So what? Yetti died on some mission and since Jin had some tie to the training we got stuck with her?”

Clara drew in a deep breath, noticeably more tense than before. “You and the year before. You can thank the Lady Blue for that.”

It didn’t take a genius to notice that it wouldn’t be helpful to push that line of questioning further. Clearly, Clara had more of connection to her late mentor than I thought I would ever feel for Jin. Rawley, on the other hand…well, I could understand why she wouldn’t want to elaborate.

Prevna asked, “Do you think they’ll give the position to anyone else?”

They both shook their heads before Clara answered, “Not in time to help you. It’s not like Jin wants the assignment, either, just like everyone else. There’s too many other, more interesting things to focus on.”

Shawsh sighed. “I’d take the position if it was allowed, but an old man teaching the future of the goddess’s own? True folly, I’m told.”

I blinked. “Do we have to go to Jin’s lessons? Could we come here instead?”

Shawsh cast a nervous look at Clara and bent back to his work. She answered for him, “No one’s risked it.” She hesitated and then continued, “I mean, to become a Sprout you just need to earn one of the goddess’s boons. Showing teamwork and understanding your blessing and everything else is important if you want to show progress and get looked at by any of the Sects, but, as far as I know, strictly speaking, the goddess’s boon is all you need.”

I ignored the warning that thrilled up my spine at seeing her uncertain to press, “And that’s typically drinking the shadows? To gain access to the shadow paths?”

She nodded, wary.

Prevna rose her eyebrows at Clara. “Can you tell us how to earn it?”

Clara rolled her eyes and snorted. “No.” Then a small smile quirked her lips. “The master of knowledge here might be able to give you a hint.”

Shawsh was silent for a few long minutes as he finished attaching a strip of clay to the inside of the hole he had carved. Watching him, I realized he was making the underground cavern with the waterfalls in Flickermark I had described in exchange for the previous bits of information. It was a little annoying that they were sharing so much for free this time, but I guessed the fact that Clara wasn’t trying to read and her need to complain about Jin had crumbled her normal reticence.

Shawsh checked his work before carefully turning to face Prevna and me fully. He made a wide, encompassing gesture. “You have access to everything you need to earn the blessing of shadows in Seed Landing.”

Prevna tilted her head at the vague proclamation, “Really?”

He nodded. “Good luck.”

Then Shawsh smiled apologetically before turning back to wet his clay with the bowl of water on his stand.

Clara held up a hand to stop anything else we might say. “No more questions.” She tapped the slate. “I need to focus.”

I sincerely doubted that, but Prevna and I got up and left. There wasn’t much point to risk being too pushy and ruining them as a resource if anything else came up in the future. Prevna teased me about not talking to them again after I looked over the scrolls, but we both knew that talking to people was never going to be my first inclination.

Still, it felt good to finally have a clear goal once again after months of agonizing over what I should do under Jin’s “mentorship”. Attain the blessing of shadows. That was the true trial of the Seed Landing. And, from the sound of it, I wouldn’t even need Jin’s training to do so.