I kept up my practice long into the night, long after the others left for bed. I knew Prevna wouldn’t approve of me repeating my struggles with sleep that I had in the inner valleys, but we only had so many days. Better to skip some sleep now and have more time to experiment.

Besides, there was something relaxing about being the only one within the veil besides the wind sprites themselves. I didn’t have to worry about being stepped on or catching up to someone else. I could simply test my ability to feel the wind and the lack of it, over and over and over again.

It was interesting. The more I chased after the pockets of still air, the more it seemed that those pockets became an actual path. The edges of the pockets went from an obvious rush of strong wind to the gentle breezes that we were originally promised. If I strayed too close to those edges then the wind spirits would suck me off my feet into open air before depositing me back onto the starting platform.

It was as if the wind spirits were adapting to what I was trying to do. As I changed my approach to get past their bullying tactics, they also changed how they tried to trick me and pull me off course. Perhaps that first wind pocket had been a fluke, but it was also true I was making progress with my new approach. I didn’t want to give up on it yet, especially when it felt like I was making progress based on my own decisions rather than the wind spirits’ whims.

The hardest part about my new experiment, however, was the actual application of it. I was trying to feel for the absence of something, so it was difficult to always know when I was reaching the edge of the air pocket I was in. More than once I found myself in uncomfortably still air only to suddenly get a wind blast straight to the face or arm because I stepped too far in the wrong direction.

I found myself, instead, starting to feel for the strength of the wind around me. Listening for the strength of it, holding out my hands to see if I could feel a wisp of a breeze before getting pulled into the wall of wind the sprites had made around my pocket of still air. By being able to tell where the wind was theoretically I should also be able to tell where it wasn’t.

Unfortunately, my sensitivity to the wind wasn’t what I wanted it to be. Once the wind spirits seemed to figure out what I was trying to do they widened the pockets of still air and stopped pushing their winds in all different directions so that I could more easily distinguish the direction it was coming from and stay in the tunnel of dead air.

It felt like an insult. More than once I fumed to myself about not needing their help, but no matter how much I wanted to deny it I couldn’t get far without those adjustments. For now.

Still, it was clear when I reached a check point along the path because the wind spirits would add more wind to the mix or make the path of still air narrower or make the edges of the path subtler so I had to strain to figure out where the wind started and stopped. I never lasted more than a handful of steps once they made the challenge more difficult.

But I kept practicing and with every round I could tell I was getting better at sensing the wind. Every round was another chance to prove myself. Another opportunity to see how far I could go.

“Gimley.”

I lowered my foot back onto the starting platform from where I had been about to take my first step on another challenge. I wasn’t sure how many I had attempted already or what time it was. My eyes felt gritty. When was the last time I had lifted the blind fold? Another unknown. All that had mattered was sensing the wind a little bit better, getting a little bit further down the path, though now I wasn’t sure how far I had been getting these past few attempts.

They all blurred together.

“Gimley.” Mishtaw’s voice again.

My arm felt unnaturally heavy as I peeled my blind fold up and off my eyes. Light, unexpected and harsh, stung my eyes as I tried to look at my mentor. Only to find out, once I blinked the spots away, that she wasn’t alone.

My cohort and the younger one were arrayed within and without the veil. A few other whisper women stood near Mishtaw outside the veil—whisper women didn’t enter the spirits’ home during the trial. All of them were looking at me with some mixture of shock and concern. Well, for the most part. I was lucid enough to notice that Ulo looked a bit enraged while Breck was intrigued, and Prevna was next to Mishtaw and exasperated as I had ever seen her.

My mind was still caught on the next thing I was going to try, the next step I needed to make to get closer to my goal, so it took me longer then it should have to realize that the sprites weren’t dampening Mishtaw’s voice.

My mentor glowered at me. “I know I said you could technically stay in there for the entire trial period, but I don’t remember ever stating that you could neglect your health. Especially for attempts that are getting you no farther than a baby can toddle.”

I frowned. I knew I was getting further than that even if it did seem to be taking less and less time for the wind spirits to return me to the starting platform.

Mishtaw gestured to the others. “They all had the good sense to rest so they could attempt the trial again today with clear minds. I know you’ll have your reasons, but if you don’t want to prove yourself a fool you will follow me back to camp right now.”

I stared at her. My mind felt sluggish, more so than it had when I had only gotten snatches of sleep in the inner valleys. Or perhaps it was similar. It was difficult to say when my focus didn’t want to shift from the paths. Some part of me knew that exhaustion and collapse waited on the other side of breaking my focus and that felt like giving up.

Somehow I had kept up my attempts at the trial for the entire night even after doing the same for most the day before. Everyone else must have shown up to their second day of attempts only find me still here, still going.

Part of me was tempted to ignore Mishtaw for that reason alone. To prove that I could keep going when everyone else couldn’t. Part of me was proud that they had found me like this. Nor did I want to lose my thread of focus, the feeling that I was improving with every new attempt.

But Mishtaw had been my mentor for a long time. She knew how to get me to do what she wanted and—more than that—I knew that her judgment was sound enough that failing to listen to her typically only came with consequences rather than any benefits.

I didn’t want to look like a fool.

And now that I had stopped for longer than a breath I couldn’t ignore the way my body was begging for a break. And that my recent attempts weren’t nearly as productive as I wanted to pretend they were just so I could keep the momentum going. Which was something I wouldn’t normally do.

There was stubbornness, and there was being stupid.

I wouldn’t ever be the one to admit it out loud but tiredness was making me be the latter. That was obvious from the way my memory dragged and Prevna had the same exasperated look that made her eyes go wide when she thought I was putting myself in unnecessary danger.

We had two or three days left…perhaps some sleep wouldn’t be unwarranted.

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Chin held high, back straight, I did my best to give no indication of how exhausted I really was. I think most of them bought it. Prevna, though, she gave me one of her knowing looks without the smile that usually went along with it. She also wrapped her arm around my shoulders and took on some of my weight once we rounded a corner and the others couldn’t see. Mishtaw strode ahead, straight for our campsite.

Mishtaw pulled open the tent flap to the tent Prevna and I shared. “Sleep. If I see you out of this tent before the midday meal I swear I will knot the door so throughly that you won’t be able to escape until the whole trial is over and done with.”

I glared back at her, just a little, but I went inside and tied the door shut on my side. Even with the dark sight boon, the sudden gloom made me want to collapse on my bedroll and sleep like I had been told. But the stubborn side of me didn’t want to do what I was told. Not right way.

Mishtaw and Prevna hadn’t moved away from the tent and after a long, drawn out moment I heard Mishtaw speak. It was muffled through the tent wall, but I knew their voices well enough I could pick out the words.

“I should have known better than to hope that she’d be reasonable.”

“I knew she wouldn’t want to waste time, but I thought she’d at least sleep.” That was Prevna. “On the starting platform, if nothing else.” Another pause and then she asked, “Do you know what she was doing? It looked like she was moving differently from everyone else.”

I leaned closer to the wall as I waited for Mishtaw’s reply. Any bit of insight could help me figure out how to keep progressing.

“Did you notice that her hair didn’t blow around? She was finding her way through the wind.”

“But that’s…we’re supposed to be working with the wind spirits, so we can learn to communicate with the wind.”

“Everyone’s path is different. Avoidance could be seen as a form of communication, though I’m not sure that’s entirely what she’s doing even if she doesn’t know it.”

My eyelids closed and I had to fight get them back open. So much so that I missed Prevna’s reply.

Mishtaw said, “The spirits adapt their trial to the person. How they guide you or Gimley or even Juniper with her fear of heights will all be different and, in the end, you will all reach a wellspring. Go back to your trial. I’ll make sure she stays put.”

I waited to see if there was anything else I could overhear but everything was silent. Without a distraction, it didn’t take long for my exhaustion to take over and I slipped into a much needed rest.

— —

The sound of the midday meal pulled me from my sleep. Most of the camp had convened in the open common area around a couple of cooking fires. My appearance caused a small stir, but I ignored it in favor of getting my food and settling next to Prevna and Mishtaw.

Prevna raised her eyebrows at me. “Better?”

I shrugged one shoulder and her eyes glinted as she smiled at me. The full knowing smile rather than the harsher version she had given me earlier. We both knew the shrug was as good as full agreement. Agreement I didn’t want to show in front of everyone else since that was as good as admitting to making a mistake.

And I did feel better. Less fuzzy, better able to actually make full use of my trial attempts rather than just putting one foot in front of the other. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have lost the whole morning, but it was also true that constantly being ferried back to the starting platform wouldn’t have gotten me very far either.

Pleased that her point had been made Prevna bumped her shoulder against mine and turned her attention back to the conversation bouncing around the group who had settled to eat their meals around us. She chimed in now and then, but I kept to listening and was surprised by what I heard.

The others were sharing their experiences. What had gotten them further along their paths, how they kept track of the twists and turns, what they thought had gone wrong before they ended up being carried back to the starting platform.

A lot of it was contradictory or pure conjecture, but I was so used to having to figure things out on my own that it was shocking to hear everyone sharing information so easily. A lot of it seemed to be fueled by the younger cohort and the more talkative people in our group. Whereas we had split into smaller groups in our cohort, they seemed to have banded together. Perhaps they didn’t have so many…divisive people to set the group against each other.

Still, it was interesting to learn how the others had approached the trial. After I started my own attempts I had stopped paying attention to what they were doing. Wren had apparently started chatting with the wind spirits even though she couldn’t understand what they were saying, telling them about herself and what the goddess’s territory was like when the Warming Winds weren’t sweeping away the cold season. She said that it seemed like the more interesting the sprites found a story the more easily she could continue down her path. Meanwhile, Nii said that the spirits had started to blast her intermittently with great gusts of wind. If she managed to keep her feet she could continue on for a time without being tested. Prevna said she started teasing the wind spirits back since they seemed to be having so much fun tricking her.

Everyone seemed to have taken approaches to dealing with the wind spirits’ tugging and trickery in the beginning and as their approach changed so had the win spirits’ tactics. Others mentioned that they tried to sense the wind to figure out where to go or were trying to understand why we could hear the spirits outside their territory but not in it, but no one else seemed to be trying to follow the spaces of dead air. No one even mentioned that they noticed that kind of spot. Just wind, wind, and more wind.

However, listening to them made me realize I had neglected a fundamental thing I could be doing: talking with the spirits. I had given my initial greeting and then fallen back on my old habits of observation and experimentation so I could figure out what I needed to on my own. It wasn’t like the wind spirits were mentors who could answer my questions if I decided to ask them or even a trusted friend.

What was there to talk about with them? They might swallow my voice so no one else could hear me, but that still didn’t entice me enough to spill my secrets or desires or fears. Those were my own and I didn’t want to share them.

Perhaps I could make use of all the stories and legends I knew but that would also be a distraction from sensing the wind, and being able to do that held more appeal then blabbing my head off just because that was the most obvious way to communicate.

Besides, once I stepped onto a path, the wind spirits became an oppositional force. They were what kept me from progressing. I didn’t want to talk to them about the weather and random stories. I’d be interesting in what they had to say, how they decided it was time to change up the challenge, but I couldn’t know that unless I was suddenly able to understand them.

I surprised Prevna by keeping to my spot instead of immediately hopping up to cross the veil once I finished my meal, but then she caught on that I wanted to speak to Mishtaw, so she drew the other people who were lingering with a comment or two to join her for the next round of trial attempts.

Mishtaw shifted to face me fully, “What is it?”

“At the beginning you made a point of how long we’d have to complete the trial and that ‘if’ we completed this trial we’d be able to attempt tempering. But earlier you told Prevna everyone would reach a wellspring and that’s how we earn the boon.” I held her gaze.

“So which is it?”

Mishtaw clicked her tongue before her lips twitched up into brief smile. “Still noticing the little details?” She didn’t admonish me for eavesdropping even though I’d thought she might. “Everyone will reach a wellspring. But it’s still important to put the effort in so the wind spirits can guide you to the best one. If you waited until the last day to engage with them then you might as well wait for the next trial period—the boon would be next to useless—and there are those who thought they’d have four days instead of three and missed their opportunity.”

I took in the new information, parsing it so I could decide what I wanted to ask next. This wasn’t a trial we could fail, at least not in the same way the others had worked. If everyone could earn the boon no matter what they did, then the benefit we gained with the boon was even more important then I initially thought. That would truly show how worthy the spirits had found us.

“Do we have to talk to the spirits?”

Mishtaw’s face brightened with amusement. “No, there are different forms of communication. But you aren’t likely to reach the Wellsprings of Communion or Devotion from what we’ve seen if that’s your approach.”

They weren’t my goal anyway.

I stood up and nodded my thanks to her. It was time to see if my approach would get me the results I wanted.

“Gimley?” I turned back to my mentor to see what she had to say. “Don’t forget to eat. Or sleep.” Mishtaw’s typically stern demeanor softened somewhat. “If you can manage that I’ll look forward to seeing how you surprise us.”

I allowed myself my own small smile. “You should.”

I might not know what approach would get the wind spirits to take me to the Mother Spring, but I doubted it was the common approaches that immediately came to mind when seedlings attempted this trial, given how few actually received their boon from it. The others didn’t seem to be doing the same thing I was and my approach appealed to me in a way setting myself against wind gusts and talking my head off didn’t. I’d see how far it got me and what I might need to change as the wind spirits guided the trial at their own pace. Now that I didn’t need to worry about if I reached a wellspring I could take more care in how I did.

Though, perhaps, talking to the sprites just a little bit more wouldn’t hurt.