I dropped to my knees and locked my gaze onto the floor just below the Beloved as I desperately tried to decide if I was supposed to respond the Beloved's statement or not. If the goddess would consider it more rude for me to look directly at her or withhold my gaze. There had been the viewing platform back on the Seed Landing, yes, but that versus a private audience were entirely different things. One was a rare blessing to be appreciated and revered from afar and the other was unheard of.

The Beloved didn't interact with random Saplings—no matter if they happened to be a Chosen candidate or not. My situation might be unusual but I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she was paying close enough attention to have me summoned. Nor was I sure how she had known what I had said, though I wasn't going to put anything past the Beloved. Much could be done with the goddess's favor.

A goddess I couldn't risk offending.

The Beloved spoke again before I could come to a conclusion. "You spoke so easily of Heliquat"—I flinched as she easily said the goddess's name—"changing Her territory. Accepting blighted lands." I felt her gaze rake over me. "But I see none of that spirit now."

That last sentence made my decision for me. Terror and hesitation wouldn't serve me this hall. Deference still would, but disappointing the Beloved would be a dangerous mistake. Mentally, I tied off all the worry and fear that were tempting me to flee back into the shadow paths or prostrate myself with mumbled apologies into a sack and stuck it in a corner to deal with later.

In a way, the Beloved was harder to deal with than the goddess Herself. The goddess was absolute power and known to be unpredictable. Her mood and decisions decided all and there was no chance you could delude yourself into thinking otherwise. She was a force of nature and all you could do was bend before Her will.

But the Beloved was different. She was human. And she was not.

She had the body of a human and, I assumed, the emotions of one. The myths never went into detail about her time before the goddess, but it was accepted that she had grown up as everyone else had. Born to parents, dealt with growing pains, learned from her elders. She needed to breathe and eat.

And then one day she had set out to meet a goddess and captured Her heart instead. That goddess blessed her so Her Beloved would never die. If the rumors were true, possibly never be hurt. She did not age and lived for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Protected in the company of a goddess, without pain or discomfort. That was no human experience.

Nausea pulled on my guts. It was an experience I was bound to have a watered down version of if my blessing held. Only I wouldn't have a companion to keep me company through the ages.

I carefully packed that existential crisis into the same corner of my mind as my fear. Now wasn't the time for it. And if I had my way, I wouldn't have deal with that side effect of my blessing for many, many years.

Though the thought did raise another mystery of the Beloved. Everyone knew the goddess doted on her but it was never clear if the Beloved returned the goddess's passion. They were isolated most of the time and when they did appear it was rarely together. Of course, even if I was in the Beloved's position and Prevna was the goddess I doubted I would dare risk being affectionate in front of others. That was always something more acceptable behind tent walls. So there were quiet murmurs of implications and trailing questions on hot warm season days when She might not be listening so closely. Still, most people upheld the goddess and the Beloved as the ultimate pairing and left it at that as there was plenty other things to think about when it came to the Beloved.

She was both the savior of all the people who lived within the goddess's territory and the harbinger of our doom in the first place. Our buffer against the goddess's temper and our chains. It was she who had pushed for her people to come to this land of ice and pine, but she was also our fire and our pride. As long as she endured, so would we.

But all that meant was that I had no idea how to speak to the Beloved, if at all. She was a legend made flesh. I didn't have the words to properly honor her, no title to call her as 'Beloved' felt too intimate face to face.

And yet I couldn't stay bent and uncertain. She had demanded more and that call had to be answered. I straighted my spine and raised my gaze, but made sure I still didn't stare her in eyes. What I saw surprised me. I had expected, from the force of her gaze, to find condemnation, ridicule, or even simple offense that I had dared to impose my will on the goddess. Dared to suggest what She might or not do. Instead, all I could see of her posture and expression was light curiosity. Perhaps even growing boredom.

Perhaps being dismissed back to the delta would be the safest course. The smartest option, but if this was going to be my audience then I couldn't loose my chance. The delta couldn't stay as it was and, in the end, I had hoped to get an audience with the High Priestess so that she could then bring my idea to the Beloved—not even the High Priestess had the authority to do what needed to be done. Now I was simply able to provide a more direct proposal than I'd initially would have ever considered.

I found my spine and clung to it. "I would like heal a wound on the goddess's borders so Her lands may flourish even more than before."

"Heal?" The Beloved said the word like she was tasting it. I flinched again and hated myself for it. No matter how I had been thinking of the delta, no matter the force of habit, I should have used another word.

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"You consider it healing to topple Her trees?"

My face flushed hot and my heart stuttered in my chest. That had been a gamble and an important tactic at the time to help stop and delay the horde. Something I never would have considered except for the fact that the pines in the delta had been snubbed by the goddess—shadows inaccessible, limbs bloated and bulbous. A desperate attempt to stop impossible odds. Still, at the accusation I felt myself go distant from my body, straining to get away from my guilt and her judgment. It felt like my body was no longer my own, and my tongue, long trained in lashing out to defend myself, took the opportunity it was given.

"Are they? Are they Her trees?" I was going to be executed. Tortured for questioning the Beloved but my tongue wasn't done. "Or are they blighted land?"

There was a long, drawn out pause as I waited for the goddess to strike me down and my mind flitted through every torture they could subject me to without end while my bless mark would prickle and burn and not allow me to escape.

The Beloved laughed.

"There it is. The world's will would not chose wrong." The Beloved leaned forward slightly. "We must have strength with blessings like ours."

That tied my tongue like nothing else could have. Even if it was the Beloved herself who had said it, it felt sacrilegious to be lumped together with her. I had done nothing to earn it—nothing could earn it. There was only one Beloved and I did not envy her position that sat so squarely in the goddess's eye.

"You wish to heal a wound? Perhaps wash away some ill judgment?" The Beloved continued. "Then I charge you with cleansing the delta of contamination and flushing it of the stench of betrayal. Do so and you will have your shadows…unless there's more to your vision?"

There was, but I wasn't sure I could demand more. Not to the Beloved. Not when she had just reminded me of a mistake I had made even if the technical point my tongue couldn't help but snap out was a valid one. Normally my pride carried me through any situation, but in front of the Beloved it was easy to feel insignificant. Cowed. I hated the feeling but it was there nevertheless.

Because even though the Beloved was intimidating in her own right, there was also the looming specter of the goddess behind her, even when She wasn't present.

"Hm." The Beloved made a disappointed noise and something inside me withered. There was a rustle of fabric as she stood. "Complete your mission and we will speak again. I will hope you find your strength, your bravery, for more than a moment next time. A quivering doll is not much of a conversation partner."

I lifted my gaze—not realizing I had focused back on the floor—to find that only the High Priestess remained on the dais. She looked at me as impassively as she had that day on the Calling Road, but it seemed that once again that blank face hid compassion.

"High hopes, high expectations." Her voice was like the wind: breathy and soft one moment and then strong as a gale the next. Her voice gained strength as she continued, "In detail, your conditions to complete your mission are thus: all fish within the delta's borders must be dead, every single pine within the borders must be marked with blood of those who wish to claim it, and the betrayer Ambervale must be found and judged. Have no blood crystals within the delta's waters. Meet those conditions, even just for a breath, and your mission will be complete. You will be rewarded."

She had frozen me once. Left me for dead even if she hadn't known I was there. A small kindness followed by a wealth of pain; that seemed to be the pattern I had with the High Priestess.

The conditions were absurd. Of course they were, but I had no other options. Nothing that would do more than delay the inevitable. If things didn't change drastically then the horde would break through the delta and drive their assault up the river to First Shore Lake, into the heart of the goddess's territory.

And there was also the matter of the…fallen trees. It wasn't lost on me that the near impossible tasks were likely both my punishment and redemption for that desperate idea. Now, if I succeeded, the trees would be able to be used to their full potential.

"Tufani—" I started to mention Tufani's requirements, but Lithunia held up a hand and I cut myself off.

"She has been advised. She will help you to her fullest capability within the delta as an exception on the Beloved's authority. Future endeavors and her requirements are being considered."

I didn't like that all my conversations were apparently being spied on. It made me wonder if Kaylan was relaying everything and when the spying had started and what prompted the surveillance. I wasn't sure what was happening in the other proxy wars, but I doubted my mix of ineffectual plans and desperate actions was the most exciting. I hadn't made nearly as much progress as I had wanted.

At least I now had a concrete plan of action even if it was full of difficult demands. Driving or killing off all the fish in the delta for a moment was much more plausible in the scheme of things than holding them off indefinitely, though I wasn't looking forward to the logistics of hunting down every single fish. Marking the pine trees with blood would be tedious, but it was an issue of manpower and time rather than difficulty. That could largely be the tribesfolk's contribution as I couldn't think of anyone else who wanted to tie themselves to the delta. Ambervale…she had already been on my list of priorities but now she shot right to the top. Of all the conditions, that was one that could be taken care of promptly and without trying to time it with the success of the others.

I inclined my head to the High Priestess. "Thank you for the clarification. I will return to the delta to free it from the horde's grip."

She gestured to the shadow and I finally allowed myself to sink back into the shadow paths. I didn't even manage a step before the terror wormed its way free of the sack I had stuffed it into and it curled me into a shameful ball. The Beloved had done nothing to me but the entire time it had felt like she had a fist around my throat. One wrong word to ruin me, and because of that fear I had botched most of the encounter. She had wanted my usual behavior and all I had been able to do was cower.

I had tried to be strong, but even though the Beloved was nothing like her it was easy to imagine the hall as a tent and a figure blocking every escape. A figure who had always known too much and been at the pinnacle of everything I wanted—and couldn't have.

The memories washed over the barriers I set up against them and drowned me. I don't know how long I spent on the oil slick floor trying to remember they weren't real. Not anymore. However, when I was finally able to drag myself free I had a clear reminder that the delta was not the first time I had faced a never ending horde. I had plenty of practice within my own mind.

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