"Come."

Ana held her hand out to me and I just stared at her, incredulous. Juniper was laying right beside me with her pearl glowing all the wrong colors, I had just told Ana that she needed our help, and yet she wanted me to leave? It didn't make any sense. I knew she wasn't that heartless.

Something bittersweet crossed her features before she shrugged one shoulder. "Then we do this here."

She wrenched back the door covering so the day's light flooded in along with the bustling sounds of Bramble Watch. The healer shrunk back against the hut's far wall as if she might turn to ash if the light touched her, but otherwise didn't protest. The watcher outside glanced back to see what was going on and then shifted out of sight, unwilling to get caught up in whatever was going on. Juniper didn't so much as flinch. Ana gestured to everything outside the healer's hut.

"When you first took the lead we asked you what your top priority was. Do you remember your answer was?"

Of course I did, but now wasn't the time for whatever lesson she was trying to teach me. "Juniper needs—"

"No. That's what your answer should have been instead of the placating line you thought we wanted to hear. You said that you wanted to stop the horde so that's what we've been working toward."

"This isn't the time—"

"I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it's exactly the time." Ana slapped the door covering against the wall. "Helping Juniper has consequences. At the very least, separating her from the Water Frond Snake would cause it to sit vulnerable in the water. No more defensive support, a limited distraction, and an open invitation for the fish to pry its jaws apart so that we have two abominations on our hands once they get the crystals. The river mouth would likely be overrun despite the dam. Bramble Watch as well. All of which is in direct conflict with the priority you initially gave us."

She was correct even though I hated it. Hadn't wanted to admit it and didn't want to think about it even though I was typically in favor of understanding all the options. Having the Water Snake mobile was infinitely more useful than Juniper as herself since she couldn't even leave the confines of Bramble Watch without panicking.

But I also couldn't put it off again. Couldn't abandon her. Juniper needed me, needed help, and there might not be another chance.

Ana tied off the door covering so it stayed open and then crouched so she was on the same level as me. "Priorities can be changed, but we need to have a clear focus if we want to make progress. You can try to have everything, but more often than not that leads to having nothing. Without enough focus in a sustained direction it's hard to get anywhere. Perhaps you might get a lucky break, but I've found those never show up when you want them. More often you have to make the most of bad options."

She shrugged, a little hopeless and a little conciliatory. "You know this. So why are you trying to make everyone else happy?"

Protests wanted to roll off my tongue, but they also tasted like lies so I swallowed them back down. I had gotten to know what belonging felt like again through my time with Prevna and interactions with others. I'd seen Mishtaw's close knit group, Esie's looser but also broader one full of warm friendships, the mutual respect between Ingrasia and her apprentices. Joining a sect was supposed to mean automatic ties with the others in it, a bond, however slight, of belonging to the same group.

I craved that. No matter how much I pushed the longing to the deepest parts of my mind it was a longing I couldn't get rid of and getting snatches of the feeling only made the craving worse.

But I had never allowed myself to fully commit to any of my mentors' groups and kept everyone at a distance as best I could. It was what I knew. I was isolated from the rest of the Hundred Eyes based on my infamy and the Sect Head's plans for me. I wasn't allowed to follow the normal path and likely wouldn't know how to follow it even if I stumbled upon it.

Still, the craving for belonging was still there and here, in the delta, it had come out worse than ever. Trying to live up to Prevna's expectations, trying not to disappoint any of whisper women, living paranoid and struggling but still conforming to what I thought everyone else wanted because I couldn't see outside of the box I had put myself in. Just like I had as a healer's apprentice.

I had caved to old habits under the weight of expectations. Trying to do everything all at once so I could secretly accomplish what I wanted while outwardly doing what I was told. Some part of me still hoped I'd find belonging that way.

It was also true that I still viewed the whisper women as my superiors and I had learned early on never to question or put pressure on a superior out loud unless I was truly driven into a corner and had nothing to lose. Which never ended well. So rather than confronting them when they did something I didn't understand or like, I kept it to myself to work around on my own. That would likely always be part of my nature, but if I treated the whisper women more as equals than all powerful superiors, especially when a good chunk of them were set on making me one of the Chosen, I'd likely have more information and influence than I did now.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

I could hurt myself over and over and over again. That was easy. Simple and straight forward with consequences I had full control over. But now a problem was repeatedly being thrown in my face that I couldn't just step in front of a spear to solve. I was supposed to decide things that would affect others no matter what I did and I couldn't quite settle into accepting consequences for them all. I didn't want to risk Juniper getting stuck in her snake prison or the horde overrunning the delta or the Swirling Waters tribe being displaced and defeated, even if I thought settling into the delta in the first place a poor choice.

The trouble was making progress on one of those often meant an inverse effect happened on one of the other major goals. Such as choosing between helping Juniper or prioritizing the horde's threat to the delta and beyond.

It placed me at a crossroads between the smart thing and what I wanted to do. I knew I should focus on fighting the horde and meeting the conditions set by the Beloved, if for no other reason than preventing the goddess's wrath for coming down on everyone for failing, but all of that paled in urgency to making sure Juniper was alright.

My pride had been stung when she chose her family over me when even her mother didn't want her to sacrifice herself to the snake. When she ignored all my arguments to the contrary and continued to believe that her singular purpose was to be the Pearl Bearer. I had still wanted to save her, but at point it had been easier to distance myself and tell myself she could make her own choices and do whatever she wanted.

She could do that, but didn't mean I also had to let…my friend be trapped with only a killing lust for company. Somehow, one way or another, Juniper had slipped into the position of friendship as I found myself looking after her more and more.

And I protected my friends. The rare few that there were. I was supposed to absorb everything bad that might harm them so that they could live happy and free. Abandoning them, cutting them loose, Fellen had taught me the folly inherent in those ideas. That hurt worse than anything.

Which, really, was the answer in itself. The entire delta could drown if it meant I saved Juniper. If there were going to be consequences either way I'd rather have the ones that meant she'd still be around to sulk at me about them.

I didn't need to make everyone happy. Or try to live up to impossible expectations. I just had to do what I wanted to do all along, trust my instincts. The next steps could be figured out after that and if no one else liked it, well, that wasn't new.

Ana seemed to see that I had come to a conclusion. She leaned forward slightly with anticipation. "Your decision?"

I pointed at Juniper. "Saving her is our first priority."

Ana, again, indicated the masses filling Bramble Watch. "Even with the potential consequences?"

"She's our first priority."

Ana watched me for a moment longer before she grinned and pulled the tie holding the door covering open lose in one smooth motion. She settled in as if she had never protested to begin with. "Let's get started then."

I set aside my irritation at her abrupt change in manner and told her the various bits of information I had put together about Juniper's condition. By the end of my explanation she was frowning again.

"If I can reach her I can pull her back, but there's not much I can do if she can't hear me. Let's see…"

Ana's eyes drifted shut as she focused. I felt the weak wind brush past across the floor, but if she was doing something special with her wind whisper I couldn't tell. However, it wasn't long before she was shaking her head.

She said, "My whisper should have reached her but she didn't respond. Not even with a flare of emotion."

"We need to do something."

"We will. There is something we could try since it seems you've trained your sensitivity to wind well. Have you heard of wind weaving?" Ana asked.

I wasn't in the mood for more riddles. "What is it?"

"A method of combining boons together. Not many whisper women use it since they can do what they need to on their own and many don't train their sensitivity to the degree required to make it work, but the idea is to use our boons on the same bit of wind so that they boost each other. Juniper might be more willing to respond to you, so you could send the message while I give the wind more power and direction to help make sure it reaches her."

I wasn't a fan of the proximity required to do the wind weaving, but I also wasn't about to renege on my newfound determination so quickly. Ana and I sat with our faces close together so that when she breathed in, I breathed out and vice versa. She insisted it was the best way to make sure we wove our boons and message into the same bit of wind.

Rather than speak some words into the wind and hope for the best, I turned all of my attention onto that bit of wind between us, building stronger as Ana did something with her boon to grow it. I felt it ghost past my lips and the point where the air stopped moving. It seemed like we sat there for eternity, breathing in and out until Ana finally tapped me on the knee and I put all my strength into shouting at Juniper.

COME BACK.

The wind welled up and away and my gaze immediately swung to Juniper to see if anything had changed. She lay just as unmoving as before and I was about to insist on trying again when a reply so faint it nearly blended in with air that carried it reached my ears.

Where?

Ana and I shared a look and then we redoubled the our efforts to send more messages to Juniper and guide her back to her body. The concentration it took my head feel like it was being crushed but I kept going with message after message.

Return to your body.

Stop fighting.

Come back.

Over and over again until finally Juniper curled in on herself. She had moved.

Ana pounced on her and, in a tone I never heard her use before, spoke directly into her ear, "Why don't you wake up? You know you want to. Don't you want to come back to us and tell us everything that happened? Don't you want to wake up?"

Juniper's eyes popped open but her gaze was still hazy, as if she wasn't ready to see yet. She mumbled something I couldn't hear and her eyes slid shut again.

Ana sat back though with a smile. "She'll need time to recover but she's back with us now."

I nodded, still not quite sure what to think. On one hand, I was glad that she was back in her body but, on the other hand, the pearl was still glowing all the wrong colors.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.