Path of the Whisper Woman

The next step to complete the Beloved's challenge kicked off with a whisper. Ziek had tracked down Ambervale and she sent Ana a message on the wind. However, whatever celebration we might have put together at the news was quickly squashed when Ziek sent a follow up message telling us that Ambervale had holed up in a particularly deep pool and Ziek couldn't catch her.

Luckily, we had a new solution.

Cascade wouldn't lose to a whisper woman in the water, no matter how fast she might be able to swim. The snake could slither through the water, bind her up, and deliver the traitor to use just as easily as she swallowed every fish she came across. A simple solution for once.

The trouble arose in the details. Juniper's bond with the snake was too new for her to confidentially say that Cascade wouldn't decide Ambervale was just an oddly shaped fish and swallow her down too. The traitor would deserve it but we had questions that still needed answers, and I doubted that would fulfill the Beloved's terms. Ambervale was supposed to be found and judged, and Cascade's blood lust wasn't necessarily a satisfactory judgment.

Still, Juniper thought that Cascade would be more likely to listen if she was close by, which was fine until we ran into the issue of Juniper's fear of heights. We got to the edge of Bramble Watch before she just stopped, staring at the archway that led out to the woven walkways.

Telling her that the water level had risen and reminding her that she had left the awaken the Water Frond Snake had little effect. She had been riding high on the expectations of the tribesfolk then, pushed along by her sense of duty and a crowd of people to block out where the walkway ended and the drop began. I wasn't the best replacement for a crowd. If anything, I think I made the contrast worse.

Being exciting and reassuring weren't my strong suits, especially when there was part of my mind that got annoyed at how easily she gave into her fear. I had dealt with my own more than once, shouldered it as I shuffled through some suffocating crawl space and kept going because that was what needed to be done. I dealt with the fallout later and it would have been easy enough to snap at her to do the same.

Juniper had been through a lot recently and, even now, she didn't seem fully in her head. Cascade's thoughts or emotions were a constant distraction, but at the same time Juniper mentioned more than once how quiet everything seemed. How empty without the Water Frond Snake's endless drive.

It made me wonder if Juniper had ever found her own ambition or if she had always just been to trying to get back what she experienced the first time she sent her mind into the Water Frond Snake as a child. Now she never could. Even as connected as she was with Cascade, it paled in comparison to being saturated with one overwhelming need. Blood lust so strong that it blocked out all other considerations. No hesitation, no fear. Just the thrill and anticipation of the hunt.

Juniper tried to describe it to me and I felt like everyone I had ever tried to explain my compulsion for healing to. I could see the passion and desire, but couldn't relate to it. Couldn't understand the depths of it even I wanted to, but I could understand the loss of it being taken away. I had a hand in taking away both passions, after all.

So I didn't snap at her. I kept the sharp edges of my tongue and thoughts to myself. I knew the times I had been able to breathe through the fear the most were when Prevna had supported me, with her presence if nothing else. Telling Juniper to get over her fear would only send her deeper into it. It wasn't rational and couldn't be controlled. I had tried every trick I knew to control mine but there was always some part of the fear that would unravel my efforts. Juniper's would be same.

You had to accept it and act anyway. Prevna helped me with mine. Perhaps, this time, I could help Juniper. I already had experience helping someone navigate a path where they only saw danger and death. Fellen had froze the same way when we realized we had to pass through a whole crowd of shamble men back in the Statue Garden.

"Close your eyes."

"What?" Juniper tore her gaze away from the path leading out of Bramble Watch. She had been staring at it as if the whole thing would crumble away if she blinked.

I repeated, "Close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to lead you around Bramble Watch. Completely safe, enclosed by walls, so connected and interwoven that there's not a single drop off to stumble over." I gave her a look full of meaning. "And at the end of the tour you'll be magically at the pool, ready to capture a traitor."

"That's not going to work."

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"Just try it." I held out my hand. "Let me be your eyes for awhile."

She sighed, full of doubt, but she took my hand. I guided her hand up to my shoulder and left it there. Better to have full use of my hands in case any fish decided to pop up on the walkways. Juniper closed her eyes but she tensed as I took a step forward, so rather than head directly out of Bramble Watch I led her on a quick loop through the nearby areas. As we walked I kept up a running narration of the things around use, but since Juniper would know this place better than I ever could, I started to work in fake places, false history, backgrounds of people who didn't exist.

I wasn't a storyteller, not like Grandmother, but I had collected more myths and legends than any other person I knew and I used that knowledge to tell Juniper the story of a tribe and an artist. I hadn't forgotten all her artwork even if it was underwater now.

The Swirling Waters tribe in my story didn't live up in a woven bramble nest but instead they made their homes on floating platforms that they could navigate through the waterways. They had nothing to fear from the water and they prized those with artistic skill the most. There were friendships and betrayals over petty things and relationships that stood the test of time. Long tales of history woven into the art they made so I could slip in some of the other stories I knew while trying to think of how else to describe the floating town. The entire thing was a fanciful dream where combat was rarely necessary and survival was more about finding food and clean water than defending territory.

The tribesfolk that saw us always looked somewhere between concerned and amused but they kept a respectful distance. Juniper tensed again when we stepped out of Bramble Watch but she didn't freeze or open her eyes. I kept the story going and she followed its momentum.

We wound our way along the walkways like that. Juniper kept her hand on my shoulder and her eyes shout tight while I made sure to stay as close to the center of the path as I could without leading her into getting a face full of pine needles. There were a few fish that managed to pull themselves our of the flood water and onto the walkways in our path but I took care them quickly. They always tried to rush and overpower me but they were becoming predictable and I had the advantage out of the water. At least they added a bit of action to the story I was telling Juniper.

The pool Ambervale was holed up in was good hour walk from Bramble Watch but not on the true outskirts of the delta. From what I could tell one of smaller, frozen over streams filled the pool but now the flood waters had added several feet of water to everything and broke the ice. Something to keep in mind for when the fish tried to swarm up the delta again, but not an immediate concern when it came to Ambervale.

She was perched on the crook of a branch that jutted out of the water. Either it was from a log that somehow got caught in the middle of the pool or there a young tree doing its best that got swallowed by the flood waters. More importantly, Ambervale was shivering. She wouldn't be able to hold long if the cold locked up her movements. It also implied two important possibilities: either Ambervale's boon wasn't strong enough the prolonged wet and cold or the goddess had taken away her boons entirely. It wasn't as if She would leave betrayal unanswered even if we were tasked with taking care of the punishment.

The pool also had a walkway that curved one side of it, but Ziek had a handful of tribesfolk with nets spread around its edges, ready to capture Ambervale if she tried to flee. A storm bird also circled overhead with a rider. It wasn't a true killing zone, but one way or another we would get her.

Juniper reluctantly opened her eyes when I told her we arrived. She took in the scene and then relaxed slightly. The water really wasn't far below any more and no one was demanding she climb a tree. She still wasn't entirely comfortable with her feet not being on solid ground, but I figured she must have built up some sort of tolerance while living in the Seedling Palace. Really, she probably would have been fine most of the walk once she saw how the flood waters changed things for herself, but I hadn't want to deal with her freezing up before we arrived on the off chance she still panicked…and I had enjoyed telling the story of Berry and her town of water dwelling artists. It wasn't often I got to indulge in sharing that intricate of a story.

Ziek was resting her elbows on the walkway's railing as she stared Ambervale down. She was only dressed in her under clothes as she dripped water but she wasn't shivering. Her tempering must have been strong as she didn't even seem to recall the rest of her clothing piled nearby. Her weapons were also set neatly near the pile.

She smiled as we stepped up next to her, though it didn't have the same easy edge it had back in the Seedling Palace. "She's cornered. I chased her here after getting the others situated. The flood nearly let her escape for a bit and I had to adjust where to push her to, but she's caught now. She got tangled with one of the nets and hasn't tried again to swim free since she cut herself free. I tested if I could catch her, since her blessing and boons have been revoked, but she still swims fast."

"The cold doesn't bother you?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I focused on building my resistance. People seem to think the wet and cold are enough to throw off a tracker but I'm more than willing to prove them wrong."

Her nickname was well earned. She really did seem like a hound that wouldn't get thrown off the scent no matter what happened. Even now she was trained on Ambervale and I doubted her focus would shift until her hunt was done and the traitor was captured.

Ziek pointed upwards. "The bird tried to catch her too but she dives too fast. We've been at an impasse." She glanced at Juniper for the briefest of moments. "I heard you might have a new fix?"

Juniper nodded. "Cascade's coming."

Not even a minute later the placid water of the pool burst upwards. I saw a flash of scales and then Ambervale was no longer shivering on the branch. When I saw her again she was dangling from the snake's mouth as Cascade proudly swam towards us. My first thought was that I was glad that the snake was still on our side after being transformed and my second was that it was past time we got answers for Ambervale's idiotic actions.