Prevna couldn’t stay. She had her training to get back to that she was never supposed to have left, and I had to somehow stop the unstoppable force that was the horde. Prevna was capable, but even she couldn’t poison the whole horde into submission. This was my fight, my proving ground. We both understood that even if we both silently wished she could stay.

  She pressed her lips to my brow before pulling back. “The next time I see you, you’ll be victorious.”

  “The fish will cower before me.” I squeezed her hand. Not able to do more with all the eyes on us. “The Beastwatchers better know how lucky they are to have you.”

  Prevna chuckled. “They’re learning.”

  We shared a parting smile and Prevna walked over to where a tribeswoman was waiting with the summoning branch. She had helped me back to the command center at my insistence rather than returning to my quarters. If I had to rest and recover I could at least do it where I could still be up to date on information. However, I hadn’t considered that meant that the whole outpost would turn out to stare at us. Apparently, rumors of how I had fought alongside the tribesfolk, built the net that protected the breach, and then my survival of fish infested waters had spread quickly among the tribe. They either praised me for my courage or condemned me for my stupidity when they thought they wouldn’t be overheard, but they all wanted a peek at the person in question. I hadn’t been ignored before, not as a whisper woman in their eyes, but now they were definitely paying attention and their curiosity only flamed higher when they saw me interacting with Prevna.

  Ingrasia stepped in front of me. I looked up at her from where I was sitting on a cushion. She said, “Your first request should be arriving within the day. Your second will take more time. Audiences aren’t granted lightly.”

  I nodded. That was about what I expected, though I was a little surprised either request had been approved already. It looked like she was about to say more but there was a commotion at the command post’s entrance as Ziek strode in, dripping wet and carrying a lumpy sack.

  Tribe Master Toniva cut off the conversation she had been having at the sight of her and commanded, “Out! Everyone out! Only disturb us if there’s another breach in the defensive perimeter.”

  Her people shuffled out of the room quickly while my mind raced, trying to figure out why she hadn’t just spoken to Ziek in the private back room. I had only seen Ziek a few times since I sent her off on the mission to sniff out what had changed the horde’s behavior, if anything. She hadn’t found anything definitive then, but obviously something had changed since I got caught in the water.

  My body didn’t want to move, but I dragged myself up and made my way over to the map. Prevna had hesitated by the doorway before she walked over to the cushion to I left behind to pick it up and met me by the map at the same time I reached it. Hating how slow and weak I still was, I lowered myself onto it and she stood behind my shoulder in solidarity.

  In the end, Tribe Master Toniva, Ingrasia, Ziek, Ana, Prevna and I all stood around the map on the floor. Juniper’s mother didn’t seem perturbed to be surrounded by whisper women, but perhaps that was because she had grown used to working with us or because what Ziek had was too important for her to consider anything else. Something she needed to see first before her people.

  Ziek set her sack down and carefully let it fall open so that its contents were revealed without her touching them. Inside the bag were a handful of multicolored…gems. Except that even as I thought the word it seemed wrong, but I didn’t have anything better to use as a descriptor. Each one was a mix of vibrant gold, green, red, and blue but the colors didn’t bleed into each other. They flowed around each other, distinctly separate even when the colors were as thin as a hair, and the golden mourning yellow dominated the rest. Foreboding filled my stomach at the thought of them mixing together like a long forgotten instinct even though I was sure I had never seen these things before.

  They all varied in size but were rounded and smooth on all sides except one, as if they had been chipped off something larger. Those rough sides were the only flaw on each piece. An irritant on otherwise perfect object. They also lay in a small pool of water at the bottom of the bag.

  Ziek pointed the smallest one. “I found that one first where the fish were gathering around the broken walkway. It was anchored in a web of roots. There were traces of the same smell it gives off in the channel but those flecks were too small for me to find.” She gestured the other gems. “I found these scattered in the water around Bramble Watch and a few of the other important choke points. I had one more but it crumbled when I dried it so I kept the rest in water.”

  She pointed out the specific spots on the map. Ingrasia already looked like she desperately wished she had something to perch on, like Ziek had given her the worst possible news, but she let her apprentice finish her report.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I also learned not to touch them with just my skin. It’s…unpleasant.” Ziek drew in a fortifying breath. “There was another scent on each of these items, mixed in with their metallic scent. Ambervale’s.”

  There was a sharp inhale of breath around the room. Ingrasia raised her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

  Ziek nodded. “I had to sort through the other scents first, the fresher ones. But she has scent trails all over the delta, old ones from before she came here with us, multiple ones where she goes off the paths and into the trees. There was one trail she seemed to use over and over again that led out of the delta to a cluster of pines about a quarter mile away.”

  Tribe Master Toniva frowned. “She has visited us in the past. Asking what we know of the Lady Blue, telling tales of fighting the horde elsewhere, but there were no reports of her leaving the paths and she didn’t visit when the fish’s behavior changed. Her behavior this past time was the worst it’s ever been.”

  “Her blessing is unique,” Ana explained. “Her speed increases in the water. It’s what started her fascination with the Lady Blue. She could have slipped in the water when the fish weren’t everywhere and swam under the surface to where she needed to go. She was likely a fast moving ripple to your people and she doesn’t have the scales they’re trained to look for. That’s not a fault of your people, our blessings aren’t easily countered when there’s so many to take into consideration.”

  “But why?” Tribe Master Toniva pressed. “Why sneak around and plant these things?”

  “Betrayal.” The word was like a spear to the gut. Unthinkable, terrible. The worst offense in the goddess’s eyes. Ingrasia widened the wound. “Those things are drops of the Lady Blue’s blood. Crystallized potential for transformation. They create abominations. They have to stay in contact with her domain or they disintegrate, but the blood only crystallizes in certain circumstances. Most droplets don’t last long enough for the fish to devour them. I wouldn’t have thought the delta was salty enough for the crystals to stay formed, but it’s no wonder the fish are in such a frenzy if this is what they are after.”

  I stared at the multicolored crystals. The Lady Blue’s blood was five feet from me. Something of legend. Something that was wrong on a fundamental level. Something that could cause the goddess to level everything in the area in a fit of anger.

  Something that could change the entire flow of the fish into the delta.

  I barely noticed that Prevna had my shoulder in a vice-like grip or the way Ingrasia cocked her head to listen to a whisper on the wind. If these crystals were what had brought the horde bearing down on the delta without ceasing then if we destroyed them…or moved them…we could get the horde back to the more normal levels the tribesfolk were used to. That still wouldn’t save the delta, it was still a trap that was far past its prime and degrading further, but it would give us more breathing room to fix things and hold against the horde when the Lady Blue inevitably realized how well throwing an unceasing amount of fish at the problem worked.

  I had little doubt that Ambervale also likely had sabotaged the walkway so it would break and fall right where she wanted. There were likely other compromised spots as well. However, in trying to help speed up the horde’s conquering of the delta, she had given us the one tool we needed to turn things around. If she could roughly position the fish with these things then we could do the same. Draw them back to the ocean or into traps.

  The only problem with that plan was that I had no desire to see what kind of abomination Ingrasia meant if a fish did manage to get a hold of a droplet. Nor was I keen on the chaos that would likely follow if we just destroyed the crystals and the fish lost what was driving them forward—of course that might already be happening since Ziek had removed them from the waterways.

  “Did you notice any behavior changes in the fish when you removed the…crystals from the waterways?” I asked.

  Ziek shook her head. “I didn’t stay long at each location to find out. I wasn’t sure what these were but I wanted to thwart Ambervale’s plans as quickly as possible once I connected her with them. I was focused on removing all of them that I could find as quickly as possible.”

  I looked at Tribe Master Toniva who answered my silent question. “We noticed some changing movements, but there wasn’t anything definitive enough to change our current strategy.”

  I looked back at Ziek. “Did you do the outposts or Bramble Watch last?”

  “Bramble Watch. The fish haven’t reached here yet so I helped the most at risk places first.”

  I nodded in acknowledgment before asking, “So now that all the crystals we know of are out of the water what’s stopping the fish from returning to their previous behavior? From heading up the river?”

  Ana paled and spun to face Ingrasia. “They’re not ready at the river mouth. It won’t hold.”

  “It’s not meant to hold. Not indefinitely.”

  “I doubt they have enough water built up. They need more time.”

  I pushed past all the questions I wanted to ask to understand what they were asking about and instead focused on what mattered. We were on a time crunch. “Then let’s give them more time. The crystals can go back into the water.”

  “My people—” Tribe Master Toniva started to protest.

  I held up a hand and she stopped.

  “How indestructible is the Water Frond Snake?” I asked.

  “Very.”

  “Then Juniper could protect the one or more crystals we give her and she could lead all the fish on a chase around the delta or even just draw them back to the ocean. Once we’ve bought the time we need then we could destroy the crystals and deal with the remaining fish that ignored the crystals.”

  She could be the savior of her people like she always wanted.

  Ingrasia nodded. “Let’s go with that then. We’ll need to move quickly before chaos takes over. Where is she now?”

  That I didn’t have the answer to, but I hoped it wasn’t far, so we didn’t have to stick a crystal or two back under Bramble Watch just to keep the horde’s attention.