The Tuana dropped to one knee, a move that brought his gaze level with Ziba’s. Her eyes were huge and dark and challenging. “I’m not of Yena,” he agreed. “But we aren’t in Yena any—”
“This is Sona,” she interrupted with scorn. “Everyone knows that.”
Did they now? “What else does ‘everyone’ know, Ziba?”
“The Buas live here. They grow the best rokly of anyone.” The words tumbled out, glib and confident, but Ziba stopped and looked startled, as if she hadn’t expected to have an answer. “I want rokly for breakfast,” she finished less certainly. “That’s why I came through the window. But…there’s no rokly here.” With a glower, as if the empty room was his fault.
“Of course not, young fool,” Gijs burst out. “There’s no such thing. There’s no family named Bua. Don’t waste our time with your nonsense!”
Wait. Let me talk to her, Enris sent urgently, sure there was more going on. Too late. Ziba fled into the bright sunlight. The flash of INDIGNATION she left behind made both Om’ray wince.
“I’ll make sure her parents hear about this.”
“Someone should.” And soon, the Tuana thought, staring out the doorway. This wasn’t normal play. This was something else. “I’ll—”
A pebble bounced along on the stone floor. Enris turned, half expecting to find Ziba back at the window, making faces. But it wasn’t the child, he realized in horror as more pebbles and a choking dust began to rain down. It was the support beam he had so casually shifted from its ages-old rest earlier. A beam about to drop.
No time, no way to know how the beam would fall, or if the entire rotten structure might collapse with it. Grabbing Gijs, Enris flung the smaller Om’ray toward the opening. At the same time, he pushed at the wood and stone overhead with all his inner strength. Wanted it away!
As Gijs scrambled to his feet outside, Enris found himself bathed in sunlight.
There was no stone or wood overhead.
He grimaced. The pieces had to come down somewhere. Hopefully not on an Om’ray head. He reached anxiously.
No pain or alarm.
“Where did it go?” he wondered aloud.
“It’s gone—the entire roof. Gone.” Gijs stood in the doorway. His hand stroked one of its large stones, as if for reassurance. “You did that. I felt—I felt Power.” He stepped back inside, staring at the sky before gazing in wonder at Enris. “What did you do, Tuana?”
Not quite what he’d intended? Enris shrugged. “I pushed it away from us.” He stopped there.
Show me how. This with fierce determination. TEACH ME!
Stung and repulsed by the raw need of Gijs’ sending, Enris slammed down his inner shields to keep the other out.
Was this how Aryl felt?
“Now’s not the time,” he said aloud. “Unless you want those boots for supper.”
Gijs sketched a gracious apology through the air, but his blue eyes glittered like frost.
“What’s she done now?” Taen looked more harassed than worried. Dead leaves snarled her hairnet and one cheek was scratched.
Enris changed his mind. If Ziba wasn’t with her mother, no point—as his mother would say—stirring that pot. Instead, he put on his widest smile. “Nothing at all. Do you need help?”
“Think you can get in there?”
“There” was one of the gaps between ruined buildings, on this side bounded by a waist-high stone wall. Beyond the stone was another wall, this of vegetation grown—and died—into a dense mass of vines.
With thorns.
“Why,” Enris asked reasonably, “would I want to?”
“Aryl thinks these were fields, like the Grona’s. If they were, maybe there’s—” this with weary doubt, “—still something in the ground worth eating.”
Fields? Enris studied the gap with this in mind. Had it once been filled with rows of crops instead of this wild tangle? A couple of narrow beams crisscrossed overhead, both wrapped in brown stems. He’d wondered about those. The wood was too thin and flimsy to take weight. Most had snapped and fallen long ago. But they could, he realized, have supported vines. He’d seen plants thrive in midair for himself in the canopy, strange as it seemed.
If there was anything left to harvest, though, it would be buried. Enris scuffed his toe against the hard packed dust and stone underfoot. The Grona had nice, sturdy digging blades. Almost as good as Tuana’s. A shame neither he nor the exiles had seen fit to bring one of those awkward-to-carry tools along. He pulled his short knife from his belt and promised it a sharpening, then eyed the thorns. “I’ll give it a try. Where’s Aryl, anyway?”
“She’s gone looking for Seru. Our Chooser.” Taen’s delicate stress of the last word sent Enris crashing forward, thorns or no thorns.
He was more than aware the Yena Chosen waited for him to pay court to their one and only.
They could keep waiting.
Forearms up so his coat sleeves protected his face, he drove his legs into the mass, letting momentum gain territory. The thorns snagged on the fabric and in his hair. Their source was brittle and dry, stems that snapped as he pulled free. Four steps…another two and a forward stumble…he was through the thickest part. He stopped to look around, sneezing at the inevitable dust.
Fields, indeed. Away from the overgrown outer edge, order was still discernible. Stalks with stubby tendrils at their top made one line, clumps of leaves with wrinkled pods another, parallel to the first. Dead vines hung in rows, too, a once-living curtain that might have protected the plants beneath from the hot summer sun.
“We need Traud,” Enris muttered to himself. Traud Licor and his family tended Tuana’s vast fields, and knew every kind of plant.
He’d just have to dig and…
Something wasn’t right. Or too right.
The rows were straight. Straight and level. Ditches of small stones ran between each, themselves straight, level, and undisturbed. The destruction that had heaved roadways and buildings everywhere else had bypassed this place.
Not a good sign. Not good at all. A general reshaping was Oud negligence, a threat to be ranked with flood or storm, impersonal and relentless. But this? This could only happen if—Enris made himself think it—if the Oud had attacked Sona’s Om’ray.
The bones in the valley hadn’t been those of a fellow unChosen, leaving on Passage, but of someone desperately running from death.
Long ago. Enris brushed thorns from his hair and made himself focus. Long ago. Sona had broken the Agreement, for what reason he couldn’t imagine, and the Oud had reacted.
Those Om’ray were no longer real. What they’d done or not done no longer mattered. Only the living counted, and they were hungry.
Guessing that a plant with pods above ground wouldn’t have a tuber, Enris went to his knees beside the tendrilled stalks and lifted his knife.
The Oud were below.
Sweat stood out on his brow. He couldn’t bring the knife down.
Oud were below and all Om’ray stood on this shell of a world, pinned between sky and dirt, the only safety an Agreement older than them all, a promise not to change. But nothing stayed the same.
Which meant nothing was safe. Nothing.
Enris drove the knife into the hardened soil with all his might. It snapped below the handle.
A wave of concern. What’s wrong?
Ignoring Aryl, he stabbed the broken blade into the ground, over and over again. With each stab, he made a vow.
He would find a better way. Stab!
He would find a Clan who didn’t live in fear. Stab!
He would go to Vyna.
Chapter 5
“WHAT’S WRONG?”
Aryl ignored Juo’s question. She wouldn’t tell anyone else what Enris believed or what he’d decided. She wished she didn’t know, but his mind had been appallingly open to hers at that moment. She could still taste dirt, thrown up by his furious, futile cuts at the ground, feel the prickle of thorns. She understood, as never before, wh
y Tuana feared what lay beneath their feet as Yena feared what hunted the dark.
Oud had attacked Om’ray.
His reactions were hers, too. Fear…disgust…rage… finally, resolve. Too strong, too passionate, too destructive. She trembled and wished them gone, unfelt.
She didn’t wish Enris gone.
But he wouldn’t stay. She understood that, too. He believed they weren’t safe, that no Om’ray was safe. He believed there was a Clan—somewhere—with technology of its own, free of the Agreement. That it was the key not to the future, but to their survival.
She wasn’t sure he was wrong.
“Seru went this way,” Juo said. “You coming?” She didn’t stop, though she kept to flatter ground. A concession to her changed balance.
Could the Oud hear their steps? Were they below, listening for trespassers? Aryl caught herself following in silence, as if stalking prey in the canopy, or avoiding becoming prey.
What difference would it make? Her next step was an angry thud that brought Juo’s head around.
“You walk like the Tuana.”
“Why would Seru come here?” Aryl countered, stepping over another dry ditch after Juo. By so doing, they left the village itself. Ahead was a series of dirt mounds, head-high, running parallel to the now-sheer cliff. Good thing they’d come down to the valley floor before this, she decided, looking up. The dark gray rock, shot through with specks of white, might have been polished to the smoothness of a fine table. They’d have needed more rope than all Yena possessed to descend here.
Juo’s attention was for the mounds. “It’s all here,” the Chosen said, her voice strange. “Seru knows that.”
When Juo had joined this hunt for her cousin, Aryl had been grateful for the company of a Chosen, even if a Harvest younger. She wasn’t grateful now. Chosen shouldn’t be risked. “What’s ‘all here,’ Juo?” she asked cautiously.
“You know.” Juo laughed. “Everyone does.” Despite her swollen torso, the other moved quickly. Passing the first mound, she turned right and disappeared. “This way! She’s already there.”
Aryl felt a chill the warmth of the sun couldn’t touch. They were alone here, the three of them. She dared lower her shields, slightly, and reached for Juo.
Nothing.
Like Seru. Not asleep. She could sense where and who they were, but their minds were untouchable, as if elsewhere.
What was happening?
Instead of following, Aryl scrambled up the mound. It wasn’t an upheaval left by the Oud, but something more solid. Once on top, she crouched.
Not that Juo and Seru were looking her way. The two stood before another mound, their bodies rigid, their shadows merged along what Aryl now saw was more of the fitted paving stone the Sona used on their roadways, this stretch intact under its cover of windblown dirt.
What was this place? She dug her fingers into the mound by her feet. Wisps of vegetation parted; beneath were shallow roots, clinging tenaciously to hard lumps of dirt. Those came free, and Aryl touched stone.
A structure.
Enris! She made the sending tight and private. When he didn’t respond, she added her worry and fear.
And…curiosity.
Here. His mindvoice was distant at first, then abruptly strong. Where are you?
Where she shouldn’t be? Away from the rest in unfamiliar territory, with their only Chooser and a pregnant Chosen, neither of whom appeared sane? Aryl buried that twinge of guilt, sending an image of the mounds and valley wall. Hurry. Something’s wrong with Seru and Juo.
Coming.
With the word, a warm rush of reassurance, as if somehow, he was already at her side.
She was going to miss that.
Someone else arrived first, someone small and fleet and the very last person Aryl wanted to see leave the safety of the village to run to this place. But she wasn’t surprised. Ziba had been the other sleeper disturbed last truenight. It wasn’t a coincidence.
What it was, she couldn’t guess.
Ziba joined Seru and Juo. The trio stood before the mound without a word or look to one another. They might have been made of stone themselves. Not even the rapid drum of overlarge boots disturbed them a few moments later, though it lifted her spirits.
When Enris reached the mound, she jumped lightly to the ground. “It’s Seru and—”
Whatever else she’d planned to say stuck in her throat. He was so close she felt his deep steady breath on her face, could smell sweat mixed with dirt on his skin. He must have run all the way, doubtless alarming everyone he passed. They wouldn’t be alone for long.
She gazed into his dark brown eyes, warm with concern, and suddenly knew—or had she always?—that no time with Enris Mendolar would be enough.
And hers was almost over.
“Vyna’s not close,” Aryl reminded him, proud of her even voice, her tight shields. “You should leave while the sun’s out.”
Enris’ wide mouth turned down at the edges. “Aryl—” As if her name hurt to say. “I’m sorry.”
She was no Chooser, to Call him to her side. She wouldn’t if she could. He had a goal, a plan to benefit all Om’ray.
She was not so small as that.
Aryl lifted her chin. “I think Seru and the others have found something important—don’t ask me how. It’s this way.”
He didn’t say a word as he went with her around the mound, matching his stride to hers. Otherwise, they kept their distance.
The three Om’ray hadn’t moved, as far as Aryl could tell, nor did they react as she and Enris approached. The freshening wind tossed Ziba’s hair into her eyes. She didn’t blink.
“What’s the matter with them?” Enris sounded shaken.
She didn’t blame him. “Don’t try to reach them,” she cautioned quickly. To her inner sense, the darkness was close, agitated, eager. Neither of them should risk it. “They had bad dreams last ’night. Seru’s had them since we neared the valley. She and Juo seem—they seem to know things they couldn’t.”
“Ziba as well,” he surprised her by saying. “Look. They’re staring at the same spot.” He edged in front of the three, careful not to touch them, and brushed his fingertips over a place on the side of the mound no different from any other. “Ah.”
“‘Ah?’” Aryl echoed.
Enris plucked the short knife from Juo’s belt and used it to pry at the surface. Clumps of roots and dirt fell away. Casually, as he worked, “Did you dream, too?” When she didn’t answer, he glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression unreadable. “Well?”
Aryl frowned. “Why ask me?”
“Because you’re the only other one like them. Ugh.” A satisfied grunt as a larger clod yielded to the knife. He began attacking higher up. “Ziba, Seru. Juo’s unborn daughter.” The shower of dirt became a tumble of larger pieces. “I thought so. A door,” he announced, rapping his knuckles on what sounded like wood.
Aryl gaped at him, not the mound. “What do you mean, I’m like them? And how can you know what Juo carries?”
Enris grinned and sketched a bow. “One of the disadvantages to being eligible. My sense of Cersi has come to include an awareness of Choosers-to-Be nearby as well as Choosers themselves. Apparently,” he added as he carefully replaced Juo’s knife in her belt, near the restless bulge of her abdomen, “even those less able to speak for themselves.” His grin disappeared as he looked at her. “There’s something hungry about you all, something that reaches out. Maybe that’s what finds these dreams. You did dream, didn’t you? Tell me.”
Aryl shuddered. “I don’t know what it was,” she admitted. “I felt—”
“Juo! Ziba!” Two, then four, then every Yena exile fit to walk appeared between the mounds, hurrying toward them.
Enris kept his eyes on her. “What did you feel?” Low and urgent.
She pressed her lips together and gestured a desperate apology. They had no more time for secrets.
No time left at all.
It se
emed fitting that Seru Parth chose that moment to turn around and smile, as if to share a secret of her own.
“We could burn our way through.”
“And lose what may be inside.” Haxel turned to Enris. “Tell me again how you found this door.”
Ziba pushed forward through the crowd of onlookers. “We found it!” she protested. “Seru and me! We knew it was there.”
Seru flinched and clutched her coat tighter around herself. She’d stayed close to Aryl since waking from—whatever it had been. Her smile had vanished the instant she’d seen where she was, in the shadow of the strange mounds. It hadn’t helped when the others arrived, full of curiosity and questions. Even now, her thoughts and emotions were chaotic, barely contained within her shields. Aryl felt a surge of protectiveness. Seru deserved none of this.
I’m here, she sent, stroking the back of her cousin’s hand. Don’t worry. We’ll find out what’s happening. We’ll stop it.
Looking weary and equally confused, Juo leaned against Gijs who, for no reason Aryl could fathom, had his gaze locked on Enris.
Veca and Tilip, their woodworkers, stood in front of the mysterious wooden door, radiating frustration. Morla had pronounced it impossible. It wasn’t their fault, Aryl thought. There was no locking mechanism, no rod on which to turn the door if unlocked. And they had only the knives in their belts.
“Have the Tuana open it.”
Voices died away as Gijs left Juo to confront Enris. His face was pale and set. “Open it,” he challenged.
Could he? Aryl wondered. He possessed the Talent to push objects through space. He’d used it to save her life. Haxel had been with them; there was no missing her attention to this exchange.
How did Gijs know?
Enris might have been carved in stone. Her sense of him faded as he tightened his shields beyond politeness.
“There’s no need for the stranger’s help,” Tilip announced. He was a tall Om’ray, vine-thin before the days of scant rations—gaunt, now, with hollowed cheeks. In contrast, thick, fair hair curled at his neck and brow, tumbling into his pale blue eyes. His hands were long-fingered and skilled with any tool, but the Kessa’ats’ tools had burned with their home, Aryl remembered sadly, in the fire she and Enris had set. “Fon can open it. Fon!”
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