ARYL! Enris had her, held her body and mind. Stay with me. Stay. Don’t follow . . . don’t follow . . .
Eyes shut, she buried her face into his chest and closed her mind until all she could feel was her place in the world and his presence, until she no longer heard the echo of DESPAIR through the M’hir.
Until she knew it was over.
Everything became too quiet.
“Someone’s gone into the M’hir. Gone in and not—not come out.” She’d never heard his voice break before. “Who?”
The quiet trapped the name, protected her for a heartbeat, let her breathe. Once. Again.
Then, she knew.
Ael d’sud Sarc.
Her uncle, with his bright eyes and clever wit. Fostered with Haxel’s family. Connected to everyone . . .
Aryl clung to Enris with all her strength; his arms were like bands of metal, keeping her safe, keeping them together. They had to be; there was no other Choice. She didn’t care if Oud or Human watched or wondered. They were not-real. They could never understand, never experience the full implication of being Joined, one mind forever linked to another.
Only Om’ray knew their fate, should their Chosen die.
Ael was gone.
And Myris, his Chosen, was Lost.
The First Scout burst into the Meeting Hall. “What happened?” The scar was drawn stark and white against her reddened skin. Aryl wouldn’t have been surprised to see a knife in her hand.
For what good it would do.
The others looked up, weary with grief, unsettled by Haxel’s barely contained fury. No one spoke. Morla looked to Aryl.
“There’s no way to know,” Aryl said gently. Beside her, on a bench covered with blankets, lay her aunt. Her hair hung limp as a child’s. Her eyes were closed. She might have been alive.
She was not.
Her mind had followed Ael’s. According to Oran, assigned the task of making sure, not enough had been left to keep her body breathing.
Aryl wasn’t sorry to be grateful.
Three long strides brought Haxel looming over her. “There must be. Ael doesn’t—didn’t—he was strong. Capable. We have to know what happened!”
Such pain. Aryl felt it, shared it, as she did from all around. It bound them together, Sona to Sona, as nothing else could have done. She wasn’t Myris, to ease another’s suffering, to turn grief into acceptance. But she understood Haxel’s desperation. Beyond the grief of losing her foster brother, training and instinct made the First Scout need to identify the threat, find a way to counter or avoid it.
“We can’t,” Aryl said, lifting her gaze to Haxel’s. “I named the Dark the M’hir because it’s like that wind. It can tear the best climber from a branch, snap the strongest rastis, without warning. When we ride it, we take that risk.”
“You think Ael was careless.” Clear threat.
“How?” From Enris, leaning against the wall nearby. His arms were folded, his face in shadow. “The M’hir is new to all of us. We can only explore it by trying. We’ve learned a shared memory is enough for a ’port. But can I ’port to another Om’ray? Can I follow a trail through the M’hir? Someone has to try first. Some ideas will work. Some won’t.”
“And some will kill.”
“And some will kill.”
“No. No more ‘firsts.’ ” Haxel looked at them all in turn, her face as grim and set as Aryl had ever seen. “Do you understand me? There’s only us. We were barely keeping up with watering before losing these—these two. If we lose anyone else, we could all die.”
Galen rose to his feet, equally grim. “I agree we should use caution. But make no mistake, Haxel, this ability we have will save more lives than it risks. Let the Oud reshape the ground. Sona will ’port to safety. Let our crops fail. We’ll ’port to another Clan and trade for food. This is the most important Talent ever discovered by Om’ray and we must never fear to use it.”
Agreement. Emphatic from some. Aryl hoped Haxel missed the faint glee coming from their unChosen. Though to be callous, those were best suited to trying “firsts.”
UnChosen died alone.
“Doubt causes falls.” Her voice sharpened. “So does carelessness. I suggest we leave the risks to our daring unChosen—” so she had sensed them. Haxel’s eyes flicked to the body. “Why is this still here?”
She was right to ask. Om’ray only felt the presence of the living. The body on the bench was no longer Om’ray, but simply a problem.
“There’s no swamp.” Husni clenched her gnarled hands in distress. “There’s no proper water below.” Her Chosen, Cetto d’sud Teerac, tried to soothe her, but she’d have none of it. “We have traditions for good reason,” she snapped. “The husk must be removed from the village.”
“We could bury it in the ground,” Oswa offered carefully. “It’s the Grona way.”
From too few voices to too many. “No!” “Don’t disturb the Oud!” “It’s dangerous!” The objections came from Tuana and Yena both.
Oswa sank back and hugged Yao. Aryl caught her eye and gestured gratitude. It wasn’t the Grona’s fault others had had worse experiences with the Oud.
Before anyone suggested feeding what remained of Myris to the rock hunters, which would entail carrying the sad husk a day’s journey across the exposed valley, she sent a quick plea. Enris.
And what was left of Myris di Sarc disappeared. The blanket sighed to the bench and lay empty.
It was done.
In the following hush, Juo di Vendan’s ragged gasp drew everyone’s attention.
“The baby!” Gijs shouted, leaping to his feet to hover anxiously over his Chosen who, for her part, looked more embarrassed by the attention than in distress.
Seru was already on the move. The room began to hum and sizzle with words spoken and not, everyone’s attention shifting from death to life.
It was their way.
Aryl pressed her hand to the blanket beside her. Still warm. She and Enris had run into the nekis grove, out of sight—that much sense—before ’porting here. Her legs were coated in flecks of drying mud from the Oud. She could, if she wasn’t careful, hear the dreadful sound it had made in the M’hir. How could the creature know of Ael’s loss before they did?
Despite that warning, they hadn’t been in time. The breath had fled Myris’ lips with her Chosen’s name; she’d fallen into Rorn’s arms, already gone. It had been that quick. It often was.
What was she to do without Myris and Ael?
Comfort waiting; strength if she needed it. No words.
They should never have been exiled. Aryl felt a tear trace her cheek, curl along her jaw. Her mother had claimed Yena’s Adepts dreamed who should go, choosing those who could survive together. Myris and Ael had no new Talents, no unusual strength or Power. Only compassion and courage.
Is Yena safer?
“No.” The room seethed with emotion. Easier to form words aloud. “No, it’s not.”
Her mother had sent them. Because of a dream.
Adepts dreamed to a purpose. A purpose set by their Cloisters’ Keeper.
“I’ll be back.”
ARYL . . . his protest vanished with her surroundings.
The M’hir taunted, sang of death and insanity, tried to confuse. These were her reactions to the roiling darkness, not the truth. Not that the truth belonged here. Nothing real did. Aryl concentrated on where she should be . . .
... and was.
The Meeting Hall had been humid with breath, warmed with bodies and cookstoves, fragrant with the remains of the morning meal. Crowded with the living and the dead.
This was no place as peaceful or safe. Overhead, green metal had been woven into a mesh tight enough to keep out the rain. She stood on metal slats, raised the height of a grown rastis above the black water of the Lay. To either side, the mesh widened to allow the hot, heavy air of the canopy to caress her, thick with the scent of flower, fruit, and rot. There was no sky, no ground, no rock. Only that which struggl
ed to live, and that which failed and died.
Home. This would always be home.
Mother.
Driven through the M’hir, the summons couldn’t be overheard or ignored. How long Taisal di Sarc would let her daughter wait on Yena’s bridge—that was a question.
Biters arrived first. The mountain spring encouraged bare arms and hands during the heat of day, bare legs made it easier when filling buckets. Aryl gritted her teeth, accepting the bites as deserved. Not that Enris would let her forget it. Despite the distance between them, their link was as strong as ever. He kept his shields in place. Let her have this.
Aryl scratched the rising welts on her forearm. Maybe they wouldn’t all swell.
Yena’s Cloisters rose on its own massive stalk. The bridge met the paired doors to its lowermost platform, the level buried at Sona by the Oud. Aryl faced them, not seeing the lovely colors coaxed from the metal, or their size.
If she lowered her shields and reached, she’d know who was on the other side. The solitary presence at her back would be the scout assigned to the bridge platform. He wouldn’t have sensed her arrival, so close to the rest of Yena. Few Om’ray had her ability to sense exact numbers within the glow of their kind.
That glow was potent, alluring. Almost two hundred, mere steps away. It made Sona’s few more precious.
Mother.
Here.
The doors turned open, spilling light, creating new shadows. A slender figure in a hooded brown robe stepped through. Another pulled the doors closed again.
The locks reset.
She had their secret. These would open to her knowledge, to her name in the records of this Cloisters—unless they’d stripped it.
Not that she’d be welcome.
The figure stopped and threw back her hood, revealing a netted mass of black hair and a pale face as closed as the doors. Taisal di Sarc. For the first time, Aryl could see the resemblance between sisters. The wide-set eyes, the high forehead, the graceful line of throat were the same. The differences had always mattered more. Myris would have been incapable of this intimidating glare. Her Power would never have tested Aryl’s shields like this.
“Mother.”
“Come to explain yourself ?”
“Explain myself?” Hard to frown with dignity while biters feasted on her ears, but Aryl did her best. “It’s your turn for that. I know Yena’s Cloisters has a Keeper; someone who controls the dreams of your Adepts. Why dream to exile us? Don’t tell me it was to protect Yena from the Tikitik. There had to be an Om’ray purpose. Why?”
The very essence of dignity, Taisal lifted an eyebrow. “While I, Daughter, want to know why Yena’s Adepts now dream of Sona.”
Her heart thudded in her chest; could her mother hear it?
Oran.
It had to be. She’d succeeded after all, but told no one. Instead of controlling Sona’s Cloisters to dream of what might help her own Clan, somehow she was reaching out to others. But why? Aryl swallowed bile. “What do you dream?”
Distaste. “Walking on dirt. Cold. Darkness. Oud.” Taisal’s shields tightened until she seemed to disappear. “And what you can do. All of you.”
Not the time to admit “all” was an exaggeration. Not the time to vent her fury at Oran di Caraat or try to comprehend what the Adept might have hoped to accomplish.
“It wasn’t our doing. But—”
Her mother knew. Everything.
Relief made Aryl shake. She found words spilling out, urgent, important. “It means safety for everyone. Once every Om’ray can ’port, unChosen won’t have to risk Passage. We can travel wherever we want as easily as breathing. Share with each other. Once the other races accept it—”
“They won’t. They can’t.”
“The Oud have—”
“Some Oud—” disgust, “—Sona’s Oud. You’re a Speaker, Aryl. You of all Sona should realize just because the not-real look alike doesn’t make them the same. And what of the Tikitik? What of the Strangers? Will they let Om’ray become independent? Let us ascend to a power of our own? Shatter the Agreement?” Every word calm, measured. Aryl could hardly breathe. “Even if they do, for reasons of their own—” Taisal paused. Her hand grasped air and threw it aside. “Om’ray won’t.”
“Sona—”
“One Clan. What of the rest? What of those Om’ray who can’t do this—this ’porting? What of those who will not? Who rightly fear the Dark. Would you force them? Is that why you’ve made us dream?”
“I didn’t—” To Aryl’s dismay, her voice came out sullen, like a child’s. She did her best to modify it. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Those who can’t—others can do it for them. Those who won’t—” she didn’t finish.
Taisal did it for her. “—will if they must? Do you hear yourself? You would split our kind in two. Not Yena.” The words echoed along the bridge. “We will protect ourselves. Sian spent much of his life searching for ways to protect Om’ray from the Dark. Now he works to help us resist the urge to step into it, awake or asleep. We will keep even those who might be tempted safe from your—” her lips twisted, “—M’hir.”
Sian d’sud Vendan. Her mother’s heart-kin, before they’d Chosen otherwise. He’d come to the Sarc home regardless, stay till firstlight with Taisal debating this or that obscure detail about the Power and its use. She should have listened, Aryl thought desperately. Here was expertise, where she least expected it. Someone to guide their exploration of the M’hir. “We could use his help,” she began, unconsciously fingering her Speaker’s Pendant.
“To stop this?” Taisal stepped closer, her eyes alight. “Is that what you’re saying—is that the reason for the dreams? That Sona calls out for help, before it’s too late? Or is it already too late?” She lifted her hand to trace the curve of Aryl’s cheek in the air, then let it fall to her side. The relief in her face became something else. Dread. “Who?”
“Ael.”
Myris . . . ? They’d worked together to save her once; Taisal had helped pull her sister’s mind from the M’hir . . .
GRIEF howled through it now. It tore at them both—or did they feed it, mind-to-mind, for an endless moment, until it united them . . . the who-I-am of mother and daughter blurred together . . .
An echo. Enris, carefully distant. Carefully present.
Aryl reached for their link, used it and his strength to pull away from her mother. But not completely. She looked at Taisal, blinked tears to see her more clearly, and finally saw the truth.
Taisal di Sarc, who’d held to life and sanity when her Chosen died, hadn’t escaped the M’hir at all. She existed there. Only a constant outpouring of Power kept her here, too, and whole. It wove a net of connections that held Taisal’s mind together, connections on a level Aryl had never sensed before. She doubted her mother even knew. But they were there, binding Taisal to Aryl, Taisal to every Yena. More tenuous, still strong, Taisal to the exiles.
Immense Power, so much that the small fragment free of the struggle was enough to make Taisal an Adept. But if she weakened, if she gave up, she would be Lost.
And along came her daughter, romping through the M’hir like a child swinging on vines, playing with death. Causing it. A son, now a sister. Ripping Yena apart. Now, risking it again.
Was there any way she hadn’t failed her mother?
“Forgive me.”
Hush, child.
Sian knew, Aryl realized suddenly. He must. His study of the M’hir was no idle curiosity; he wanted to help Taisal. Were all Yena’s Adepts involved? Had her daughter’s exile been forced on Taisal for her own protection?
Was it her fault, as she’d believed?
They held no shields against one another; thoughts mingled. Aryl was surrounded by compassion and a hint of irony. “It’s not about us, Daughter,” Taisal said gently. “Other than Sian, it never was. It’s about saving the Chosen. Don’t you see? The rest think if they understand me, they’ll be able to prevent others from being Lost. Myri
s—” a flare of heartrending sorrow, “—might have saved herself, if she’d been able to break her Joining to Ael in time.”
NEVER!!! Throwing up her shields, Aryl clung to Enris with all her strength, rejected any thought of life without their bond. Without him.
Here, he sent, confused and alarmed. I’ll always be here.
Taisal’s smile was the saddest thing Aryl had ever seen. “Which is what I’ve told them—so very many times. They’re fools. Who would want to be as I am?”
Aryl took a shuddering breath, then another, easier one. The instinct to protect their Joining had her heart hammering in her chest, but she fought to overcome it. This was her mother. The words weren’t a threat. The idea—her breath caught, but she forced herself to continue—was important. To make a second Choice: follow a Chosen to his or her fate, or decide to survive. The loss it would spare a Clan . . .
Could she?
Her hands pressed over the life within her. For that life, Aryl realized with an inner shock, she might. She gestured a profound apology. “I’ll stop the dreams. Whatever happens to Sona, Yena shouldn’t be forced to face the same decisions—or risks.”
Taisal’s eyes glittered. “Do that, Speaker, and we will share whatever we know to help you protect yourselves.”
“Why were we exiled?” Aryl said softly. “Will you share that?”
A shadow seemed to cross Taisal’s face. “We don’t know,” she admitted at last. “A Keeper doesn’t control the dreaming, Aryl. Only makes it possible. Tikva could say only that the dreams came from the Cloisters itself. Ours . . . were terrible. Yena ended. The Cloisters, empty. You and the exiles survived, we could see that, but we had no way to know which was cause, which effect. We were being warned, that was all. Was it something to do with the Agreement? Perhaps. About the Dark—the M’hir? That’s what I believe. Still believe. You must stay out of it.” Fear. “If not for yourself, then for her.” Her hands reached, as if to gather Aryl close.
Safer to ’port back to Sona than risk climbing the canopy. Safer to stay distant, than risk the touch of an Adept. Aryl kept those hard thoughts private. This caring between them, this honesty, was an untried rope. I’ll be careful, Mother, she sent instead, and concentrated.
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