ARYL!
The Other was there, this time not to offer the surcease of sleep, but to force her back from that edge. No matter how Aryl fought, she couldn’t evade it. She tried hiding in memory— the Other refused that comfort. She thrust out her pain and fury— the Other took it and gave back something that offered peace.
Peace . . . but she was still alone. So terribly alone.
Instinct reached for the first bond, the oldest. Mother! Aryl cried. Why have you left me?
HERE. The word rang like a bell. We are all here. Come back, Aryl. This is the way. Follow me.
Where? I’m alone!!! This with all the despair and longing in her heart.
I know. But you can come back. I know how. I’ll show you.
* * *
She knew that sound . . . a wysp, trilling the arrival of truenight . . .
Costa brought it home for her, its eyeless head seeking shelter under his big arm. A fragile creature, pale and long of wing. Aryl thought it ugly and refused to touch it.
He insisted she stay with him, with the creature, refusing to explain. Over her protest, he disconnected the power cell from the room’s glows, glows that would otherwise shine their soft, steady light over panel wall and rail, that made the bridges leading between homes safe— if prone to attracting everything else that loved light. In an alarming, unfamiliar darkness, Aryl twitched and fidgeted and wished her brother normal. Finally, bored, she almost dozed.
Until the wysp began to trill. Sitting up, she tried to see. Costa’s warm hand found and covered hers, comfort and an urge for quiet.
The trill continued— it was as if three singers lived within that slender throat, each with its own range and tone, competing to see who could make the sweeter sound. She held her breath, afraid it would stop if it heard.
It sings to greet the real dark, the truenight, little sister, he sent, along with a vision of strange tiny lights against a black void. Without eyes, despite the canopy’s shadow, it knows when the sun has truly left us and when it returns.
Aryl listened to the song, then frowned anxiously. Where does the sun go?
To Grona Clan, to give them daylight while we sleep.
The singer increased its volume, lovely but loud.
Aryl yawned. Who could sleep through that?
Costa’s laugh silenced the wysp. That night, Aryl dreamed of chasing the sun over the tops of the rastis, her arms become wings . . .
She blinked, once, twice, slowly realizing she’d dreamed a dream. There was no trill. There wouldn’t be. Soft beams of sunlight filtered through the window gauze.
Midday.
It was abruptly important, why she couldn’t say, to pay the utmost attention to her fingers and toes, to straighten one leg at a time, to ease her body slowly from its curl.
Gah, stiff all over.
She licked her lips. And thirsty.
That sensation aroused others, each cautious. Her eyes were dry and sore. Aryl rubbed at them, feeling grit on her lashes. Her hair was loose. Her hands— she stopped and sniffed. Dresel.
Everything smelled of it.
She found herself on hands and knees, staring down at a wrinkled sheet, her mind helplessly seeking its place within an empty world . . .
... and suddenly, wonderfully, finding it.
Her mother. There, nearby. Above, in her room.
Aryl reached farther, her inner sense touching those warm spots of life that marked the Yena. But they were frail lights, afloat in a seething, churning dark. Now afraid, she struggled to see nothing but those lights, denying that place even as part of her responded to its call and wanted nothing more than to . . .
She fought and won, head hanging between her shoulders. Shudders of relief racked her body. To be whole again was what mattered, to feel the world and her place in it. Aryl clung to that, wanting to know every Om’ray. More carefully now, avoiding that eager darkness, she searched for them all, adding the faint glow of distant clans to the steady warmth of those close and dear and known.
Too few.
And some of those had become— strange. Five. She sought them, found them. Not where they should be . . . but farther away, all together.
The Cloisters? But that was where Adepts lived, apart, honing their Power. Where they sheltered the mindless and the lost.
Aryl tasted their names and finally understood. When Chosen Om’ray died, the loss was always more.
She dimmed her perception and lay flat, curling into a ball, tears soaking the sheet.
She sensed her kind again. She’d regained the world.
And remained alone.
Chapter 4
“I DON’T REMEMBER.”
“Try again.”
Aryl slumped forward, elbows on her knees, and covered her face with her hands. It felt as if they’d been doing this for tenths. She remained mute, beyond argument. Not that arguing with her mother was likely to work. Taisal di Sarc, Adept and Speaker for Yena, back down first?
The world would end before that happened, Aryl thought bitterly.
“You must.”
She didn’t move.
Aryl.
“No!” She pushed the mindvoice away with all her strength. At the soft, pained breath, she looked up through her fingers. “You can’t make me.”
Taisal laid her long hands on her lap, then adjusted the fall of her robe. Adepts wore the formal garment when journeying to or from the Cloisters, as well as for ceremony. The white fabric was thick with fine embroidery from shoulder to floor, its pleats a sign of rank and power. Not worn to impress her, Aryl knew. Her mother would act as Speaker tonight.
The Tikitik were coming.
“You can’t make me,” she repeated wearily, sitting back. Her own hands were restless, plucking at an imaginary splinter in the wood of the bench. As if any of the well-polished furnishings of the Sarcs would have splinters.
“Then open to me. Let me see what happened.”
“You know what happened. That device exploded. All the webbing ripped or fell apart or—” Her voice shattered. “I should have held on . . . been stronger . . . He shouldn’t have . . .”
A single tear sparkled on her mother’s pale cheek. Taisal turned her face rather than wipe it away. Light touched lines of fire from the chainnet that held her thick black hair; only metal could contain the willful locks of a powerful Chosen. Aryl’s hair, pale brown and fine, obeyed ordinary braided threads. Most of the time. At the thought, she poked an errant strand back in place and waited.
Composed again, Taisal continued her argument, growing stern. “We must learn how Bern saved himself, Aryl. All he remembers is thunder and flame, a moment somewhere dark, confused, then finding himself on the bridge in time to see— to see the others fall past him.” Gentler. Aryl. “You’re the only witness we have. You must try to remember. Anything, everything.”
No, Aryl thought. She would forget it all. Afraid her mother could sense this rebellion, she closed her mental shields even more tightly than ever before. “Why does it matter?” she sighed. “Can’t you be grateful at least one survived?”
“Two,” Taisal corrected, gesturing gratitude with a lift of her hands. She gave her daughter a keen-eyed look. “Enough for now. Council can wait.”
“Council?” Aryl echoed, then was ashamed of the quiver in her voice.
“A new Talent is the concern of Council, Aryl. You know that. Bern’s ability must be understood and dealt with, for the good of us all.”
Power shivered between them, as if a knife had been half drawn to glint in the light. Almost as quickly, the sensation was gone.
Her mother’s lips curved in a tight smile, while Aryl’s eyes widened in dismay. Not at the unspoken threat . . .
Because she wasn’t sure who had made it.
The Adept rose to her feet. “Until tonight. Rest.”
* * *
After her mother left, Aryl scowled at her bed. Rest? She went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. The view thr
ough the gauze panel was improbably ordinary. From here, she could see six other homes, like hers wrapped around the main stalk of a rastis or a nekis’ trunk, like hers with white walls open to light and air through ceiling-to-floor panels of thin gauze. The remaining panels were so tightly woven as to be opaque, their surface watertight and private. Doors were the same, but bore unique patterns imposed by unbleached threads. The vivid red undulations and blobs might make sense to Tikitik, who had made them, or they might not. They didn’t to the Yena Om’ray, as far as Aryl knew, but— she squinted at a neighbor’s— some were prettier than others.
Narrow slatted bridges led from each door to the main bridge, though as many sloped up to that destination as down. Their homes were where they were, given their living supports grew at different rates. The main bridge was wide and strong, spanning air from the meeting hall— the one place large enough to hold all of Yena, if the unChosen were banned to feed biters on the outer deck— to the varied workplaces and warehouses. Those were the simplest structures of all: roof, window panels and doors, floor. Following Harvest, they’d be full of tables where most of Yena would open pods and sort their contents. There would be others washing and teasing the threads from dresel wings for the waiting weavers, and those stacking pods to dry for carvers. Above all, those packing bundles of fresh dresel and sprouts for delivery.
Any other Harvest. Aryl knew they’d sit empty now.
Nothing was solid. When the M’hir blew and the rastis swayed, the entire Yena village swayed, too. Children learned early to secure their toys or see them fall.
She watched the few Om’ray on the bridges, their steps easily accommodating the occasional shift in wood and rope. Some carried small bundles; she guessed they were supper, perhaps last M’hir’s dresel. Others hurried by on their own business. Most would be inside, midsummer’s habit, when the afternoon brought a heavy, cloying heat interrupted by sudden downpours, and evening was preferred for socializing. The M’hir had begun to clear the air, if only for a brief while. Soon enough the Om’ray would change their ways to suit. The drier, less oppressive feel meant time to pull vegetation from the undersides and roofs of homes, to replace panels, to inspect bridges for rot before the rains returned. What grew here was intent on erasing the Om’ray, or consuming them.
Like now. Determined biters swarmed the gauze, climbing for her face as if they could somehow bite through the fabric. When they blocked her view, Aryl tapped them into flight with a finger, not admitting she was looking for someone.
Bern . . .
Guilt killed the questing thought before it was more than half-formed. Not the familiar sly guilt of having played a good trick on someone. Not the embarrassed guilt of having spied on another’s mind for an answer, or of having followed Bern to where a newly Chosen pair fumbled with each other’s clothing in the shadows in a way she’d thought hilarious and he’d . . .
Bern . . .
Aryl flinched and turned from the window. This guilt? Every thought of him cut. She was vaguely surprised not to bleed.
She left her room for the half-oval of the main hall. It was the largest space in their home, indented on one side by panels to protect the stalk of the living rastis. The floor of polished nekis wood incorporated and revealed the whorl of carefully cut and sealed fronds that supported the building. The resulting lovely pattern of grays, yellows, and rich browns was a pride of the Sarcs.
Her father, Mele sud Sarc, had filled this hall with his booming laugh. Now, her fingers touching this and that, Aryl wondered if laughter could die, too.
Here was the long burnished table they’d used as often for games as meals, set for only two. There were the pulls to bring the yellow sling chairs from the ceiling beams; easy to spin an unwary brother with the flick of a wrist. A pair were now anchored to the floor, unable to move. Other slings, these for storage, filled the ceiling like the clouds she’d seen for herself. The cupboards, sleek and elegant and old, had held hidden treasures— as well as a certain small sister at times.
She opened one at random. Empty.
Taisal lived here less and less, her duties as Adept calling her to the Cloisters, many of her possessions taken there as well. Costa— Aryl moved before her eyes had to fall on the closed curtain to his room, but not before she thought of Leri, his Chosen.
When a pair Joined, both changed. Everyone felt the new bond between them, strong and permanent, closer than that between a mother and her newborn, or heart-kin. There were outward changes as well. Over a span of days both finished maturing in body, ready to be parents themselves. Since this change was greatest in those who would be mothers, they spent that time alone with theirs, receiving the special knowledge they would need to understand the new workings of their body and the demands to come. Her impatient partner would be distracted by friends. It was a time of joy and celebration.
To Aryl’s profound annoyance, it was also a time when everyone else got jokes she didn’t.
But if one of a Joined pair died, the survivor changed again. Everyone could sense it: Chosen, but not. Om’ray, but not. When her father, Mele, had succumbed to a wasting fever, Aryl remembered flinching from the stranger who should have been her mother, comforted by Costa and others until she’d accepted the peculiar, hollow feel now bound to her mother’s presence. Once, maybe twice a generation, those left somehow drew strength from their loss, gaining in Power. Taisal, already in line to become an Adept, had been such.
M’hirs later, once old enough for the truth, Aryl had learned how close she’d come to losing both parents. Most survivors became lost within themselves, their inner voices fading, minds forever childlike. The rest? Died within heartbeats of their Chosen’s end, as if there could be no life apart.
She would be like that, Aryl decided, taking her lower lip between her teeth. If anything happened to Bern, she would have no reason to exist. A sudden, dramatic death. No more of this bell tolling and grief. No more being alone.
She scowled at the table. “Death is better.”
“Than supper?” Her mother pushed through the curtain from Costa’s room, a tray overloaded with bright red sweetberries in her hands.
“I—” Aryl focused on the fruit. “They’re ripe? Leri—” The words died in her mouth. The sweetberries were Leri’s favorite. Hard to find before the flitters, difficult to pick even then, Costa had finally coaxed several vines to take root in his window’s gauze— keeping them as much of a secret as anything could be between Chosen. “Are you taking them to her?” she managed to ask.
“She won’t know what they are.” Taisal’s voice was absurdly normal, as if she didn’t hear what she was saying.
“But—” Aryl choked back whatever else she might have said. To exist yet be mindless? Never, she swore to herself, shields tight. Never that.
Taisal took her silence for concern. “Don’t worry about Leri. She and the others are safe.”
“Safe,” Aryl repeated, and swallowed bile. Her voice rose. “Never to leave the Cloisters, you mean. At best, a— a servant.”
“She lives. The others live. Of the seventeen killed at Harvest, eight were Chosen, daughter. Be thankful only three more died.”
The world, to Aryl’s inner sense, still held spaces where— she made herself think their names— where Oryl, Teis, and Ilea belonged, where all the others should be. The Yena Clan had been decimated while she, while she . . . she trembled, the truth a poison she had to spit from her mouth or die. “I should have held on,” she began, her voice low. “It’s my fault they died— that Costa died and Leri and—”
“No! No, Aryl. Never think such a thing. It was an accident— a terrible accident. There was nothing— what if you—” Without warning, Taisal sank to the floor, her elaborate gown bending in stiff awkward folds as if uncertain how to cope. Berries fell around her like drops of blood. “Oh, no.” With faint despair, “Costa’s sweetberries.”
One rolled to where Aryl stood, frozen in dismay. It stopped short of her toes, ros
e ever so slightly from the floor, and followed its own shadow back to the tray on Taisal’s lap.
She sensed tendrils of Power reaching out. Berry after berry silently obeyed, rising, moving, their lush red surfaces gleaming when they caught the light. “What are you . . .?” she breathed, then couldn’t say another word.
Eyes down, Taisal tidied her tray with short, fussy movements. When done, she held it out. Aryl took it, careful no more berries would tumble and tempt her mother to . . . to . . . She put the tray of flying fruit on the table. “What did you do?”
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