He wasn’t the only one. “What do you want, Bern?” Aryl demanded, her smile gone.
Enris was on his feet before he realized he was uneasy. There was something wrong here.
Oran’s dark eyes flicked to him. “This has nothing to do with you, stranger.”
“Aryl, please,” Bern said, breaking his silence. “Just come with us. We want to talk to you.”
“Alone,” Oran added, eyes still on Enris.
Enris deliberately lifted his hand and brushed the back of it along Aryl’s cheek and jaw. Don’t trust them, he sent through that private contact. Don’t go.
If I can’t trust my heart-kin, she replied, the words tinged with weary grief, who is left?
Aryl stepped away from him without looking back. The other two turned, taking positions on either side. Together they walked away.
Heart-kin? It explained a few things. It didn’t explain this.
Enris watched until he was sure they weren’t going to the meeting hall.
Then, he followed.
Chapter 32
UNTIL NOW, REGARDLESS OF HIS new status, Bern had been happy to see her— she’d known it, seen it. If Bern wouldn’t meet her eyes, something wasn’t right.
Aryl wasn’t tempted to reach to him. The physical fact of Oran di Caraat was unpleasant enough.
“Not the feast,” she observed after a moment.
“Be silent, unChosen,” Oran ordered. Her hair lashed across her face, forcing her to take it in both hands.
Aryl laughed. She couldn’t help it. She’d faced so much worse than this opinionated too-young Adept. “I might,” she offered mildly, “if you tell me what can’t wait until tomorrow. I’d like to enjoy the festivities.”
“You don’t belong there.”
The words came from Bern. She would have dismissed them from his Chosen, assumed an unseemly jealousy. From him? “Why?” she asked, stopping in her tracks to stare at him. “What’s this about?”
“You—”
“Hush,” Aryl snapped at the Adept. “I’ll hear it from someone I know.”
From the sour look on Oran’s face, she’d never been hushed before. Probably couldn’t climb either, Aryl thought uncharitably. “Well, Bern?”
He glanced over one shoulder, then the other. She saw no reason for it; the street was empty. “I listened to the others,” Bern said then, his voice low and strained. “I heard what they said about you.”
“That I helped save them?” Aryl made herself gesture apology, despite the tension crawling up her spine. “They’re too kind. You would have done the same.”
He scowled. “When Yena was attacked by the swarm, you were suddenly there, with the stranger. No one saw an Oud aircar bring you.”
That? “Of course they didn’t see it,” she said as reasonably as she could. “The glows were gone. The Tikitik took them.”
“Don’t bother to lie, unChosen,” the Adept accused. “We know what you can do.”
By an effort of will, Aryl didn’t react. There were no shields between Chosen, except those of courtesy.
She should have seen this coming.
“What do you know?” She stressed the last word.
“You do what’s Forbidden,” Bern burst out, his face flushed. “You’re the reason Yena was attacked— my family destroyed!” Something passed between him and Oran; he sagged and gestured apology.
To which of them, Aryl wasn’t sure.
His Chosen took over. “I know you possess a new Talent, one that can pluck an Om’ray from this world and lose him in another, deadly one. Or retrieve him, if you so choose.” Oran made the last sound unlikely.
Altogether, Aryl had to admit, a different way of looking at it. She looked at Bern. “When I saved your life. Heart-kin.”
Oran didn’t like the reminder.
Neither did Bern, whose face took on that angry, obstinate expression he’d shown his parents when they’d wanted him to work rather than climb with Aryl. “Then prove me wrong, heart-kin,” he challenged. “Drop your shields and share your thoughts with me as you once did. Show me how you came back to Yena.”
Which would be opening to Oran di Caraat as well. They all knew it.
Why did they care? Aryl wondered suddenly, her eyes narrowing. Bern hadn’t wanted to know more about the other. He’d been horrified— he still was. No, she decided, it was this young, too-ambitious Adept. They were Joined, but not like Costa and Leri, two halves of a loving whole, each enriching the other. This Oran ruled her Chosen; it was her will that drove them both. Why?
Oran was of Haxel’s ilk, but without the First Scout’s common sense or desire to help her Clan. This one wanted Power, for Power’s sake.
She wouldn’t get it here.
“Good-bye, Bern Teerac,” Aryl told him, knowing this time, it was the truth.
* * *
At first, Aryl stayed on Grona’s flat road, keeping to one side as she’d been told, in case an Oud drove by without warning. Though the ugly things were too slow to run over a sleeping aspird.
Walking at her normal pace, she soon passed the meeting hall, bright and noisy with voices. The feast had started at midday. From what she’d been told, a special one like this would last through truenight. Though they didn’t call it that, here. There was day and there was night and both, she’d been told, were safe for Om’ray to be out.
Her nerves had yet to believe it.
Aryl hesitated, looking back.
No one in sight. Bern and Oran had sputtered behind her, as if unable to believe she would dare walk away from a pair of Chosen, then been silent. They must have gone inside.
No sign of Enris. Packing, Aryl guessed. The Grona were generous; he’d have all the supplies he’d need.
She’d listen for him, she decided. For the first while. Make sure he was all right. Know where he’d gone. A discreet use of Power. Harmless.
No. That was the mistake she’d made before. For all she knew, some Grona could detect her reach. Let such a new Talent’s use by a Yena be exposed, just once, and she’d as good as exile her people again. Unless the Grona was Oran di Caraat. Aryl’s lips twisted. Would she want that for herself, too?
Enris Mendolar would be fine. He was smart and strong. Those who left on Passage were gone to those who remained.
As she would be.
* * *
She’d given her token to the Grona Council, so avoided the Oud. It was easy enough; their clumsy vehicles were confined to roads or tunnels. Daylight, rocks without appetite, no rain . . . Once past the last vacant home, she walked along the narrow jagged tops of Grona’s terrace walls, balancing without thought.
If anything, Aryl was bored.
Bored was better than anything else she was.
She hadn’t dared go first to the room they’d given her. Oran and Bern could be waiting there, this time prepared to insist. Or someone from her host family, not yet at the feast, with questions and honest concern. They’d likely have insisted she talk to Council and their Adepts.
Who, as far as Aryl knew, were all like Oran di Caraat. At best, Grona’s Adepts had brought her among them, in her opinion showing a serious lack of judgment in those supposed to be wise. At worst? She’d seen that side. She wouldn’t trust her fate there.
Aryl kept going, jumping the occasional gap in the wall of boulders and pebbles, heading— she wasn’t sure where. Away from Grona. Away from Yena. Haxel had mentioned sheltering from the night’s cold under ledges or in holes. She’d also noted the Grona carried fire starters with them, though what they burned for light and heat, Aryl couldn’t fathom. Their crops maybe.
She didn’t have a fire starter anyway. Maybe there were warm holes.
Aryl laughed at herself. Haxel had been right after all. She should have been a scout.
Survive first.
Then worry about why.
* * *
“Find a warm hole.” Like all advice, it had been easier to give than take. This close to firstnight
, walking wasn’t enough to warm her; the bulky Grona clothing insulated what it covered, but the now-icy breeze worked through at wrist and ankle. And, Aryl tightened her belt for the second time, it snuck in at her waist. First chance she had, she’d fix that.
She’d passed a handful of Grona Om’ray working in their fields. They hadn’t spoken, merely stared as if it had never occurred to them someone could walk on their walls. Others moved along the road, busy at what she didn’t care. The feast was well underway behind her; likely no one had noticed her absence. She kept up her shields. There would be time to seek her own kind when she was away from here, and closer to . . . closer to anywhere else, Aryl told herself firmly.
“Something wrong with the road?”
Startled, Aryl looked down to find Enris grinning up at her, a large pack over his shoulders.
At a loss for anything else to say, she pointed. “It’s too flat.”
“Suit yourself.” He resumed walking, as if there was nothing unusual about him being on the road, and her being on the wall.
She had to lengthen her strides to keep up. “I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow morning.”
“I thought you weren’t leaving at all.” A hint of something dark beneath the words. Anger?
Aryl stopped. Enris walked a few more steps, then stopped as well, turning to look back. “I changed my mind. I couldn’t stay,” she told him, wrapping her arms around her waist. “I don’t like it here. It’s too cold.”
“They made it impossible for you to stay,” he countered, the anger out in the open now. “I was there, Aryl. I heard.”
“Heard—?” she repeated numbly.
“Your so-called heart-kin and his Adept.” Enris’ lips twisted over the word as if it left a foul taste. “They wanted what you can do. And I’m no better.” Guilt. He let her feel that, too. “I wanted it. I’m sorry, Aryl.”
Aryl jumped to the road and took a tentative step toward him, rubbing one foot in the dirt. “Flat,” she complained. Then, before he had to say anything else, “Don’t be sorry, Enris. Oran wants to make herself more than other Om’ray. I chose not to help her. That’s why I left.”
As she came beside him and looked up, Aryl felt strangely shy. “You think of others first. I know that. I promised to teach you and I will, if I can. Do you see a Council here to forbid it? Not,” she added hastily, “that I know what it is— yet.” She shivered again. “You did bring fire,” she said wistfully.
“Yes,” with his deep laugh. Then Enris sobered, his dark eyes gazing at her. “And something else, Aryl Sarc.” His eyes lifted to look behind her.
Aryl turned, her heart suddenly pounding, and saw figures coming up the road from Grona. More, she choked on a laugh, walked along terrace walls. Without hesitation, she lowered her shields and reached.
They were all there. Every Yena who’d come with her, from Haxel to Seru, Myris to Ziba. Even old Cetto and Husni. She reached deeper, feeling their joy at having found her, their courage, their determination to be together, always.
Wherever they were to go, Aryl Sarc promised her Clan, they would be.
Epilogue
APOD BURST, ITS BRITTLE shell no match for the urgency of life. Rastis seedlings spilled forth in a determined confusion of reaching roots and stalks. This was a race, after all. First to grow meant first to the light. Fail and starve in the shadow of others. These sprouts had an unusual opportunity, for their pod lay on a mountain slope, dropped in a dispute between greedy wastryls. Though they lacked the cover of a wing, nothing grew here to challenge them. Rastis need only a roothold and light to conquer.
But Cersi was a world meticulously divided and ruled. Rastis belonged to the lands of the Tikitik, not in the mountains or plains of the Oud.
Sensing the lush young sprouts, other life roused from slumber and began to move, equally determined. Working together, slow and sure, they smothered the young rastis before the first fronds could open. Over time, they digested all flesh, even the splinters of podwood, until only rock remained. As it must, by the Agreement.
Others would dare trespass. Some quick and hard to corner. Some with strange tastes and unfamiliar machines. Some hidden behind barriers and within walls.
None of this will save them, when their time comes.
The Om’ray of Cersi
(Note: names shown as first encountered in the story.)
YENA CLAN:
Adrius sud Parth (Member of Yena Council)
Ael sud Sarc (Chosen of Myris)
Alejo Parth (Seru’s brother)
Aryl Sarc
Barit sud Teerac (Bern’s father, Chosen of Evra)
Bern Teerac
Cader Sarc
Cetto sud Teerac (Member of Yena Council, Chosen of
Husni)
Chaun sud Teerac (Chosen of Weth)
Costa sud Teerac (Aryl’s brother, Chosen of Leri)
Dalris sud Sarc (Taisal’s grandfather, Unnel’s father, Chosen
of Nela)
Evra Teerac (Bern’s mother)
Ferna Parth (Seru’s mother)
Fon Kessa’at (Son of Veca)
Ghoch sud Sarc (Chosen of Oryl)
Gijs sud Vendan (Chosen of Juo)
Haxel Vendan (First Scout)
Husni Teerac
Joyn Uruus (Son of Rimis)
Juo Vendan
Kayd Uruus (Son of Taen)
Kiric Mendolar
Lendin sud Kessa’at (Chosen of Morla)
Leri Teerac
Mele sud Sarc (Aryl’s father, Chosen of Taisal)
Morla Kessa’at (Council Member)
Myris Sarc (Taisal’s sister)
Nela Sarc (Taisal’s grandmother)
Oryl Sarc
Pio di Kessa’at (Adept)
Rimis Uruus (Joyn’s mother)
Rorn sud Vendan (Chosen of Haxel)
Seru Parth (Aryl’s cousin)
Sian d’sud Vendan (Adept, Member of Yena Council)
Syb sud Uruus (Kayd and Ziba’s father, Chosen of Taen)
Taen Uruus (Kayd and Ziba’s mother)
Taisal di Sarc (Aryl’s mother, Adept, Speaker for Yena)
Tikva di Uruus (Adept, Member of Yena Council)
Tilip sud Kessa’at (Fon’s father, Chosen of Veca)
Till sud Parth (Seru’s father, Scout, Chosen of Ferna)
Troa sud Uruus (Joyn’s father, Chosen of Rimis)
Unnel Sarc (Taisal’s mother)
Veca Kessa’at (Fon’s mother)
Weth Teerac
Yorl sud Sarc (Taisal’s great-uncle, Member of Yena Council)
Yuhas Parth
Ziba Uruus (Daughter of Taen)
TUANA CLAN:
Caynen S’udlaat
Dama Mendolar (Ridersel’s mother, Member of Tuana Council)
Enris Mendolar
Eran Serona
Eryel S’udlaat
Gelle Licor
Geter Licor
Irm Lorimar (Mauro’s brother)
Jorg sud Mendolar (Enris’ father, Chosen of Ridersel)
Mauro Lorimar (Irm’s brother)
Mirs sud S’udlaat (Chosen of Eryel)
Naryn S’udlaat
Olalla Mendolar (Enris’ cousin)
Ral Serona (Enris’ cousin)
Ridersel Mendolar (Enris’ mother)
Sive sud Lorimar
Sole sud Serona (Speaker for Tuana)
Traud Licor
Tyko Uruus
Worin Mendolar (Enris’ brother)
GRONA CLAN:
Cyor sud Kaar (Member of Grona Council)
Efris Ducan (Member of Grona Council, Grona Speaker)
Emyam sud Caraat (Member of Grona Council)
Gura Azar (Member of Grona Council)
Lier Haon (Member of Grona Council)
Mysk Gethen (Member of Grona Council)
Oran di Caraat
enter>
Reap the Wild Wind Page 44
