Rift in the Sky

OLD, THESE MOUNTAINS. Their gray eroded fingers stretched out and down, as if greedy for the lush land far below. Between plunged valleys, graveled and scarred and barren. Winter storms scoured what life was left after the M’hir Wind roared through and cracked stone.

Spring meltwater gifted the valleys with gentler sounds. The burble of streams. The rustle of breezes through thin stems and leaves. For hardy plants emerged from the ground with the return of warmth and moisture.

Quickly followed by the rattle as rock-that-wasn’t found any plant that dared grow too far from a stream and crushed it into tasty goo.

“It’s not safe!” Aryl Sarc’s hands flattened possessively over the faint swell at her waist. “What if—” She stopped, chagrined. “I sound like Husni.”

Enris sud Sarc chuckled. “Never.” The two shared a smile as much inside as out. Chosen, Aryl thought happily, could do that. “Trust the young ones,” he suggested. “They’re already better at it than we are.”

“It” being the Om’ray’s newest Talent, the ability to use Power to move from place to place through the black tumultuous storm that was the inner M’hir, to travel within one heartbeat and the next anywhere the mind remembered. The Human, Marcus Bowman, had given them his word: teleportation, something no other beings could, according to his cautious search through databanks, do.

She rocked back on her heels, comfortable on the slope. Enris gave her a look and kept his grip on a protruding beam. He tried, but the former Tuana would never be at ease perched on a roof. Especially one that creaked under his bulk.

To one born in the canopy, this roof was as boringly safe as the flat motionless ground, but it did provide a better view. “There’s Yao.” Aryl pointed at the small shadow beside the Meeting Hall. “Gone again,” she said as the shadow vanished.

“Ziba’s catching up.” The second, larger child appeared out of nothing in the same spot, then scampered to the Meeting Hall roof in a blur of yellow and blue. Once there, she waved a cheerful greeting to Aryl and Enris . . . “There she goes.” Enris chuckled. “Taen said they call it ’port and seek. Each tries to arrive first to surprise the other.” A shriek and crash of pots erupted from the small building the Sona used for preparing food. “Like that.”

Aryl winced. Husni Teerac was not fond of surprises; their eldest Om’ray wasn’t fond of this new Talent either, calling it frivolous. “They’ll be doing dishes for the next fist.”

She didn’t worry on that score. Not yet. Aryl could, if she lowered her shields the slightest amount, feel where any of her people were at the moment. Taen and her daughter, Ziba, would soon lose their tight bond, but not yet. Yao . . .

She pretended to frown at him. “Don’t pry.” Chosen were Joined, mind-to-mind, Power-to-Power. They weren’t, thankfully, one and the same mind or Power.

His laugh rumbled the roof boards. “I didn’t need to. Your face scrunches adorably when you worry about our youngest. You’ll do it over Sweetpie, too, I’m sure.” A surge of caring under the words, directed both at Aryl and the tiny form within.

“Must you call her a dessert?” she protested absently. Not yet aware, the life inside her. Not yet of a size to affect her movement or balance. Yet, she grumbled to herself. Seru Parth, Sona’s Birth Watcher, was sure the birth would come at summer’s end, with the M’hir Wind. Others were due sooner.

“Speaking of dessert—” A relieved creak of boards as Enris disappeared from the roof, only to reappear on the road below.

Bad enough the children do it. Aryl added a warning snap. We don’t know who might be watching! The Strangers had brought a wealth of technology designed to satisfy their endless curiosity. While the Om’ray of Sona weren’t their goal, Enris knew better than to risk exposing what they could do. They all did.

Why should they have all the fun? She could see, feel, his impish grin. Look up, Aryl. There’s nothing in the sky but sky. An image filled her mind: a shady grove of nekis, complete with a nest of soft vegetation and stolen pillows. ’Port and seek with me, my little Yena. No one will miss us.

The truth was, everyone would miss them. A moment on the roof was all the time anyone could spare while the plantings were so young and fragile.

Aryl rose to her feet, took a long stride to the edge, and jumped lightly to the ground. All around her Sona bustled, guided by dreams left by the dead and scraps of knowledge held by the living. This was spring, an urgent season in the mountain valleys. No more snow, no more ice storms, though truenights remained bitter. The wind lifted dust into wispy towers. Green promised growth only where water touched.

Water that trickled in a narrow ribbon within what had been a vast river. Nothing like the flood they must have to overflow and fill the gravel ditches of Sona’s unique fields. The Oud promised it would come.

At least, she thought they had. Never easy, deciphering the others who shared Cersi. The Oud mangled the few words they used. The Tikitik were accomplished speakers, but what they said was rarely, in her experience, what they meant. As for the Strangers?

Only one spoke to Om’ray, and to his credit Marcus Bowman did his earnest best to speak properly. Which was fine, until he became excited and threw in words of his own—that disturbing notion, a language not of Cersi.

For now, starting each firstlight, they carried water to what sprouted in the fields nestled between their homes, homes rebuilt from the destruction the Oud had caused here, generations past. Until new Om’ray arrived, Sona had been dead and forgotten.

Aryl stepped along a walkway of boards, once part of a wall. No one remembered who had lived here before. Why should they? It was the way of Om’ray that only the living and those directly known to the living were real.

Humans weren’t real to Om’ray senses. They lacked this sense of one another. They existed alone, apart, solitary. She’d seen it—had to believe.

Like Yao Gethen. The child had been born unable to feel other Om’ray, though they could all feel her. She was normal otherwise. Bright, affectionate, brimming with Power and Talent. Her disability seemed not to trouble her, however much it appalled her father, the Adept Hoyon d’sud Gethen.

Though Yao could get lost. Other Om’ray knew their location within the world; wasn’t Cersi defined by their innermost sense of one another? Enris might tease, but he’d be among the first to chase after the child if she wandered too far from Sona.

Her lips were dry. They’d rested on the rooftop too long. She’d best check on the small field separating their home from its neighbor. All of Sona was laid out this way, tiny fields surrounded by low stone walls, those walls linking one building to the next. Protection for the crops, they guessed, though from what no one knew. Shelter from the wind, that for sure. There was always wind here. Not like the M’hir, but lips chapped and what didn’t receive water daily withered before their eyes.

This field, like the others, wasn’t much yet. They’d chipped holes in the hardened soil and planted seeds from Sona’s marvelous storage chambers. Green, blue, and yellow had sprouted in a confusion of shapes and sizes. Some were sprigs of life too tender to trust, apt to drown in the tiny puddles of their water ration. Others writhed up where no seed had been buried, growing sideways to flop over on themselves, ever reaching as if determined to choke out the rest.

Aryl watched where she put her feet. The Oud—perhaps hunting Om’ray—had left the fields intact, destroying buildings and roadways instead; years of neglect and drought had encouraged some plantings to take over. Sona’s abandoned vines, for one, had spent their last growth wrapping around any upright scrap of wood and were a particular nuisance even dead. Their Grona lamented the lack of neat rows, but the Tuana insisted on planting seeds only in soil free of withered remains.

She and the other Yena, used to plants that looked after themselves, thought both ideas peculiar, but kept that opinion to themselves.

The Tuana were partly right. Given water, specks of pale red had appeared at each vine tip and some of the withered stalks showed yellow at their bases.

Rebirth or rot? Aryl wasn’t convinced which she watered daily. What did grow would most likely prove to be weeds, to be removed. A future problem. The dreams from the Cloisters hadn’t shown what to nurture and what to discard. She knew the names of seeds and how to plant them, not the food they’d produce. For now, they could only let everything grow and wait to see what water inspired.

Though that, she decided, eyeing a thick purple leaf girdled in thorns, had to be a weed. How many seasons had she helped hack and pull free the plants growing in riotous abandon on Yena’s bridges and rooftops? Those had had thorns, too. And prickles. Not to forget the ones with stinging spines.

This one might sting, too. She squatted to examine the purple growth, fingers pressed to the dry ground. Ground. Grit. Dust. Sometimes mud. The still-unfamiliar feel of it distracted her. Solid—or was it? The Oud promised not to be below. Marcus had given her a device that would warn her if they trespassed.

Tuana had had no such warning. Hundreds of Om’ray had died; an uncounted, unmourned number of Oud. The deaths had reshaped the world. The few survivors, those Adepts and Lost and aged in Tuana’s Cloisters, hardly made a difference. Aryl closed her eyes and reached with her inner sense. Cersi no longer expanded to Tuana and beyond, but instead stopped short at Pana, bulging to where the sun rose behind populous Amna.

“It’s not right,” Aryl muttered. Enris had rescued his young brother Worin and Yuhas and his Chosen Caynen S’udlaat from the disaster. The Oud had inadvertently saved more, bringing fifteen Tuana they’d found in their tunnels to Sona. The Tikitik claimed all who remained, taking Tuana for their own in some bizarre trade with the Oud.

What was it like, to stand on the platforms of Tuana’s Cloisters and watch the Tikitik flood the ground, plant their wilderness of rastis and nekis? Did the swarms already climb during truenight, to eat anything alive and exposed to their jaws?

Enris and his people had never dealt with danger like that. He’d told her their greatest risk, other than the whim of Oud, was of accidents around harvesting machinery.

“Rokly grows on some kind of vine.” Knife poised for another strike, Aryl scowled up at Naryn S’udlaat. “I think it’s a weed.”

Her friend laughed. “Because it has thorns? Many fruiting plants protect themselves. You Yena think everything’s a threat.”

Everything was, if it could be. But Aryl shrugged peacefully, conceding the point. Yena skills weren’t of use in this—only their strength. She wished, not for the first time, for Costa. There’d be one Yena the ground dwellers couldn’t mock. Only her brother had stuck clippings into jars and tried to grow plants on purpose. “We’re all Sona now,” she countered. “We’ll learn what we must.”

Naryn gestured apology, though her blue eyes continued to sparkle. “True, though some of us learn faster than others. I’m glad I found you.”

Aryl studied the other as she rose to her feet. Naryn’s Clan had been Tuana, but she’d been exiled before the Oud brought her here. Like Yao, she was different. Her willful red hair might be tamed by a net much like Aryl’s—though Aryl’s was of ancient metal, a treasure cleaned and repaired for her by Enris—but it hadn’t been the result of a true Choice and Joining. Her abdomen thickened with new life, too—larger, since her time would be early summer—but the baby within had no father.

You have bigger worries. The sending was tinged with impatience . Naryn hid any fear for her future behind shields stronger than any Om’ray Aryl had known. She refused sympathy, using her strength and training to help the rest of Sona. She also refused friendship other than Aryl’s, though she had an understanding of sorts with Haxel Vendan, their First Scout. The two, powerful in their own ways, shared a contempt for those they considered fools. Aloud, “We have a problem.”

Especially fools who caused problems. Aryl sighed, wiping her knife blade on her leggings. The purple plant looked smug; weed, she warned it silently. “For once, tell me it isn’t Oran.”

Her former heart-kin’s Chosen was almost as Powerful as Naryn. Better schooled, having made full Adept as part of Grona Clan. Not a day passed when Oran didn’t find some way to remind them of their great good fortune in having her decide to make her home at Sona.

“Is that all?” Relieved, Aryl slipped her knife into its sheath on her belt, then dusted her hands. “She’s welcome to it.” She couldn’t help the bitter note to her voice.

The Cloisters made the perfect destination for those practicing their new skill. Easy to remember, while safe from surprises and watching eyes of any kind.

So far, it was good for nothing else. No one but Aryl could unlock its doors. She had an Adept’s Power; Naryn had taught her the trick. In the end, it had taken the child growing within her, the touch of one who belonged to Sona. She’d hoped that meant Seru could as well, being pregnant, but her cousin’s attempt had failed, leaving her miserable and Oran contemptuous.

Inside? Empty halls and silence. They’d all explored, heard nothing but their own voices and footsteps, turned doors to vacant rooms. Either Sona’s Adepts had abandoned their haven to die with their kin, or their bodies lay together in some hidden place. Unlike the mounds, no treasures of food or supplies beckoned. No water flowed from its outlets. The lights shone, as if someone had forgotten to turn them off.

All but two, she recalled with a grimace. Their pair of Grona Adepts had envisioned moving right in, eager to live apart from the rest and do whatever Adepts did alone.

Not, Haxel ordered in no uncertain terms, while Sona needed every hand to dig dirt and carry water. The Cloisters wasn’t going to feed them.

What had she missed? “He saw her ‘come out,’ ” Aryl repeated, then blinked. “She can unlock the doors?”

“Then Oran’s finally pregnant.” Aryl wasn’t sure how she felt about that, though it was, she realized with a wince, the right timing. The Adept and Bern had, to his obvious relief, finally consummated their Joining. Though she detested the notion, it was apparently her doing. She and Bern had been heart-kin, a connection that encouraged a certain resonance, Myris had explained, with dimples, when Aryl and Enris had so robustly consummated their own.

Aryl felt a rush of sympathy for her cousin. Well aware of the Adept’s opinion of her, Seru kept her distance. Now they’d be forced into one another’s company, for the sake of the unborn.

Pregnancy, however, didn’t explain why Oran would bother with locks. If anything, she ’ported more frivolously than the children. “Why the doors?”

Like any Talent, there were those who took to it like breathing, those who struggled, and those who possessed no ability at all. The Adept could send objects into the M’hir, just not himself. His Chosen, Oswa, though less powerful, had needed only to share Aryl’s memory of how it was done.

How much of Hoyon’s “couldn’t” was fear? Not the first time she’d wondered that. For something this new, Adept training was of no use. There’d been no way to predict who of Sona would be capable or how the Talent would manifest beyond oneself. Touch mattered. Only Aryl could ’port another Om’ray through the M’hir without touching that individual, but she couldn’t do the same for an object unless she held it in her hands. Enris and Fon could send anything they saw into the M’hir, but not reliably bring it out again.

As for ’porting itself, Power made a difference: the weaker couldn’t travel as far as those stronger, though no one knew why. Aryl suspected a deeper instinct kept Om’ray from staying too long with the M’hir. That darkness was utterly strange. Terrifying, consuming, alluring. It took Power to stay sane amid its chaos, to forge a connection to another mind. All the while, time crawled, measured itself in that outpouring of strength, became finite. Overstay, and risk losing oneself.

She and Enris had yet to find limits to their range. Seru and a few of the others, including Haxel, could ’port no farther than the mounds. The rest practiced ’porting to and from the Cloisters’ Council Chamber, safe from watchers, when not working the fields. Or played ’port and seek to torment their elders.

Fear, then. She and Enris had been driven into the M’hir by desperate need. Maybe they should find Hoyon his own crisis. At the thought, the free ends of Aryl’s hair lashed against her back.

The two Grona, busy inside the abandoned Cloisters. “What are they doing?” she puzzled aloud. “The place is empty.”

Its surroundings weren’t. The Oud gnawed at the nearby cliff with their machines, day through truenight according to scouts. The Stranger camp stood between that busyness and the grove around the Cloisters. It was no place for Om’ray to be careless.

Games. Fine for children, Aryl fumed to herself as she drew on her second-best tunic, then yanked free the Speaker’s Pendant to lie on top. Her hair shivered itself free of dust, then fought her attempt to bind it again. The stuff was every bit a nuisance. If she could, she’d shave it off.

Let me. Enris was behind her, as abruptly as the sun coming from behind a cloud. Aryl closed her eyes, feeling her hair ripple and wind itself through his fingers, cling to his wrists. Highly unfair, that it obeyed his touch and not hers.

Unfair . . . and delicious. Her bones wanted to melt. More often than not, this was where her hair escaped the net entirely, along with all responsible thought. Not this time. I have to deal with them.

Aryl didn’t bother mentioning their restless sleep that particular truenight. Had anyone trusted the inexperienced Adepts to stay awake? “If there’s another confrontation, you know what’ll happen. Haxel will insist they go back to Grona. Cetto and Morla would agree in a heartbeat. The rest—?” They hadn’t had an issue divide them. She’d prefer to keep it that way. Sona’s numbers were too few, their cohesiveness as a Clan still fragile. “Having our own Healer is a comfort,” she finished lamely.

Aryl recognized the glint in his eye: one of her Chosen’s usually admirable qualities, that stubborn streak. “—if Marcus taught me to use his technology,” Enris went on as if she hadn’t objected. “You’ve seen it. Worin’s leg might never have been smashed. The Strangers’ healing machine is as good or better than anything Oran can do. Marcus would teach me.” If you asked.

Oh, she understood that desire. The wonders in Marcus Bowman’s camp by the waterfall tempted her as well. But the Human had agreed to let her and her alone decide how much contact he should have with other Om’ray. For good reason. Aryl pressed two fingers gently over her Chosen’s lips. We can’t rely on their devices. They won’t be on Cersi forever. We must depend on ourselves.

Enris caught her fingers, kissed them, held them in his. “And we will. The Strangers’ machine gives us time to find another Healer. Aryl. You must see it. Those Adepts have to go. Why wait for the next time they cause trouble? Sona won’t be whole as long as Oran and Hoyon fight you for leadership.”

“I’m not fight—” His smile stopped her protest; Aryl settled for glowering. “We can’t send them to Grona,” she said instead. “Oswa and Yao belong here, with us.”

Anything but a simple question. Enris was the most easygoing and charming Om’ray imaginable, willing and able to find the best in others, to inspire it. That he’d come to so thoroughly dislike Bern sud Caraat, her former heart-kin, had nothing to do with jealousy. Chosen, Joined for life, could have no doubt of each other. But distrust rumbled beneath the words.

“Who smiles and whispers, and spreads doubt about everything you say or do, while Oran plays the noble Healer.”

Not so. His big arms drew her close. I love my Chosen to distraction, but when you’re wrong—Aryl felt his deep laugh—I’m the first to tell you.

A rush of heat. “How right you are,” he murmured into her hair, which squirmed joyfully against its net. His hands began exploring.

Aroused, the M’hir’s heaving darkness was wilder than usual. No surprise, Aryl thought wryly in the brief instant before she emerged.

Sona’s Cloisters didn’t rise on a stalk, like Yena’s, but rather sat on the ground like a discarded flower. Oud had thrown dirt against its windows and filled in the lowermost platform. They’d sought a way inside . . . curious about what none of their kind had seen.

Marcus Bowman was curious, too, but knew better than to attempt such trespass. He might hope for an invitation, but even if she could bring herself to consider it, her Human friend was no longer alone.

For the Oud had made a discovery in their cliff, drawing what Haxel and Aryl glumly considered too much attention to Sona’s remote valley. First had come the rest of Marcus’ new Triad, for the Strangers worked in threes, each with a specific task. In his words: Analyst, Scantech, and Recorder. Aryl had seen them from a distance. Not Human, unless they came in a wider range of body shapes than she’d appreciated; he’d explained once that each Triad had to have different species.

Only a few, those who were or looked Human, stayed past truenight; in that, Marcus managed to keep some order in his camp, or the prohibition against non-Humans too close to Cersi’s own races continued. A third building had gone up. More aircars came and went, even in storms, as if what had been found here mattered more than personal safety.

Not, Aryl thought with a sigh, that she’d noticed much concern for that in Marcus Bowman either. The Human made Ziba seem cautious, not to mention he could be distracted by a biter.

Aryl brushed imaginary dust from her tunic. She’d ’ported inside the Council Chamber. Windows stretched to the high ceiling, their lower two thirds obscured by gravel and dust thanks to the Oud. The floor, which should gleam, was dull. No dust, as if the inside of the Cloisters cleaned itself, but no feet or cloth had burnished its surface for long years.

Eighty-three years, according to Marcus, had passed since Sona’s destruction by the Oud. That was his skill: to follow trails through the past as a hunter would prey by the bend of a frond or an impression on bark. What Marcus and his fellows sought lay so long ago that—if she believed him—lakes and mountains had swallowed the remains of those who’d once lived on this and other worlds.

The Hoveny Concentrix, he called them. A vast civilization blending thousands of different kinds of beings that had failed long before the current blend of races, the First, laid claim to this part of space. Most recent of all, his kind, Humanity, with their far-flung Commonwealth. At this edge, a Trade Pact had formed with the First. Layer upon layer of civilizations, stretched through time as much as distance.

Though it was hard not to think of the past, here, standing where unknown Om’ray had stood. Her sleep was no longer visited by their memories, the dreams a Cloisters sent to inform Choosers and Adepts at need. On the journey here, Seru had dreamed the death of Sona’s Om’ray, a warning to keep away. When they’d refused to take heed and settled in the ruined village, new dreams had shown them where to find food, as well as images of how the Sona had lived.

This had been a prosperous, advanced Clan. Every Sona, not just Adepts, could read and write. They’d lived in peace with their Tikitik neighbors, trading certain crops for wood for their homes, for the knowledge of how to make a difficult land fruitful. Numerous, too. Cetto estimated Sona’s village could have housed over a thousand Om’ray, and there had been a second settlement, outside the Cloisters, devoted to the aged and infirm.

The dreams had ended—as if they should somehow have learned all that was necessary. But they hadn’t, Aryl thought, gnawing her lower lip in frustration. Was the purple plant a weed? Would summer here be hot and dry, or turn cold too soon? How did they preserve any food that grew? They didn’t know how the mounds worked, or if their once-opened doors could be resealed.

All of Sona had died when the Oud moved in to reshape their valley. Aryl’s darker imaginings suggested a second disaster, because the Tikitik and Oud lived in Balance, trading Om’ray Clans like baskets of fruit. No one knew of another lost Clan, which meant nothing. None had known of Sona either. When she’d led the exiles here, the Oud had claimed them. It hadn’t been long before the Tikitik had demanded and received that terrible compensation: the Oud reshaped Tuana, leaving only its Cloisters, and those sheltered within, unharmed.

Aryl stilled, the way she would if she’d heard a strange sound in the canopy and waited to see if it was something with a taste for Om’ray flesh.

An illusion. Om’ray did not travel beyond their sense of one another and inhabited just this small corner of Cersi. Cersi herself was but a single small world; the stars overhead shone on more than she could count in a lifetime.

Last spring, she’d known a Cloisters was where Adepts practiced their Talents, safe from observation by Tikitik or Oud, aloof from the rest. A Cloisters was where Adepts added to a Clan’s record of names and Joinings, and where the aged and the Lost could live out their days in peace.

Was that illusion, too? Did Clans have Cloisters for no other reason than Om’ray were frail things and some must survive each change in their neighbors, Tikitik or Oud?

“Why?” Aryl asked. “What use are we to them? Why is there an Agreement at all?” The words rebounded from pale yellow walls and closed doors, hung at the ceiling as if searching for answers. Died into silence.

Abandoning questions about the past, Aryl sped in pursuit. Oran, at a guess. She favored the lighter footwear they’d found among Sona’s supplies. Hoyon preferred his Grona boots.

She knew her way. Like Speaker’s Pendants, every Cloisters followed the same design; she’d been in this part of Yena’s. As Aryl ran for the closest door to the corridor outside, she kept her shields tight, though she doubted either Adept would welcome contact with her mind. They’d tried to force the secret of ’porting from her once. Tried. That day, she’d discovered her mind could be a weapon as deadly as a longknife.

A knife was clean, honest. What she could do—Aryl shuddered inwardly—what she could do if rage gripped her, if she lost all decent control, was an abomination. To rip apart who someone was and toss the terrified fragments of their aware mind into the M’hir . . .

The corridor was lit by glows lining the junction of wall to ceiling, glows with no power cells to replace, as ordinary lights had. The floor, smooth and resilient underfoot, was of no material known to Om’ray. Every so often, the plain walls were broken by closed doors of metal, clear unbreakable windows, or by small metal frames surrounding disks and squares of unknown purpose.

Another impossible concept. Until the Human had told her of other worlds and how cultures changed over vast lengths of time. Of how the Hoveny Concentrix had covered more worlds, with technology superior to the Trade Pact’s, only to collapse to ruins long before the Cloisters existed.

He’d gladly bring his devices inside this one, if she gave him the chance. He’d pore over every part, babbling his Comspeak to himself, making vids and records and drawing Human conclusions about Om’ray that would change them even more.

Not one, not two, but seven Om’ray—below, on another level. Furious, she reached to learn who else shirked their responsibilities.

Two former Tuana: Deran Edut, another unChosen, and Menasel Lorimar, cousin of the twisted Mauro, dead by Haxel’s ever-pragmatic knife.

Poor Gijs. She sighed to herself. When he wasn’t careful, anyone nearby could taste his fear, but only those of Yena understood. His Chosen, Juo, would give birth to their daughter any day and in the canopy, Gijs had been sure of himself and his ability to keep his family safe. On Sona’s dirt? It didn’t matter how well he could climb or hunt. Against the Oud’s unstoppable force, what use were Yena skills to repel the swarm? No surprise Gijs turned to Power instead, driving himself to learn whatever Talents he could, from anyone with something to teach him.

Whom Juo detested. The resulting schism between Chosen was a discord racing along her nerves, if Aryl let down her shields when the two were together.

No doubt the shirkers were aware of her presence. If Bern hadn’t sensed her, Menasel had the same Talent, to know identity.

The level above was reached by a corridor that gradually wound upward. How to reach the one below? Aryl chewed her lower lip. The Adepts knew more of the inner workings of the Cloisters than they’d revealed. Not a comforting thought.

Haxel would—Aryl shrugged. What Haxel would or wouldn’t do counted as much as a biter’s opinion unless she found the way to the next level. She went to the nearest door and turned it open, finding the empty room she’d expected. On to the next. And the next. A set of chairs. A lonely table. No purpose remained here, only remnants.

They were entertained by her search. Smug. She didn’t need to feel their emotions to know. An adult game, this, a test of her worth against their secret.

A game she couldn’t win, Aryl realized abruptly. Fail to find the way down and she’d lose any respect they had left for her. Find the way, confront them, and they’d cling tighter to one another. Neither helped Sona.

She took the corridor that led up, following it to where the Cloisters walls became layers of white petals, neither metal nor wood. No windows here, but at the very top, where the petals met, an irregular slice of cloud and sky could be seen. The light here was warmer than the corridors and rooms, the air fresher.

Whatever the purpose of this uppermost level, there was seating. Long benches curved in rows along one side, facing a span of empty floor.

Aryl sat on the nearest, poked a rebellious strand of hair, and settled her mind. Anger had to go. Resentment with it. Fear of failure, pointless. She focused on the life within, its faint yet growing warmth. She thought about the future she wanted for this child, one of peace and security, the one she wanted for all Om’ray—friends or not—and built it in her imagination.

This new Talent, to ’port from place to place. The next time the Tikitik and Oud traded lands, mightn’t it prevent the cost in Om’ray lives? Speakers from each race could inform the others. There could be negotiation, an evacuation planned that didn’t violate the rules of Passage.

As for Passage itself, no more would young unChosen face a difficult, deadly journey alone. They’d already learned a shared memory was enough for a ’port. Locates for other Clans could be shared, mind-to-mind, through the M’hir. Those able would simply ’port to a waiting Chooser. If that match wasn’t suitable, they could as easily return home.

A perfect future. Once the Strangers finished groping at the past and left Cersi forever, Aryl reminded herself. Before that, they must be careful, secretive. Oh, she believed the Human’s warning not to reveal themselves as anything but simple villagers. “Remnants,” he’d called the Om’ray, of no interest to the Trade Pact. She earnestly hoped to stay that way. Nothing good came of the interest of others.

The future trembled on her lips, gone as Aryl stiffened, looking up at the angry Om’ray who’d appeared before her. In Grona fashion, Oran’s hair was free beneath a token cap. Its golden locks writhed with temper. She wore the white embroidered robe of her office as Adept, in clear defiance.

Or as defense, Aryl thought, forcing herself to stay calm. Oran had courage, whatever their disagreements. “We need to talk.”

Oran tightened her shields until she almost disappeared from Aryl’s inner sense. “I’ve nothing to say to you.”

Aryl gestured to the bench between them. “Sit with me, Adept di Caraat.” A peace offering, to grant the other her title for the first time in their stormy acquaintance. “Tell me what you hope to accomplish here. Perhaps I can help.”

The derisive snort was pure Oran, but the other did sit, her body sagging with relief despite her attempt at composure, hair abruptly still. Something had drained her Power to the point of risk, Aryl concluded, holding in her own alarm. What?

Though exhausted, Oran was all pricklish pride and disdain. “What we will accomplish, Speaker Sarc,” she stated, “despite no support from our own Clan, is to restore our Cloisters to its full and proper function.”

Glows lit every corner. Doors unlocked and turned. The air stayed a comfortable temperature—for Yena in light coats. Aryl doubted the Adept referred to anything so comprehensible. “And you do that by living here . . .”

“ ‘Dreaming?’ ” Aryl sat straighter. “You mean you’ve been learning about this place? How to tell the weeds, what to do to help the food grow . . . the seasons?”

“You think so small. A Cloisters contains the knowledge of all its Adepts. I could continue my training as a Healer. Learn to protect myself from fools like you.”

Aryl accepted the rebuke. None of them had realized how dangerous it would be for Oran to try to heal Myris Sarc, whose head injury had damaged her mind as well. That she’d stepped in and completed the task hadn’t helped endear her to Oran. But what mattered was the future. The knowledge of Sona’s Adepts could help achieve it.

Which meant no. She resisted the urge to shake the other. The Grona Adepts’ hoarding of secrets made everyone’s life more difficult, including their own. Her hair slithered restlessly over one shoulder. She mollified her tone—the hair being another matter—and allowed sincerity and concern past her shields. “How can the rest of us help?”

“The others can’t.” Oran smoothed the robe over her knees, traced a curl of embroidery in the fabric, her gaze intent on those actions. “You might,” she said after a long moment.

Aryl carefully tightened her shields, particularly those which—sometimes—kept her dear and ever-vigilant Chosen from sensing her reactions. Amazing, the self-control their Joining had taught her. Among other things.

Oran turned her hand. Its calluses were hardened now, no longer red and swollen. She’d learned their value. “Come with me.”

Aryl blinked and stood. Oran remained seated, head down, face in her hands. She’d used the last of her strength in the ’port.

A ’port into a stinger nest, Aryl decided. One just prodded with a stick. Her. Angry voices crossed from every side. Suspicion and fear rilled from mind to mind. “Fool! Why did you bring her here?” “She found us!” “Can’t trust her! Send her away!” “Oran, did she hurt you?”

The last, from Bern as he dropped to his knees before his Chosen while giving her a scathing look, was more than enough. Aryl sent a snap of irritation. Deran cried out. The rest fell silent and stared at her.

In the respite, doubtless brief, Aryl surveyed the strange room. What was this place? As large as the Council Chamber. An entire Clan could fit in here. The construction matched the rest of the Cloisters, plain yellow walls and resilient floor, but the windowless walls were broken by narrow doors, five evenly spaced along each long side, two on each shorter one. The lighting came not from ceiling strips but from panels behind knee-high platforms.

The platforms. Oran and she had ’ported to sit on one; there were more. Far more. Oval in shape, they lined the walls, each topped with a soft pad of some brown material she’d never seen before. Beds, Aryl decided. For the Adepts? She’d believed her mother had had her own room, sparse but comfortable. Had she been wrong?

The two closest bore additional blankets, familiar ones. They’d come from the storage mound. As had, Aryl frowned, the incongruous pile of dishes, pots, and—yes, that was one of the oil heaters used for cooking—on the floor. The bulging sacks leaning against the wall doubtless contained food as well as extra clothing. The Tuanas’ doing, she guessed. No Yena would take from his own.

Yet two were part of it. Gijs had the grace to flush a dark red. Bern, preoccupied with his weary Chosen, paid no attention. Fools. She restrained her temper. “How can I help?”

Aryl smiled her mother’s smile. “Neither do you. Them—” with a nod to exhausted Adepts, “—I can understand. Why are you here? Or you, Gijs. Kran. Deran. Bern. Someone else does your share of the work right now.”

“What do you plan to eat next winter?” Aryl found herself honestly curious. The Tuanas of Sona shared a past and future, but remained distinct: Naryn and the Runners, who worked as hard as any Yena, and Deran and his once-privileged kin, who had the oddest notion they should be entitled to not work at all. The two groups spared no words or kindness for one another.

Oran lifted her head, golden hair flooding over her shoulders. “Peace, Aryl. They work here, for us. We must concentrate on our task; we are helpless while dreaming. Without any Lost—” A shrug.

As if it was a detriment, not to have mind-shattered Chosen to serve her. And she never would, Aryl hoped fiercely, though what she could do against a fact of Om’ray life was beyond her imagining. The death of one of a Joined pair meant the loss of the other’s sense of self, if not another death. The only exception had been her own mother, Taisal. “You brought me here, Adept,” she stated grimly, regretting that decision. Though now she could return to this sanctum of theirs at whim; from the unsettled feel of their Power, the others realized it too.

That was it? Oran wanted her to restore Hoyon’s strength with her own. Aryl’s hand wanted to find the hilt of her longknife. Not helpful. She rested her fingers on her belt. “Strength for what?”

Aryl had felt it, too. A crack of Power, stinging even to those not its target. Oran wasn’t the leader of this pair, as she’d believed. Hoyon d’sud Gethen was.

Leader of nothing else. Don’t think to challenge me, she sent to the Grona Adept. She’d kept it private, but his defiant glare at her didn’t fool anyone. Fear spilled past his shields, thick and cloying. The others exchanged troubled looks.

“He’s tried and failed.” Bern was clearly pleased to have Hoyon put in his place. “A gift of strength won’t help. The Cloisters doesn’t want him.”

“It’s much more.” Oran gestured at the room. “This is the Dream Chamber. Here, we can learn whatever we need. Once the Cloisters accepts Hoyon as its Keeper.”

“You talk of what’s forbidden to non-Adepts!” Hoyon subsided at Aryl’s lifted brow, though he looked as if he’d bitten into a rotten fruit.

“Not what. Who.” As if goaded by Hoyon’s warning, Oran spoke quickly. “The Keeper is the one Adept given the ability to open the dream records for the rest. But Sona’s hasn’t listened to Hoyon.”

Adept babble. Aryl decided to leave the question of how a building could listen alone, though she did approve this one’s taste. “Will it listen to you?”

From the joyous lift of Oran’s hair, this wasn’t the first time she’d considered stepping into Hoyon’s place. However, she schooled her face and bowed very properly toward the other Adept. “I would not presume. Hoyon d’sud Gethen is my senior. My teacher.”

A poor time for Oran di Caraat to exhibit humility, false or real. Aryl was conscious of their audience: the pair of Tuana, Kran and Bern, Gijs. Nothing that happened with such wit nesses would be secret for long.

“She can’t,” from Oran, whose lips twisted. “Even if she were a full Adept, there’s what grows inside her. The Cloisters won’t accept a pregnant candidate.” She rose to her feet, shaking off Bern’s solicitous hand. “I will make the attempt, with Hoyon’s permission.”

Before Oran could reply, Menasel spoke up. “We all can,” the Tuana Chosen boasted. “They added our names to the records—”

In the ensuing silence, she looked at each of them in turn. Gijs lowered his eyes. “Only yours,” she repeated, sure now. Poor Juo.

Games and secrets. They destroyed bridges. They left Om’ray stranded and alone. They risked everything. Sona had forty-six Om’ray. Barely enough to plant and tend a crop. There would soon be babies needing care. The eldest among them could fail in the coming winter.

The blood pounding in her ears was louder than their breathing. A presence filled her mind—Enris, alerted, not yet alarmed. Aryl sent a pulse of reassurance she most assuredly didn’t feel, then tightened her shields.