Rift in the Sky

THE WORLD, ITS END, HER LIFE . . . nothing mattered as Aryl ’ported except speed. Something was wrong. Something was wrong . . .

A horrible scream filled her ears! Her longknife leaped to her hand, and she struck without waiting for a target. Hands gripped her arm, deflected its movement. There was a flash of pain, then a grip like stone.

Both knives dropped with a clatter as her eyes snapped into focus. Blood ran down his cheek. A superficial cut; she’d missed the eye. “You shouldn’t get in my way,” she reminded him calmly.

From somewhere, she found the strength to push her giant Chosen out of her way, or he let her pass.

“No!” Aryl lunged forward. Naryn’s hair tried to evade her—whipped at her face to blind her—but she was too quick and grabbed handfuls, heaved to pull the other to the floor. “What were you doing?!”

But she knew. Even as she dropped to her knees beside Marcus—too still, too quiet—even as she didn’t dare touch him but leaned close to use her open mouth to wait for his breath—she knew.

And there were other weapons than knives. The M’hir boiled behind her eyes; hers to command, waiting like the swarm.

Take her away, she begged Enris with her last shred of control, trembling on the brink. Kill a friend, for a friend?

Blinking away tears of her own, Aryl eased back. She adjusted the blanket that had fallen. Her hands shook and left incomprehensible symbols on the fabric. Blood. Naryn’s hair had sliced her skin. A clatter on the floor. The image disk. She bent to retrieve it, tried to think.

Aryl straightened so quickly the small form across the bed instinctively stepped back. But Yao wasn’t daunted. “He isn’t,” the child insisted. “Look.”

The Human’s eyelids had partially lifted, exposing red-stained whites. Lips peeled back from his teeth in a rictus of effort, as if another scream tried to escape, but he refused it. His hands clenched spasmodically, his body shuddering each time. The bandage around his neck wept blood.

Aryl sat on the bed, carefully distant, and stared at him. “What can I do? I don’t know what to do.”

She hadn’t expected an answer, but Yao offered solemnly, “I have a song. It makes me feel better. Marcus likes it. I could teach it to you and we could sing together.”

“That’s because he’s thinking of bad things. You should make him stop. He’d feel much better.”

She lifted her head. Huge eyes in a small face gazed back. “What a wise person you are,” Aryl said gravely. She gestured gratitude. “I need you to leave us alone, Yao. Please.”

The child walked to the doorway, then turned to look at Marcus. I wish he was my father. Then was gone.

Aryl put the disk, warmed by her flesh, on the table. She covered the Human’s hands with her own.

... The mind, fraying along every pattern, memories dissolving into chaos. PAIN . . . rushing to fill every empty space. Worst of all, awareness.

“Hush. Think only of your world,” Aryl urged gently, her inner sense focused on him, sharing his agony. “Your home, Marcus. That special place . . . a place you want to show me.” Impossible to cause more pain than he felt, so she poured Power into the demand, forced him to listen.

With an effort, he responded. He may have uttered words aloud; she didn’t hear, preoccupied with catching memories as they surfaced, holding them before they fractured and were lost.

She’d expected Marcus to think of home and family. Instead, her mind filled with darkness . . . then a sudden light.

Lights hanging from wires. Lights attached to walls. Lights on poles. Together they fought to illuminate a too-vast space, angled and rising away in polished steps. Steps with—another memory—carved seats for those who’d never be mistaken for Human. One wall was lit, its surface dancing with more carvings, with eyes and forms, and postures that were and weren’t beautiful but which—another—must have meaning to a different kind of mind.

Here—another—purpose. Here. Stand here, and whispers lift to the farthest corner, heard as if spoken by the one next to you. Whatever had been here, made this, had spoken, and listened. Commonality. A place to start understanding.

All this, buried and ignored. Not of interest or value—another memory—an old door, an older passage, then, all alone, a wall fell away.

Peace settled around the memories. Happiness. It had been the best time of his life. This was his Yena. His canopy.

Aryl watched the memories transform his face: how the jaw lost its taut line, the eyes softened, then closed. She waited until he breathed more easily, more and more slowly.

And when she was sure Marcus Bowman had forgotten everything else, when there was no more pain or awareness, when he believed himself back there and had no sense of here or her, Aryl swept her knife clean and deep across his throat.