Rift in the Sky

WATER GLINTED IN THE LIGHT from the oil lamps, black and slippery. Enris boldly stepped in and lowered his. “See?”

Enris smiled to himself. “Because the boot’s not big enough.” Before his brother found this funny, too, he sent a fond Behave, youngling. “That’s why you’re here. All of you.”

The Om’ray he’d summoned stood with him on the dry pebbled floor of the river, each carrying as many small lamps as they could manage, doubtless wondering if he’d lost his mind. Worin. Yuhas. Fon, Cader, and Kayd. Kran with Deran, leaking distrust through their shields. Though they’d come. Anything to do with secrets and Power, Enris thought ruefully. The Licor sisters, Josel and Netta.

“We’ll use lights to mark our line. Put them on the ground, spread out. We don’t have very—” The unChosen, delighted to be out when most of their elders were heading for bed, bolted to the opposite bank, lamps waving. “Watch for moving rock,” Enris shouted after them. Not that the hunters would risk the water, but he felt a twinge of Chosen responsibility.

He resisted the urge to look up; clouds obscured his stars. He’d have to trust Marcus had been able to give them privacy. There was no way to know.

Enris took his lamps and placed them on either side of the narrow New River, splashing across and back with noisy relish. Yuhas met him, having placed his.

The unChosen returned, led by Worin, and stood waiting. From their anticipation, they’d decided this was a game worth playing. “Now,” Enris said, ruffling his brother’s hair, so like their mother’s, “Sona stops wasting water.”

Some things were better shown than told. Having picked his prize beforehand, he walked to it as briskly as the loose footing allowed. Confidence. That was the key. This would work.

The chunk was a broken piece of Sona’s bridge. A disturbing reminder of the Oud’s strength. Enris patted it, stepped back, put his fingertips together, and concentrated. You, he told it unnecessarily, there. And concentrated.

The chunk quivered, then moved. Not through the M’hir—he didn’t dare risk where it might reappear—but through the air, graceful and slow. Larger than it first looked, having dug its own hole in the riverbed. He tried not to grunt with effort. Confidence.

When over the water, he let go. The chunk dropped and tilted and came to rest with a grind of rock to rock. And, he thought with glee, a much bigger splash than his boot.

“Like the vat in our shop,” Worin said excitedly. “How our father—” his voice faltered, but he recovered. “It’s how we kept the melted metal flowing where we wanted. Into the right molds.”

Yuhas leaped to the top of the chunk and let out a whoop that echoed out into the surrounding darkness. “This time we stop the river!”

Hush, Enris sent hastily. He’d prefer not to have the rest of Sona—and Aryl—arrive until this worked. The Yena couldn’t move a pebble with Power; on the other hand, nothing would move nearby he wouldn’t notice. Go be our scout.

To the rest: “Line them up on this side of the—” A loud chink! “—lights.” Enris turned with the rest to see a second chunk of stone, big as a home, sitting where one of the oil lamps had been.

They moved the largest chunks and boulders first. Josel was steady and controlled; Netta’s rocks tended to swoop from side to side, prompting the others to dodge out of the way. Kran, silent and determined, worked as hard as anyone, but Deran’s control was worse than Netta’s. For the sake of everyone’s toes, Enris soon moved him to the far bank.

As he should have known, it quickly became a contest between Fon and Worin. Cader and Kayd, without this Talent but there because Fon was, busied themselves running through the dark to find the biggest possible hunk of bridge for him. Worin, Enris noticed with an inward grin, wisely picked smaller ones, so he moved more. There was laughter and a good amount of teasing. Kran edged closer while this went on, something wistful about him. Enris, between his own efforts, told himself he should speak to Worin and Fon, help the young Grona find a place.

When they ran out of broken bridge, they began pushing smaller boulders into line. Many were still half the size of an Om’ray. Not so many laughs now. Enris wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve, wondering at Fon. The slight young Yena stood in the circle of light from one lamp, face composed and peaceful, while rock floated toward him from the darkness.

From where Naryn watched. He could almost feel her eyes burning the back of his neck. Why she was here was beyond him; it wasn’t her habit to seek him out, knowing he tolerated her solely because of Aryl. The Oud were easier to bear, despite what his Chosen might think. The not-real were beyond understanding or trust or blame, like bad weather. Naryn . . .

Suddenly furious, Enris almost released the boulder he was pushing too soon. He made himself focus and placed it with extra care.

This was why he avoided her, he thought bitterly. Naryn undermined his self control. Just standing there, in the dark, alone . . .

If it weren’t for the warmth of his link to Aryl . . . today’s loss, Ael and Myris . . . it had felt like losing Tuana all over again, his mother and father, all of them. If it weren’t for Aryl, he couldn’t imagine existing with that terrifying emptiness. That pain. His next heavy breath was closer to a sob. He reached for the link that held him to the calm clarity of Aryl di Sarc’s mind, and steadied.

Enris stood very still. That was it, wasn’t it? The reason Naryn so thoroughly unsettled him. She’d never blamed him. Not for the baby, not for her fate. She’d accepted responsibility for what had happened to her, because of him. She’d done nothing since arriving but help his Chosen and their new Clan. The one Om’ray he’d considered utterly selfish proved herself otherwise day after day.

No unChosen should have been able to reject her Choice, as he did. How could she have been prepared for that? Could she have stopped herself? Was it even possible for a Chooser, once committed to Join?

Questions he’d never thought to ask, until feeling the irresistible Power of Aryl di Sarc, until being Joined himself.

Naryn waited as he approached, invisible to his inner sense, a silhouette against the lights of the village. He halted a few steps away, finding himself in the unfamiliar situation of not knowing what to say.

Glints marked her eyes, as if she’d tilted her head. “Of a dam? Clever. If it held enough water, some would overflow into the ditches to the fields. But it won’t work.”

Enris looked over his shoulder at what was now a wide wall of stone and rubble, taller than two Om’ray, and growing. He was impressed. The water, however, was not. It still escaped easily through the gaps between stones. “We need more rocks,” he said stubbornly. “Smaller ones.”

“You could add them for the next fist and it wouldn’t stop the flow.” Before he could protest, Naryn added thoughtfully, “Or you could try something else.”

He understood the astonishment in her voice. Deserved it. “I never thought you were stupid,” he said finally. “I’m—”

Naryn went to one knee in the pebbles, brushing them aside to expose the hard-packed dirt beneath. “This is what I mean.”

The rest stood around, at a distance. Naryn appeared not to notice. She did a great deal of that, Enris realized. Being neither Chooser nor Chosen made others uneasy from the start; being quick to take offense and powerful did the rest. Only Aryl was completely comfortable near Naryn.

“You saw how the Oud used dirt as well as rocks,” she said, looking up with a frown. She pressed with her fingers. The fine-textured stuff was almost like rock itself, but cracked under pressure. “The river didn’t sink into the ground because of this. It’s what we need in the dam.” She stood.

Good question, Enris fretted, scuffing the toe of his boot against the ground. When he pushed something, he could see its size and shape. Touch it. This? How did you push grains too small to see?

They could dig the dirt, Enris thought bitterly. If they had a thousand times their number, or were willing to become like Vyna, where unChosen toiled deep underground for a lifetime, using blocks of black stone to hold back the molten rock in Vyna’s Heart . . .

“I see.” Beneath, disapproval. Aryl had said Naryn no longer tried to convince her to avoid Marcus; it didn’t mean a change of opinion. “Then it should be done now.” And she walked away.

No, not away. Naryn followed the course of New River, away from the wall but staying in the middle of the original riverbed. Into the dark. Alone.

Power built. Raised the hairs on his arms. “Go!” he shouted, waving his arms at the unChosen. He grabbed Worin by the shoulder and shoved. “Up the bank. Hurry!”

Power. No one could be deaf to it. He could barely breathe through it. Enris threw himself to the top of the bank and whirled around. “Naryn!”