The hem of High Saltar Tiarel’s formal robe pooled on the floor as she sat on a low bench. Tiny perfect stitches. I had ample time to study them as I knelt at her feet in a private alcove near the entry to the central ground. Traditionally, she met with each new dancer before and after their first shift, and my turn had finally arrived. I should have appreciated the honor of time with her, but instead my muscles quivered with impatience.

“Throughout your training you’ve been kept from touching the earth with your bare feet. It takes great effort to keep our world turning and to keep it from flying loose into chaos. We didn’t want you to interact with our world until you learned the controlled and careful way to speak with your movements.”

I’d heard all this many times, but I nodded, keeping my gaze respectfully low.

Just tell me which patterns we’ll be performing and let me go warm up.

Her gray stare assessed me and her thin eyebrows angled down. “We have applied only the best practices to your training. You, in turn, have proven yourself both capable and loyal. Now, Dancer Calara, there are secrets we can only reveal to you at this important moment.”

My chin shot up. “Secrets?”

She rested her hand on the side of my face, then brushed her fingers down the white sleeves of my tunic, like sharp bare twigs scraping against a wall.

“Some dancers—not all, of course—have strange experiences as they encounter the earth. They hear from the ground beneath them.”

“Hear the ground?” No saltar had ever taught us about that.

“If it happens to you, don’t be startled. Continue your pattern. Continue to coax the earth to the bidding of the Order. Some of our most effective dancers have this sort of connection with our world, but it is an added challenge to overcome. After your first shift, you will meet with me and tell me what you experienced. You will speak to no one else about anything you hear or feel. Understand?”

No. I bit my tongue, trapping the word behind my teeth, then breathed out, “Of course.”

She let go of my arm and pressed the heel of her hand against my forehead. “Go and move our world.”

I rose to my feet in one smooth motion, grateful my ankle felt strong and whole. After a bow, I joined the other dancers lining up in the rehearsal hall. Iris was loosening her joints with large leg swings. She smiled as I took up a position beside her. Her ankles were free of the shackles, but even with the salve I’d shared, red sores testified to the toll they’d taken. “You’ll be fine,” she whispered.

I clung to her reassurance as I reached down to press my hands into the floor, deepening the stretch through my legs.

As the doors to the central ground opened, weary dancers and drummers exited and brushed past us into the tower. I shook out my limbs to loosen my muscles, but they fought me with their tension. After all my impatience, I was suddenly terrified and wished that time would slow down. I needed one more rehearsal. One more class. One more of Saltar Kemp’s pattern drills.

Too late now. The more experienced dancers for this shift headed out into the fresh air, and I followed them.

The primary sun was setting, and we would spend our first hours in the soft glow of the subsun, and then the sparkling stars of twilight and early evening. I glanced toward the balconies. Since this was the late-day shift, perhaps Starfire would get a chance to watch.

As I found my place in the formation among all the other hooded women, I realized Starfire might not be able to pick me out in the group even if she did watch. We were uniform in physique and identical in garb, as was needed to create perfect patterns.

Then my scattered thoughts were swept away by the warmth of Meriel’s dirt beneath my feet. After years of marble and cobblestone, the softness welcomed me. I curled my toes, enjoying the sensation of the soft earth shifting. I spared a moment to absorb the vast ring of the Order building looming above us and the open sky far overhead.

In the stillness before the first beats of the drums, the earth trembled slightly under my feet. Or perhaps it was only my eager nerves. I unlocked my stiff knees and found my balance.

A soft rolling sensation moved beneath me, as if the earth chuckled. A place in my soul responded, the same place that played in the star rain and kissed the new blossoms in the courtyard gardens. Warmth coursed through my chest.

Thank you for letting me touch you, strong earth. I’m here to speak to you.

The rhythm began, many quick counts followed by a pause, and then repeating. The sound evoked water sloshing back and forth in a bucket. Current pattern! This was the moment for which I’d prepared my entire life, and the first pattern was the powerful central theme that turned our world. Although the rules required I keep my face expressionless, inside my smile beamed. Destiny, indeed.

We began to move with small running steps to one side of the field, gave a wide sweep of our arms, then ran back across. Although it had been a lifetime since I’d seen ocean waves, or been rocked in a mother’s arms, the dance stirred those memories and more.

My body exulted as we moved on to the first variation of the pattern, adding a leap at the end of the rapid steps, landing like a soft exhale at the end of the phrase. The earth coaxed me higher with each jump.

The rhythm progressed to a driving, rolling pace, and our group loped in a wide circle bordering the entire area. I felt it. I felt the earth give way as my feet pressed back against it. Around me, the blur of white dancers swirled me along. In my mind’s eye I saw images of our world, alone amid an endless sea. Our island turned around its axis, refusing the tug of deep ocean waves. Beyond the walls, miles and miles of field and forests, rivers and villages joined the dance, oblivious to the imperceptible movement that we experienced with such amazing power.

Yes! The world was ours, we set the direction, we charted the course, we—

Shackled! A deep voice rang through my mind, with a groan that shuddered through my bones.

I stumbled. My feet automatically recovered and kept moving, but I lost my place in the pattern. What came next? Ahead of me, Iris continued the steps confidently, and I followed her. We leapt lightly past the window of the High Saltar’s office. The bright white of her formal robe stood unmoving near the glass.

Had she seen me stumble? And that voice. Was this what the High Saltar had warned me about? A sound older, stranger, more powerful than any human speech. One simple word had left me shaken. I kept dancing, watching the others, searching them for a reaction. Their faces remained stoic.

We spiraled into a tight group in the center, and I drew comfort from being surrounded by others, breathing together, muscles reaching and straining together. Kneeling, we continued our swaying movements.

Release My world!

The voice was deep and heavy, as if projecting from the heart of a boulder, or sung from the ocean depths. I shuddered as the words rocked through me.

Tiarel’s warning played through my memory over the rumbling. “Coax the earth to the bidding of the Order.” But the strength of the voice made folly of her command. I could as easily tell one of the suns to stop traveling across the sky.

The other dancers rose, and Iris nudged me. A few of the women sent me worried glances.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered . . . to Iris, to the Order I was failing, to my dreams that were spiraling out of reach.

Somehow I stumbled to my feet. Years of repetition served me as I moved into the next variation, yet my movements lost their smooth texture. My feet feared each new step, worried I’d stir another proclamation from the voice. For several minutes I danced as though the ground were coated with embers.

The voice gentled, a mere echo of what I’d first heard. My people have forgotten Me.

The sorrow in the voice pierced my heart and made me want to weep and tear my tunic. Rocking side to side, rolling through my heels, I projected my thoughts toward the earth, but found little to say.

“I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” I said silently. “Don’t speak again, please, please, please.”

Perhaps the earth had mercy. Perhaps I’d been overwrought and only thought I’d heard words in the thrumming of the drums. At any rate, no more voices interrupted the pattern.

We completed current and grabbed a few breaths before the drums began the next rhythm. We paced through the slower furrow pattern to urge crops to grow, followed by pine and willow to nourish the trees. Even though I imagined the forests throughout our world strengthened and heartened by our dance, I couldn’t return to my original feelings of joy and satisfaction. I couldn’t be sure when the voice would speak again, and how I could cope if it did.

Much later, when we finished yet another series, I was surprised to see the torches alight. I stood poised, alert, ready for the next cue, but the drummers stood, stretched, and left the ground.

“We’re done.” Iris touched my shoulder.

I blinked a few times, struggling to return to reality. We lined up and filed inside. In the jostling of dancers exiting and entering, Iris was able to grab my elbow and pull me aside. “Whatever you do, don’t tell the High Saltar what happened to you out there.”

“But she said . . .”

“Calara, I’ve seen what happens.” Her warning tone was almost as adamant as the words I’d heard in the dance. “If she saw your mistakes, blame it on nerves.”

A cold breeze crept through the doorway from the center ground, and I shivered. Iris hurried away before I could ask her to explain. The experience had already terrified me. Why did Iris have to stir even more fear in me? If I couldn’t trust the High Saltar, then I couldn’t trust the very ground I walked on.

My lips coaxed into a wry smile. And apparently the ground I walked on was unpredictable.

As the energy of exertion and surprise wore off, my whole body slumped with fatigue. I longed to steal away to my room. I trudged across the large rehearsal room.

When I reached the door, High Saltar Tiarel waited, posture more rigid than usual, face implacable.

How much had she noticed? What should I tell her?

I kept my gaze down, finding the reliable stitches on her hem once again.

For years I’d depended on the instructions of others. Routines, schedules, precise orders. I had little practice relying on my own instinct. Yet in that moment, the very fiber of my being sensed danger.

She grasped my chin in a painful grip and tilted my face to meet her gaze. Deep eyes probed my soul and stripped me bare. “Well?”