Rift in the Sky

I don’t need a Birth Watcher. I need OUT!!

A blinding flash of AGONY from Naryn.

What’s happening? Anaj?

LET ME OUT!

The sac opened to the baby’s demand. They couldn’t allow Anaj’s desperation to rip it open inside Naryn. They’d both die.

Anaj, stop, please. Aryl pulled away from Enris and clenched her hands on the basket rim, trying to see under the other esan, to see Naryn. If there’s a safe way to free you, we’ll find it. But it can’t be here. You know that.

Healing used Power to push the body’s growth beyond normal. Could they hurry a pregnancy?

I will be free. There was something implacable in the sending. I don’t belong here. I can’t survive here.

The Vyna’s help was like a rotted rope, Aryl thought bitterly, one that would snap if you trusted it. Wait, Anaj. Until we’re home—

Where do you think the beasts take us, child? Not even a token grants safe passage through Tikitna. Home? More likely when they’re no longer entertained by you, they’ll drop us in the Lake of Fire. Trust me, I intend to be free before dying again.

Enris gripped her shoulder, bent to whisper in her ear. “Baby Grandmother knows something of the Tikitik’s meeting place.”

Aryl nodded. She forced down her fear for Naryn, concentrated on being Sona’s Speaker. Anaj. Tell me about this place. About the Tikitik.

Frustration. Cersi has changed. This is no longer

my time.

The past matters, Aryl sent, confident of this if anything. The Tikitik pay attention to it. Om’ray must. You warned me about the swarm in baskets. It’s something they’ve done before.

Yes. Bleak. That’s how they move them to a new grove. Without warning. As if hoping to kill Om’ray. Or Oud. They can’t be trusted. They don’t think like we do.

They have a purpose, Aryl sent back, feeling Enris agree. Thought Traveler said I was a threat to Vyna, that Vyna must be protected.

They won’t lie, Anaj admitted. Not directly. Confuse and avoid and never say the whole of a thing, always.

Another who’d been Sona’s Speaker, Aryl realized abruptly, flattening her palm over the pendant. You wore this. Adept and Speaker, like her mother. She let out a sigh of relief. I need your help—

Remember what I am. Bitter. Bitter and afraid and hollow. I’m scrapings from when Sona flourished, when we were the largest of the ten Clans. Nothing more.

Ten? There were eight, counting newly restored Sona.

Which are gone? Enris asked.

A moment’s silence. The old Adept must feel the change in her world, know what was missing. Aryl held in her compassion; she didn’t think Anaj an Om’ray who’d value it.

Nena. None came to Sona in my lifetime. My grandfather . . . he remembered an uncle from Nena who did clever rope tricks. Extra thumbs.

The other . . . Anaj’s shields tightened, dampening her emotion. Xrona’s gone, too. My sister’s second Chosen was from there. Their children had his curls. He’d talk all truenight about his Passage, how he’d climbed through the canopy and dropped his glow when she Called so he had to wall himself inside a giant thorn bush to escape the swarms but nothing would stop him—

‘Second Chosen?’ Aryl interrupted. I don’t understand.