Rift in the Sky

By the look on Aryl’s face, it wouldn’t be the last one she’d ask. Enris kept his smile and his pride to himself. It would take more than all of Cersi’s Tikitik to stop his Chosen if she saw a path for her people. She didn’t seek to lead others—didn’t believe herself capable of it. She didn’t need to; her vision and courage, the pulse of her extraordinary Power, these drew Om’ray to her, gave them strength.

Other than the Vyna—and maybe, given time, them as well.

If Om’ray were metal, Aryl would glow like a finely crafted knife being tempered by flame. Beautiful, stronger by the moment, deadly if necessary. A sensible Chosen would fear for his life, she so willingly risked hers. Unlike Anaj’s sister, he wouldn’t survive to Choose again.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Except . . .

Enris strengthened his shields. Fear for Sweetpie would choke him, then spread to smother them both. Aryl fought her own constant battle with instinct; he could sense it. All he could do to help her was control himself and keep shields between them at the deepest level.

Though something must have leaked

through. She glanced up at him with those wide gray eyes, a softness in their depths. A loose strand of hair tempted him to touch it.

“Don’t miss the sweetpies,” he ordered gravely and took three for himself. He ate them without tasting, enjoying far more her hesitant yet trusting nibble, then dazzling smile as she reached the filling.

“You were right. These are good.”

He brushed a crumb from her chin. “I’m always right.”

The Tikitik stirred around them, hissing softly, some giving their bark. Naryn came back to stand with them, looking uneasy. “Something’s happening.”

Aryl nodded. Enris could see nothing but branches and squatting Tikitik. “Lunch” had been waiting for them in an area otherwise identical to where they’d walked from the esan’s landing. Paths no wider than his shoulders wound between the low branches, and nothing of the sky could be seen. It was like being inside a living tunnel. A crowded one. And the smell? Between the musk of the Tikitik, the fresh and plentiful droppings of the lopers, and the food, his nose should have been unable to smell another thing.

But it did.

Enris turned his head toward the source, only to find Aryl already gazing the same way. A path, like the others, twisted so they could see very little of where it led. “What is it?”

“Rot. The kind that lies beneath dark water. Something’s stirred the bottom.”

The Tikitik surrounding them were no longer restless. Thought Traveler was also still, except for the slide of its eyes. If he had to guess, they waited for the Om’ray to do something. What?

What are they waiting for? Anaj sounded annoyed. Why are they keeping us here?

Aryl’s full lower lip was between her teeth, her habit when puzzling through a problem. Usually Enris found it set him thinking of things that weren’t problems at all; here and now, he felt sudden anticipation.

The lip came free. “I don’t believe they are,” she stated. Then, Come, as she started walking briskly.

How did he know it would be the path with the rot?

“It could be worse, Naryn,” he assured her as they trailed behind. “There could be climbing.”

There were Tikitik in Aryl’s way, their shoulders towering over her head. Enris tensed as she simply walked straight at them, but at the last possible instant, they took a step to the side, raising their heads sharply as if offended.

“You need not accompany Apart-from-All.” Thought Traveler pranced up beside him, clawed feet silent on the soft ground. “Here will is measured, not imposed or opposed. You could stay here and wait in comfort.”

“Our will is to follow our Speaker,” Naryn snapped.

“That is up to you.”

“Alone,” Enris suggested.

A soft amused bark. “But that is up to me, Enris Once-of-Tuana. I find myself with the will to follow. I admit to being curious how Apart-from-All will explain herself.”

Knowing his name didn’t make it the same Thought Traveler who’d dropped him in the midst of the Vyna . . .

“As it is my will to return this.”

... the thin leather strap dangled from its three clawed fingers, twisting as the fingers rolled it to and fro did. A knot of hair was tied to it.

The thong was from his pouch; the hair Aryl’s gift, a Highknot, as she’d explained it. Yena children, on their first climb away from their mothers, would tie one to the highest point they reached. Accomplishment and a promise to return.

Definitely the one. Enris took the thong from the smug creature and tucked it in a pocket, sensing Naryn’s curiosity. Or Anaj’s. No questions, was it? “I hope you had a better reason to drop me on the Vyna than the fun of watching me die.”

A bark. “This is why I so enjoy our conversations. Consider it a test of Vyna’s will. I knew you’d be a temptation.”

He hadn’t missed Tikitik gibberish.