Rift in the Sky

A fall . . . unlikely. Aryl gained confidence with every step; the motion helped warm her. If they wanted to watch Om’ray drown—or be eaten—they could have had the esasks throw them from their backs. This place, this symbol. These were important to the Tikitik. To share them with another species?

They believed they had good reason.

She was here to offer an explanation.

Of what?

Start somewhere, Aryl told herself. Anywhere. She slowed and cleared her throat, choosing words with care. They were more dangerous here than any lurker underwater.

“My name is Aryl di Sarc. You named me Apart-from-All, and once it was true, but no longer. Now I am Chosen, a mother-to-be, and Speaker for Sona’s Om’ray. Sona’s new Om’ray. Yena’s exiles.”

They knew, of course. Three factions claimed Yena: one willing to follow the Agreement, one too cautious to change, and one eager to seize the Strangers as an excuse to end it. There’d been Tikitik laughing in the grove that truenight. Laughing as Yena’s homes burned and her people were divided. Because of her.

“We stayed at Sona where Oud, not Tikitik, made us welcome. We would not have wanted any to die on our account, but the Oud protected their claim on Sona. One of you came and insisted on the Balance being maintained. If we’d known—” her hair rose and snapped, “—if I’d known that meant destroying Tuana, I would never have permitted it. We would have left Sona first.”

She reached a point where the barrier turned back on itself and had to stand on tiptoe to make the turn. The next section was straight, and she took longer strides, possibly gaining on Thought Traveler, though one thing she grew sure of: this wasn’t a race. They moved together, somehow, it and she.

“There are Tuana with us. Most, including my Chosen, came because of the Oud. They value us for their own reasons. You know that, too. The others—some escaped the reshaping.”

Clear water, lit from within, swept a gleaming curve ahead of her, matched by a curl of thick brown stream. The two began to seem less like water as she walked between them, and more like symbols themselves. Was the brown the M’hir; the clear, the real world? Or was the brown what lived and the clear what did not, but rather was made by the will of intelligence? Which made little sense when the Tikitik made what lived—or at least so some factions claimed. Perhaps, Aryl thought, she made it all too complicated. Maybe the two simply represented life or death. Survival or failure.

Both had to exist, to write the name of the world. Was that the true meaning of Tikitna and the Makers’ Touch?

If so, she wasn’t here to explain Sona or Tuana.

She was here to explain herself.

Why not?

Why, she thought fiercely, not.

Their attempts at secrecy were worse than futile. The Tikitik could follow them—somehow—no matter if they walked, climbed, or ’ported. They’d been caught in Vyna, traveling as no Om’ray could, where no Om’ray Chosen would.

If she could explain its value to Om’ray, to peace and safety, this might be a chance to gain acceptance for their Talent.

And she’d feared to walk over water?

Courage. From Enris. From Naryn. Even from Anaj. Her anxiety must have spilled through her shields.

Encouraged, Aryl wrapped her fingers around the Speaker’s Pendant. “All my life, I’ve been told the Agreement forbids change.” Were her words lost in this space, deflected among the branches above or smothered in moisture?

She refused to doubt. The Tikitik made this; they brought her here. They wanted to hear her.

They would.

“I’ve been told change was forbidden so that all races would stay as they were. That the Agreement preserves the peace of our world. But Om’ray exist in more than what you see. There is another place we—some of us—can sense with our minds.” A hint of shock from Naryn or Anaj, quickly hidden. They still trusted her.

Would they?

Aryl walked, her toes out, balanced along the callused edge of her arches. “Some Om’ray call it the Dark,” she continued. “To our inner sight, it’s like storm clouds building against truenight. Or sometimes like water, black and turbulent. The minds of Chosen Join through it. That’s why the death—” she fought the tightness in her throat, “—the death of one dooms the other. It wasn’t always so. I believe this change must have been happening inside Om’ray for a long time, where no one could see or notice.”

Thought Traveler was heading toward her now, on the same side of the symbol. A time limit, she guessed. When they met, she must be done.

When done, she must succeed.

“No one noticed, until me. I found I had the Talent to move not only my thoughts, but my body through the Dark. It was nothing I intended. It’s part of what I am. Something new. Because of that, because my change couldn’t be hidden, I was exiled from Yena.” Because of that, Costa, Leri, so very many . . .