Rift in the Sky

You hate me. You’ve reason to. With all the despair she’d never revealed, betrayed by her own weakness. I don’t trust you.

Why should she? Until last truenight, he’d tolerated her presence for Aryl’s sake. Since then, he’d given strength to her unasked, shared what she didn’t want to learn, and brought her to the Vyna to be forced to accept a Glorious Dead.

Oh, and hadn’t he finished by hauling her up on a branch in Tikitna like a sack of scraps, then flying her out of the world with a not-Om’ray she feared?

Which, though not his fault exactly, probably hadn’t helped.

Nothing had gone as it should since the dam. His Chosen had known better. He’d felt her distrust but ignored it, sure he was right about the Vyna, assuming Aryl was being her Yena-self, prone to worry over anything that worked the first time or looked easy to walk.

Enris gestured apology with both hands; it wasn’t only to Naryn. “What do you want me to do?”

About to speak, Naryn tilted her head as if listening. The strain in her face eased slightly. “Anaj asks,” almost a whisper, “for some of your gift.”

Silently, Enris offered his hand again.

Her fingers trembled as they approached and she clenched them into a fist, eyes flashing to his. He pretended he hadn’t noticed, smiling at Worin who watched in fascination.

A little too much fascination. Might be time for a Chosen to unChosen talk. Especially with Ziba around. You could never start too soon.

Fingertips.

He ignored them.

A palm against his.

Only then, easily, gently, Enris let strength flow through that contact. He kept his shields in place, offered no other sharing, let the outpouring continue until she lifted her hand away.

Their eyes met. For that instant, he saw a Naryn he’d never known, perhaps the Naryn only Aryl knew: vulnerable, scarred, passionate.

With the cool lift of a brow, her guard returned. “I know my way.” She pushed past him and walked down the corridor, red hair uneasy on her shoulders.

She’ll do. Anaj, to him.

Enris half smiled.

“I thought you didn’t like her.”

He ruffled Worin’s hair. “It’s complicated.”

“Is Naryn still going to die when her baby is born?”

“How did you—” Apparently there were no secrets left in Sona. “She won’t die.”

Not if a brave old Om’ray could endure until summer.

Not if the world itself endured.

How had everything become fragile? There was nothing he could make or fix; nothing all the questions and answers being traded in the Council Chambers could change. This was the life Aryl had led in Yena: every step over certain death, any day the last.

He hadn’t understood, until this moment, what it took to keep walking.

The other two were staring at him, eyes wide and afraid. Enris found a smile. “Come along, Karne,” he invited, his voice light. “Let’s see what we can find. On the way, you can torture me with tales of the delicacies Rayna would offer a starving guest. Which I trust are better than Vyna.”

“You’ve been to Vyna?” This with awe.

Much better than fear, Enris thought, tucking his own away.

Much better.

Chapter 9

ARYL SHOOK HER HEAD, a gesture without meaning to her present companions. She shouldn’t be here. Marcus needed her—she was sure of it. Whatever he’d find at Site Three, it wouldn’t be help. She could call him. The geoscanner sat in its pocket at her waist, turned off as he’d ordered. If the Strangers could talk across the unimaginable void between worlds, surely this could reach the mountains beyond this one.

It might as well, she thought glumly, be at the bottom of the Makers’ Touch in Tikitna. The existence of a Human, of others capable of attacking him, of other worlds and races and languages was easier to believe than this, that she sat cross-legged on the floor of Sona’s shabby Cloisters with her mother and Sian d’sud Vendan, while Yena’s Adepts seemed completely at home and argued M’hir terminology with Oran.

As for their audience?

If there were any Adepts left with their Clans, it was hard to tell from the hordes in white in Sona. Twenty-seven surrounded her, argued with one another as much as with her. The twenty-seven possessed shields so strong they almost disappeared from her inner sense, except for the Power they pressed against each other when making a point, like nirts baring teeth when they met on a frond until the smaller closed its mouth and sidled away. The rest pretended disinterest, sitting in small groups. They waited for commands, she guessed. Games of Power. This was how Adepts ruled themselves.

How they’d always ruled their Clans.

She should have seen it before, but she’d believed what she’d been told. About too much.

Three Speakers in this circle: her mother, for Yena, and those for Amna and Rayna. As she’d feared, each wore their pendants. If the Tikitik could detect those, they’d know what had happened.

Of course, she told herself grimly, all they’d have to do was count. The shift in their numbers had been anything but subtle.