Rift in the Sky

Not the question that mattered most. Not a problem Taisal would accept as more important than their Clan. She couldn’t worry, couldn’t interfere. Their bond was real, their love, but her mother, Aryl thought with a pride like sorrow, had taught her well. “It’s about the links between us, between Om’ray,” she said instead. “Can you sense them?”

“No.”

Who can sense the links between Om’ray? Aryl sent loudly.

The rude interruption drew frowns and a few puzzled looks.

“I can,” Sian replied.

“Me,” offered Dann d’sud Friesnen of Pana. Murmured agreement from several more.

“Look at ours.”

Silence. She sensed Power reaching. Aryl waited, aware of her mother’s wary curiosity. These were the best of their kind.

Would they see it? Could they?

It wasn’t only the world that had changed.

“We’re linked to one another,” Sian declared. Even in Yena, he’d stood out: more slender, darker, with thick lines of silver through his black hair. His eyebrows drew together; there was worry in the look he gave Taisal. He knew, Aryl thought. “Somehow, our minds remain connected within the Dark.”

“The M’hir,” Oran corrected sharply. Aryl winced.

But the Yena Adept gestured a gracious acceptance. “I defer to your greater experience, Sona’s Keeper.”

Oran flushed with pleasure, though Aryl doubted Sian meant it as a compliment. Sona’s Cloisters had used her. It had somehow known its new Keeper was different from other Om’ray. It had sent Oran’s knowledge of the M’hir not only to the Adepts, but to all who’d come here. How and why? More questions in urgent need of answers.

Gur di Sawnda’at spoke up. “Nothing has changed our Joinings to our Chosen, our bonds with heart-kin and children. We still sense all other Om’ray.” The Rayna shared her relief. “We’re part of Cersi.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve been caught by the Dark!” Aryl couldn’t see who spoke. “It won’t let us go!”

Before she could reply, others did. The Council Chamber erupted, those who’d sat surging forward, their anxiety spilling through the rest.

Aryl went to rise to her feet, but Taisal captured her hand and leaned close. “Wait,” she said in an urgent low voice. “The Sona Adept—the one the Vyna implanted in an unborn. Anaj di Kathel. Does she have memories of this Cloisters?”

Aryl threw a desperate look at those around them, most shouting at the top of their lungs. “I should do something—”

“Let them howl. It’s one thing to accept travel through the M’hir—quite another to accept it as part of us. Calmer heads will prevail soon. Tell me about Anaj.”

“She remembers her life. Why?”

“Because this,” Taisal laid her hand on the floor, “is more than a home for Adepts and the aged, more than a place to store records. A Cloisters is what makes a Clan, Daughter. Remember Cetto’s proposal, that we trade Yena’s to the Tikitik for safe passage? It would have ended us.”

“Because without a Cloisters, Adepts could no longer dream.” Which might, Aryl thought grimly, be for the best.

“Dreams only let us share knowledge between ourselves and with those gone before us. Dreaming together—” Aryl might have imagined her hesitation; Taisal must have decided secrecy no longer mattered between them, “—can produce new approaches to a problem.”

“Like exiling us.”

A sharp look. It wasn’t denial. “Dreams aren’t essential. This is.” Again the hand on the floor, now a caress. “Cloisters are part of what binds us together and shapes the world itself.”

Aryl was used to the Human bending her perceptions of reality. Her mother? “What binds us is inside us,” she objected forcefully. If it was somehow the Cloisters, Yao and the babies wouldn’t be alone, would they?

“Yes. But the strength of that binding within a Clan lies in the Cloisters.” Taisal tapped the hilt of the longknife at her side. “And it can be undone.”

“I don’t understand.” She was afraid she did.

Sian had stayed silent, though Aryl knew the Adept listened. Now he crouched beside them, careless of his robe. “We’re healers of mind as well as body, but there’s nothing we can do for Om’ray of great Power who lose the inner battle. Such can’t be left a risk to the rest, but to toss them into the Lay is not enough. Their minds would drag others with them. The device your mother means lets us cut that mind free of the world first.” He turned to her mother. “Taisal, even if Sona’s Maker is still usable, we don’t know if it can be set to sever only connections through this M’hir. We could risk losing ourselves.”

“Maker.” The word dropped so casually from Sian’s lips chilled Aryl’s blood. “ ‘Maker’ is Tikitik,” she said numbly. “They use it for everything that matters to them. Their ancestors. The moons. Holes in the ground.”

The looks on their faces, the astonishment leaked through their shields was almost funny. Almost.

“They do?” Taisal asked. “What do Tikitik know of Makers?”