Puzzlement. Place? Why do you think it’s a place?
Because she’d sent Bern through somewhere, Aryl almost replied, but quickly buried the thought. Her mother was the Adept. I don’t know what it is, she sent instead.
Taisal’s hands swept up as if gathering air. To touch that which binds us all mind-to-mind is like walking through the rooms of our home. Safe. Understood. To touch the Dark . . . that is to step outside in truenight, without glow or guide. Yes, it holds Power, or is Power manifest. But it holds danger above all. Know this, Daughter. I was caught there once. Part of me remains—lost there with him— The memory of her father was a maelstrom of grief, longing, and emptiness. Aryl gasped, trying to keep them away. Instantly, the emotions vanished behind Taisal’s restored shields.
If that was how it felt to outlive your Chosen, Aryl told herself, it was another reason to die first.
She hadn’t hidden the thought. So your Chosen suffers instead? her mother’s tone was scathing.
He’ll want to die, too! Aryl sent wildly. What’s the point of surviving alone?
Answer me when you have children, came the searing reply. Quickly now. What matters is you are in danger, Aryl. Avoid the Dark. It will call you, tempt you to explore it. The Adepts know the risks, you do not. The Dark is an abyss that will consume your mind if you allow it. Promise me!
Aryl shuddered. Never. I’ll never touch it again.
Be sure, Daughter. I’m not the only Adept Council has watching. The others will know if you do. For now, they’ll believe it was Bern Teerac—the Dark left its touch on him. I felt it.
It wasn’t Bern’s fault! We can’t let them believe that! Aryl protested. I won’t.
Taisal stopped near a gauze panel; its soft curtain lifted in a breeze, whispered against her robe. After a long moment, she nodded. Best to keep attention on the cause, not the result. She drew the image of the airborne device to fill both their minds. It wasn’t Oud. That we know.
For the first time, Aryl was glad her memories of that day rested behind her mother’s eyes, too. She relaxed slightly. What can I do?
Be unnoticed. Taisal lifted the curtain and gazed outside, speaking aloud as if this she wanted heard. “Council sent lookers to collect salvageable pods as well as any remains of the device. With luck, they’ll bring something worth showing our neighbors.”
It was an uncommon, but highly valued Talent: the ability to precisely sense what was new or didn’t belong in a place. Lookers were always scouts, marking fresh stitler traps—not all biters were small—and other hazards. Aryl might sense when something around her was about to change, but such inner warnings were too personal and vague to be useful. Adepts warned against trusting them.
Hadn’t she believed she’d sensed the M’hir coming? Instead, it had been disaster.
“If they don’t?” she asked with an effort, pulling out of memory.
“You have skill with ink. Can you draw me the shape of it, any details you recall?” Under the words, caution. We don’t dare send this memory mind-to-mind. They’ll know what you did.
Aryl stared at her mother. What did I do?
“I’ll get a pane for you.” This time, beneath the words, a thrill of fear. What no one ever has. I’ll search the records. Make discreet inquiries. But it doesn’t matter if this is a new Talent or a rediscovered one, Aryl. This is no little push, easily hidden. Worse, it involves the abyss we rightly fear. What you did threatens all Om’ray, let alone the Agreement. The Tikitik must never know. Do you understand?
Aryl swallowed bile and managed a half nod. She’d never do it again. Didn’t that count? Shouldn’t it be enough? Questions she didn’t dare ask as her mother went to the door.
“Now hurry and do as I’ve asked. Truenight will be on us soon.”
Aryl waved her hands over the finished pane, wishing there was a Talent that dried ink. It would probably be Forbidden, she thought morosely. She ignored the shift in her sense of place as more and more adult Om’ray descended from Yena. They made their preparations for the pending Visitation. This was hers.
Not bad, she thought, passing a critical eye over her work. The process of putting splinter to fabric had brought details from her memory she didn’t recall seeing, yet trusted. She added a symbol at the top, a tiny curve and dot she imagined as her name, as if names—the essence of an Om’ray—could be captured in mere ink.
The drawing didn’t portray anything dangerous, unless the series of disks on the underside could be dropped on someone’s head. Aryl studied it more closely. How did it fly? There were no engines spouting flame, such as she’d heard lifted the Oud’s machines. And no wings.
She waved the pane again, feeling the draft it sent through the air, like a wingbeat.
Wings were necessary, weren’t they?
Not the way she’d sent Bern to the bridge . . .
Aryl gagged and almost dropped the pane. Her mother’s warnings, her fear, didn’t matter. What she’d done—it had made her forget her brother, made her pick one to live over others. Remembering how it had felt to do what she’d done made her sick inside. It brought the churning wildness of the Dark up behind her eyes until she had only to close them to be lost in it. Her mother was right. It was dangerous.
“Wings,” she told herself, keeping her eyes open. “I need wings.”
To go where?
Her hands wanted to tremble as they cleaned the splinter she’d used, then resealed the ink pot. It was a simple question. Reasonable. Why did it feel . . .
About to put the pot in its cupboard, she hesitated.
... perilous. That’s how it felt. Not one of her inner warnings this time, but as if she stood too near the side of a bridge and stared down at the Lay, about to lose her balance.
Her mother had brought five panes, each white woven panel framed in strips of pod wood. She’d only needed one. Now, feeling foolish but determined, Aryl picked two from the stack and held them out at arm’s length. Slowly, she moved them up and down, imitating a flitter.
She didn’t rise from the floor, but the growing draft caught her finished pane and sent it skittering along the tabletop.
Aryl pumped her arms faster, putting real muscle into it. Glow strands swung back and forth, spilling shadows over the floor.
The curtains along the far wall lifted from their bottoms, curving inward toward her until the nearest billowed and snapped like a dresel wing. Aryl stared at it, her arms stopped at shoulder height. The fabric settled. All was normal again.
Her shoulders complained, but Aryl paid no attention. She didn’t need force, she realized in awe. She had that, so long as the M’hir blew. “All I need are wings,” she breathed.
To go where? whispered something at the back of her mind.
She paid no attention to that either.
Aryl filled the remaining panes with drawings of something quite different from the mysterious device. She did her best to recall the dresel’s wing, how a single strip of material unfurled and filled with wind to lift the pod, how the pod had dangled below. The shape of a wastryl’s wings filled two more panes on both sides, requiring her thinnest splinter so the ink wouldn’t soak through. She found she remembered how the wings curved differently if the creature maintained height or was diving after a pod. Beside each drawing Aryl added lines to remind her of the wastryl’s speed and direction, muttering under her breath as she overlaid those with more vague recollections of the M’hir itself. Thick lines for fast and powerful movement; thinner when slow.