Aryl rubbed her cheek against the cloth. Who would want a stranger?
Was it wrong to try? After all, it couldn’t be done. Once away from the grove, the unChosen were beyond a sending. Weren’t they?
Few had her reach.
And heart-kin shared a bond, the closest possible other than mother/child or between those Joined. She had only to listen to her inner sense—there! Aryl’s head snapped left and up. He was there. The others were flickers, as if seen at the corner of an eye, but Bern’s mind was like the sun breaking through the canopy.
Maybe she could touch his thoughts if she—
Aryl stopped herself, remembering her mother’s warning. The Adepts watched for Forbidden use of Power. She didn’t know how, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
She opened her hand and let the curtain fall in front of her face. With one finger, she traced the fold for a short distance.
Bern wasn’t far, not yet.
Aryl went back to bed, her mind full of plans.
Chapter 10
BY MIDMORNING, THE SUN had become an enemy, this high in the canopy. Aryl’s eyes ached from its unceasing brightness, and she sought shadowed branches as her road wherever possible. It was cooler there, too, however slightly. She could almost wish for the rains to hurry and start again. Almost.
Short-lived as always, the M’hir had diminished to a cantankerous trickster, no longer able to sound the Watchers, muttering to itself through the canopy. It blew in strong, fitful gusts that swept the sky clear of cloud and the air of moisture, then would abruptly die to a breeze—luring the incautious to trust slim branches. While she begrudged the time it took, Aryl kept to wide, strong stalks and those branches unlikely to sway.
She’d found three pods since entering the grove. One had been torn open and emptied. She’d let it drop, listening as it slithered and smacked through fronds until out of sight. The others were whole, hard, and promisingly plump. She’d put both in one of her harvester nets, left that hanging in the open from a straight, bare nekis branch. The nets were impregnated with a foul-tasting compound, the same one used to coat the undersides of bridges to slow rot. It wouldn’t keep all potential thieves at bay while she was gone, but it would discourage most.
As she climbed, her eyes roved the greens and grays, hunting the rich brown of more pods. She was going in the right direction. The rastis in this grove, Teerac’s, had been blown clean, their crowns barren tufts. Downwind lay a wide swathe with red wings draped forlornly over other growths, or waving from threads caught on thorns. It was as if the canopy had been decorated for a party, and then no one had come. Most of the pods were missing, lost below or taken by wastryls and other harvesters quicker to take advantage than Om’ray.
Still, she’d collected two, and the day wasn’t over. Aryl found herself repeating her mother’s words: “a pod’s a fist of life.” Somehow, they made her climb faster than ever before.
For it was a race. Once a pod cracked open to light, its seedlings would grow with incredible speed, sending fine rootlets through the soft dresel to digest and consume it. If a pod landed in shadow, it would stay closed and its contents quickly spoil.
Aryl had already encountered a third possibility: an intact-looking pod vigorously defended by a swarm of stingers, intent on drilling their way into its wealth. Aware they’d be as willing to drill into her, she’d given them a wide berth.
Only when she couldn’t take another step without trembling did she hook one leg over a bare branch and rest—after checking the area carefully—with her back against a trunk. Dying nekis, free of leaves, were best for the long view; she’d discovered she couldn’t tire of gazing into the light-touched expanse. She took slow, deep breaths, waiting for the burn in her legs and arms to subside. Thoughtfully, she pulled one of the wads of dresel wing she’d collected from her belt. The red material was torn and dirty, but smooth between her fingers.
It had flown, once.
The dull stone of mountains was behind her. Ahead, between canopy giants, was the line where the grove became something else: a deep textureless green broken by brilliant flashes of light. Costa—she put her lip between her teeth—Costa had said something about the Tikitik, sun, and water. This must be more of their holdings.
Bern would reach it soon.
Aryl tasted blood and steadied herself. He was making good time. He was alive. Three of those who’d left hadn’t survived their first truenight, their presence in her mind gone; without reaching outward, she didn’t know who. It was better, she decided, that way.
Except Bern. Heart-kin.
“What am I doing here?” she whispered, feeling the old trunk shudder as it resisted the M’hir’s rude push. It might not fall this season or the next, but it would come down, making room for other growth. “I can’t—”
Can’t what? answered that something deep inside, something wild and rebellious that answered to the freedom of this world above the world. Patches of blue interrupted the grays and greens. Every so often, something would fly across them, disappearing, then reappearing. The canopy, the Lay Swamp? Nothing to such creatures.
While they trapped the Yena.
Aryl pulled a shred of bark free and let it go in the next gust. It soared, twisting and turning. She watched until it hit a frond and dropped, then looked up consideringly. “Should have a hat,” she told herself.
Before moving on, she took careful sips from one of her water flasks but didn’t bother to eat. She’d make do with less now, when she could satisfy her hunger easily; later she might not.
Her eyes hunted the best path. Vines promised an easy swing to the next major stalk, but no Om’ray would trust that road. An assortment of creatures relied on ambush, let alone vines with resins or hidden spines to trap the unwary.
There were, Aryl knew, many ways to become what satisfied something else’s hunger.
Any horizontal branch that could hold her weight bore its own more permanent guests. Aryl stepped over those low growths she knew were safe, avoiding thickles and their white-tipped thorns. Touch a leaf or thorn, and those weapons were launched in a wide arch. Their poison was more nuisance than threat to a body her size, but Aryl wasn’t fond of pulling pointed objects from her skin at the best of times.
When her way was blocked by an exceptionally large thickle, she cut it free from the branch with her longknife and sent it toppling.
She found her next pod a tenth or so later, glimpsing its red brown stuck within another familiar cluster of thorns. That protection had likely kept a flitter or other creature from taking her prize.
After carefully prodding the pod free with her longknife, and taking a few thorns in her arm wrappings for the effort—her mother’s ability to push objects, however Forbidden, would have been handy—Aryl managed to get it on the branch with her. She bent forward eagerly, only to stop in surprise.
The pod was empty after all. It had been neatly sliced open, like any left on a counter after a meal.
She spotted a small trace of purple inside. Absently, she freed it with a fingertip, then savored the taste on her tongue. It hadn’t been exposed to air long. She was catching up.
Of course she was. She’d beaten Bern every time he’d challenged her.
Aryl stood, balancing on the moving branch with ease. Her eyes flicked past vegetation, shadows, bars of light; ignoring the normal, wary of threats. “What am I doing here?” she asked herself again.
She could feel Yena, the pull of minds that marked home. Returning was always faster—she’d learned the path, though she must be wary of those who’d remember her, too, and lie in wait.
If she turned back soon, she’d be home in daylight. She’d be a success, with two pods to show.