Hook-nosed Fich, now Chosen and above children’s games, had been a thorn in Aryl’s side in M’hirs past, especially once he discovered she had the ability to sense identity from a distance. She had no sympathy—his favorite trick had been to sneak up and listen to private conversations, then tattle them to anyone he could find. He probably still did—just not hers.
And, rare among Yena, Fich wasn’t fond of heights.
She compared it to her drawing of a wastryl’s wing. The proportions looked right, but there was only one way to find out.
Aryl gently pushed aside a lively vine and turned open a window panel. Leaning out, she held her creation over the black waters of Lay. “Good luck, Fich.”
She let go.
Ignoring the biters attacking her arms and face, Aryl watched the red triangle eagerly. It tipped, slipping rapidly sideways toward a bridge support. She held her breath. At the last moment, it righted and the material billowed into a shape she remembered, slowing its descent. Wooden Fich swung gently beneath.
She lost sight of it in the shadows, but thought she heard a splash. Followed, inevitably, by several other splashes as what lived below fought to see if what had dropped into the water was remotely edible.
The drumming of rain in fronds overhead was enough to make her pull in her head and close the panel. Drops began to land on the roof. It always took a while for rain to get through the canopy.
And, Aryl thought with distaste, it would take even longer for the canopy to stop raining. This wasn’t the start of the rainy season, but it was close. She needed more materials. Tomorrow she’d go out.
She went back to the table, gathering a handful of dried stems and another “Fich.” There was enough wing left for one more model. That initial tilt and slip were a problem. She frowned. Perhaps if she used a wider triangle . . .
Aryl.
Her mother. Out of reflex, Aryl glanced at the doorway, but the summons had been inner. She reached to find Taisal, and the stems fell with a clatter from her suddenly numb fingers.
Impossible. It was impossible.
By direction and distance, Taisal was still at the Cloisters. Too far for Aryl to hear her mindvoice. Too far for her to sense despair in her mother’s thoughts.
Despair?
That, unexpected and alarming, was more important than how. Aryl found herself on her feet, hands braced on the table. What’s wrong, Mother? she replied. It seemed to take no effort at all, beyond what was normal to create the words. She was afraid to wonder why.
Aryl? Recognition followed by confusion. What are you doing here? Who let you cross the bridge? You shouldn’t have come. I’m in Council Session. Go home.
I’m— Aryl shied from the truth, that she wasn’t at the Cloisters. If Taisal couldn’t tell, she doubted it would help her mother’s distraught state of mind to know. She began to suspect her mother hadn’t called her, not on purpose, and carefully reinforced her shields to project only calm concern. I felt something wrong.
Of course something’s wrong. We’re trying to keep Yena alive. Stop distracting me and go home. I’ll see you tonight.
Beneath the rebuff and dismissal, Taisal’s emotions again betrayed her. Aryl sensed something forlorn, desperate. A need.
A need for her?
Raindrops hit the roof. Vines twisted slowly in the breeze through the window gauze. Leaves whispered to themselves as the air stroked Aryl’s cheek in turn.
It should have been impossible to hear her mother, to send back.
She straightened and closed her eyes, somehow unsurprised to find the other place waiting there, its seething darkness so close at this instant it could have been the breath leaving her mouth.
That was how. Her mother’s distress had found her through the Dark, as easily as if they touched hand-to-hand. She’d used it, too, without intent or plan.
Whatever it was, it connected them.
Aryl shuddered and opened her eyes, relieved by the light, then gave a brusque nod. She couldn’t ignore her mother’s summons, even one made unaware.
She’d worry about the details later.
Chapter 14
UNLESS AN ADEPT OR MEMBER of Council, an Om’ray visited the Cloisters only three times in life: as a newborn, to be dutifully—and quickly—added to the Yena records before being returned to waiting parents; as one of a Joined pair, that union to be affirmed by the Adepts; and to end their days in peace, granted none of the many hazards of the canopy ended it sooner.
Aryl squinted at the tower. She hadn’t thought of it before, but the Cloisters was, beyond doubt, the perfect place to drop and test a model. Had she known she’d be coming . . . not that she had, but still.
Such thoughts were easier than imagining why her mother needed her here, of all places.
There were other reasons a Yena might come here, of course. Those sundered from their Choice and Lost . . . those of damaged mind . . . maybe even those who’d tried to hide a new Talent, to be investigated by Adepts and punished?
Aryl concentrated on planning to fly a fich.
The Cloisters rose from the waters of the Lay on its own gray-green stalk, thick and straight, with three flat sides that met at crisp joins. The canopy closed overhead, but not around it. The nearest rastis set buttress roots well away from its artificial neighbor, though smaller plants had less respect. The lower portion of the Cloisters’ stalk was coated in a thick growth of vine. The growth ended where six clear panels, parallel to the stalk, jutted outward at angles. There was no apparent reason why vegetation shunned these protrusions; why no flitter would perch there and no biters flew close.
Above the panels, the stalk widened into a perfectly shaped crown, as if a rastis after all, but this crown, from below, looked like two giant bowls, one nested within the other. From higher in the canopy, Aryl remembered, the structure looked more like an opened flower: two high-walled platforms encircling an inner curved core, itself topped by a series of overlapped white rings.
The core was a building of two floors, each opening to one of the encircling platforms. The building’s round outer walls were broken by a series of tall wide arches. Within each arch were three smaller ones: the centermost a door, the outer two filled with the same clear material that somehow guarded the stalk from living things.
Inside . . . she had no idea. Aryl straightened her best, though mended, tunic and checked her hairnet. Till sud Parth, the scout guarding the bridge platform, leaned against the stalk to regard her thoughtfully. “I don’t know about this, Aryl.”
She’d hoped for someone who’d be impressed by her being the Speaker’s daughter. Instead, she had Till, Seru’s father and someone who’d bandaged her knees more than once.
As she feared, he pursed his lips, then shook his head slowly. “No. You go home. I’ll keep the drawings here. Contact someone from the Cloisters to fetch them. That’s best, Aryl.”
She pulled the bag of panes closer to her chest, trusting he wouldn’t become suspicious and demand a look. “I drew these for the Speaker,” Aryl said truthfully. All Yena had witnessed her giving a drawing to Taisal for the Tikitik; a minor, if crucial detail that the art she now clutched had been done years ago by a much younger Aryl, and involved more ink than skill. “She’ll have questions about them.” Definitely true.
His keen eyes left her to scan the rain-shadowed canopy, why she didn’t know. Having less of his attention, Aryl took a small step closer to the bridge, slinging her bag over one shoulder, then another. Till didn’t appear to notice until she was almost there. Then, he frowned at her.