“It’s Leri,” Aryl said helplessly. “My brother’s—it’s Leri.” As if repeating the name would help the Adept understand.
“I will take Aryl to the Speaker.”
Aryl wanted to cover her ears. “I heard you—”
“I will take Aryl—”
“Stop saying that!”
“—the Speaker.”
“Pio!” Aryl turned to the Adept, who shook her head.
There was no amusement on her face this time, only a weary grief. “She’ll stop when you go with her, child,” Pio explained. “There’s no talking to the Lost, you know. Well, you can try, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
“I will take Aryl to the Speaker.” The beckoning. The horrifying precision of that repetition.
“But she knows me,” Aryl whispered. “Doesn’t she? She says my name.”
“She doesn’t know herself. She’s saying what I put in her head to say. Follow where she leads. Go now. But don’t expect more. The Lost are empty.”
“I will take Aryl to the Speaker.”
Aryl took a deep breath and stepped into the rain with what had been Leri Teerac.
Despite her unease, Aryl followed Costa’s Chosen through the door in the archway, along a series of hallways, and through rooms unlike any she’d seen before. Instead of glows, light emerged from the curved join of ceiling and wall, soft and white. It hadn’t failed in Om’ray memory, though there were no cells to change. Instead of wood or mats on the floor, they walked on some resilient material for which she had no name, pale yellow and smooth. The damp hem of Leri’s robe whispered as it brushed that surface. She no longer spoke.
Aryl studied her surroundings, to avoid looking at her guide. Frames hung on the walls every few steps, frames that held clusters of disks and lines. These were of metal; most bore markings that reminded her of her mother’s pendant. None formed pictures or shapes that made any sense. Why were they here, in a place where only Om’ray could go?
Though Aryl found little to prove this place was home to her kind. A display of wooden bowls caught her eye; they were lined up along a clear shelf, their carving a match to those on Aryl’s table. But beside them was a tall cylinder of pale green, seamless and smooth; she couldn’t guess its purpose. The air held a hint of dresel, but stronger was a crisp, clean tang, as if there’d been a storm indoors.
There were other Yena here. Aryl was aware of their existence as they would be aware of hers—they were Om’ray after all. She didn’t dare reach to know who was who, not here. There would be the Adepts; Yena boasted thirteen and all lived here. A trio in ordinary brown had hurried past them, their heads close together as they spoke in silence. There would be the elderly. A long, low seat before a windowed arch had contained a pair of sleeping Om’ray older than Aryl believed possible, small and wizened, taking such slow, soft breaths that only her inner sense of their presence assured her they lived.
As for the rest . . . she didn’t want to find more of the Lost.
Each step with Leri eroded days of healing, made the past real and urgent again. Aryl’s eyes stung as she found herself consumed by the memory of Costa slipping away again, reliving the agony she’d sensed as he died.
When her guide finally stopped before an arch, curtained reassuringly like a door at home, Aryl abruptly realized she wasn’t reliving her own memories, but Leri’s. She firmed her shields at once, staring at the other’s passive face in horror. Was all she was an echo of Costa’s death?
Not even her own?
“I will take Aryl to the Speaker,” Leri intoned. This time the beckoning gesture was reversed, indicating the closed curtain.
Aryl restrained a shudder and pushed the thick material aside. She’d loved Leri as the sister she’d never had. Now, she couldn’t wait to be away from her. She’d been right to believe death would be kinder.
The curtain had fooled her into thinking she would enter a simple apartment. Instead, Aryl found herself in an immense curved expanse, standing on a metal floor awash with more of those exotic bands of color.
At first, she thought the only furnishing was a narrow raised dais centered on the longer wall, with six tall-backed seats of the same pale green as the cylinder on the shelf. The wall behind the dais was lined by those windows, three times her height. She guessed they’d offer a spectacular view of the canopy, though now all she could see were gray sheets of rain. Yet no drops marred the clear material.
The Council Chamber. It had to be, though Aryl was astonished by its size. All of Yena could fit in here, with room for a hundred more. Why? The meeting hall, with its benches and tables, was where Council met the rest of Yena. This space was a waste for six alone.
She’d come through a discreet entrance to one side, perhaps the Councillors’ own. The proper, ceremonial doors were at the far end. Leri’s mistake or Pio’s instruction?
“Let be. I don’t need a healer!”
The weak, strained voice made a lie of the words. Aryl found its source.
To her left was a cluster of unusual, though comfortable-looking, chairs, set before one of the windows on a simple woven mat that might have come from any home. There were low tables between the chairs, some crowded with mugs, others with piles of what looked like pod-wood trays, only silver. An Om’ray sat slumped in one chair; six others stood around him, their postures indicated concern. No one turned to look at her or otherwise indicate they knew she was there.
Which, of course, they did.
Until officially noticed, Aryl didn’t dare take a step or make a sound. She glanced desperately around the room. Austere, empty, and utterly lacking in places to be inconspicuous.
Her mother was one of those standing. She’d know her anywhere. From here, she couldn’t be sure who the stricken Om’ray was, although this was Yena’s Council. The Adepts were easy to spot; Tikva di Uruus and Sian d’sud Vendan wore brown robes twin to that of Pio’s, as did Taisal, the gleam of her Speaker’s Pendant muted against the fabric. The rest looked ready for a climb or day of work, their tunics and wraps as oft-repaired as Aryl’s own.
Why would her mother bring her here?
I didn’t.
She winced. No one else reacted to Taisal’s aggrieved sending. Aryl checked her shields, trusting they’d work, and considered whether she could sidle back through the curtain or if escape at this point would only make things worse.
One of the six did turn, then. Her mother. “Aryl Sarc.” Her name bounced from the distant walls. “Come here.”
As Aryl warily obeyed, her feet making their own too-loud echoes despite soft-soled boots—at least she’d remembered boots and wasn’t slapping her way across the magnificent floor bare-foot—the others straightened to watch her approach. One kept her hand protectively on the shoulder of the still-hunched figure and glared at Taisal. “What’s the meaning of this, Speaker?”
It was Morla Kessa’at who chided her mother while comforting the sufferer. Who was, Aryl recognized with a delay that startled her, Yorl sud Sarc, her mother’s great-uncle and acknowledged head of their family. She’d bounced on his knee, learned to draw at his table.
She’d never seen him in such pain, his arms held tight to his chest and his face beaded with sweat and sickly pale. Here was the reason for Taisal’s distress.
“You know what drew her,” Taisal said, beckoning her daughter.
Aryl went to stand by her mother; she couldn’t take her eyes from Yorl. The clinking bag of old drawings on her shoulder now felt anything but clever. She shouldn’t have come. What had drawn her here was nothing she could help.
“The child can’t help,” a too-accurate echo from Morla. “She—”
Yorl’s head lifted, and he reached a shaking hand toward her. A slight turn of the wrist indicated the broad arm of his chair.
Aryl moved to take his thick, chill hand in hers without hesitation, though she sat cautiously. It might be wood, beneath its burnished black finish, but the furnishings here weren’t Yenamade.