“Good thing we don’t recommend it.” Ael’s expression grew guarded. “Aryl,” he warned with a gesture behind her.
Aryl glanced over her shoulder. Another figure waited within the Cloisters arch, this one wearing a long white robe, stiff with embroidery.
“Don’t climb without me,” she told Enris. “I’ll be quick.”
“Take your time. I’m not in a hurry.” He’d lifted his gaze to the arch. He brought it back to her, his eyes wary. Is this trouble?
Aryl shrugged helplessly. “It’s my mother.”
The light in the Cloisters discouraged shadows. It glinted at the edge of the frames on the walls; gilded the meaningless angles and curves of the metal symbols they enclosed. Where Taisal stood was lit well enough to reveal any expression, had she shown one. She didn’t speak as Aryl approached. She seemed less real, all of a sudden, than one of the Humans.
Aryl stopped in front of her mother, torn between hope and bitterness. When Taisal didn’t speak at once, bitterness won.
“Come to wish me joy, Mother?” Aryl snapped a finger against the token pinned to her stranger-shirt. “That is the role of the Speaker, when saying good-bye to those on Passage.”
“I have a question,” Taisal said, each word soft and precise.
She felt hope struggling to be born and held it still. “About the strangers,” she guessed. “Why they’re here. I can tell you—”
“The strangers are not of Cersi. They matter not to Om’ray.”
“But what they’ve found—”
“Hush,” Taisal said with impatience, as if Aryl wasted her time. “The Tikitik have their puzzle solved. Let them war with the strangers if they wish. It’s nothing to us, which of them kills the other.”
“Nothing? Is that why you lied to Council?” Aryl accused, her hands clenched at her sides. “The Tikitik can’t sense our Power in use—that’s why you answered me when I was their captive. You knew! Just as you know their attack last night was provoked by the strangers, not any new Talent. Why didn’t you tell them? Why did you let this happen?”
“Why?” Taisal lifted a brow. “Council deals with Yena—that’s their role. The Adepts must deal with the world. Your strangers?” A toss of one hand. “Flood. Famine. Strangers. Plague. Any one could have pushed us to the brink. We tasted this day coming. I tried to warn you, Daughter,” a hint of pain in her eyes. “This—” those eyes shifted to look outside “—this was what we feared would be necessary.”
“Necessary?” Aryl cried. “Sending twenty-three to their deaths?”
“Twenty-three who would use any means to survive, risk any Talent, however dangerous or unknown!” The first passion on her face, in her voice, but it was cold, cold and harsh. “We won’t allow desperation or carelessness to ruin us. Power must be controlled, not only to preserve the Agreement, but for the future of our kind. We know you.” Taisal curled her palm, then turned it over as if she emptied a cup. “You are discord.”
“I’m your daughter,” Aryl whispered.
The words might have been a blow. Taisal’s lips parted without sound and her eyes glistened. For an instant, her hands lifted toward Aryl. “All I have,” she admitted, a tear sliding down her cheek. “All that’s left. Aryl, if I’d trained you as an Adept,” her words like an old, worn grief, “you could be trusted now. If you hadn’t failed me—” her mother’s voice caught, “—if you hadn’t failed me last night, you could have stayed. Do you understand?”
“Failed you?” Before Aryl could touch her, reach for her mother, Taisal drew herself straight, her hands on the Speaker’s Pendant.
“How did you arrive in time to save the others from the swarm?”
This was the question? Aryl stammered “The-the Oud brought us—”
Taisal cut her off, her face gone so white, her eyes were like holes. “The truth—” her Power surged, pressing against Aryl’s shields, “—or must I drag it from your mind again? You traveled the Dark, didn’t you, as you did when you put Bern on the bridge instead of Costa. You used it.”
Aryl flinched. “Yes, but—”
“Now do you see, Aryl?” Her mother’s long fingers clutched the pendant, as if it were a ladder to safety. “You can’t be trusted. All it took was being desperate.”
Desperate.
Aryl remembered the sending from those about to perish, their horror and pain. At that memory, she felt the blood drain from her own face, taking with it every emotion but rage.
“What if I did?” Her voice was a stranger’s, stern and edged. “You talk about Yena’s future, Mother. What gives Adepts the right to say what that should be?” Rage, she found, could be cold. “What gives you the right to say who gets to breathe tomorrow?”
Rage could offer strength.
“You’re right. I can’t be trusted. To save my people,” Aryl finished with scorn, “I will do anything.”
Taisal closed her eyes, lashes sparkled with tears. “I can’t save you,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
Aryl turned and walked away.
Interlude
CLEARLY, THAT GOOD-BYE HADN’T gone well. Enris straightened from his restful slouch as Aryl crossed the platform. The rest had gone through the open doors to the bridge, fingertips brushing as loved ones exchanged private messages.
Aryl hadn’t offered a hand to her mother.
“Ready to go—” The words died as he saw her face. In his nightmares of Kiric, when he’d shared his brother’s worst moments of emptiness and despair, he’d seen that same look. He felt strangely paralyzed.
Then that familiar determination firmed her lips and caught fire in her eyes. “Ready when you are,” Enris finished, as if he hadn’t paused.
“I’m ready. There’s nothing here.”
“There had to be at least one bed,” he complained as he fell in beside her, not having to force the yawn that threatened his grit-filled eyes. “You do realize I haven’t slept in—I don’t remember sleeping properly since we met. Naps, yes. Bed, no. I need my sleep, Aryl Sarc.”
His reward was a lessening of the tension that surrounded her like a cloak, as if he’d drawn her back ever-so-slightly from some hurt. “Here I thought someone your size would have more stamina,” she told him. “Come on.”
As they passed through the doors, the two Adepts turned them closed with such alacrity Enris felt a breeze. He whirled to scowl; with no target, he admired the colors blended through the metal. It was similar in result to Tuana work, but the technique was new to him.
A bell began to toll, deep-toned and slow, each beat separated by a breath. If this were Tuana . . . he guessed the custom was the same for all Om’ray. A death bell. “Bit premature,” he commented, fighting to control his voice. Unfair. Unjust. His anger for these people wouldn’t help.
Aryl’s lips moved. She counted in silence. “Twenty-two,” she said calmly when the echoes of the last peal died away. Her smile surprised him. “Guess you can’t be mourned if you didn’t officially arrive, Tuana.” The smile faded. “Too late to go back.”
“I don’t want to go back,” he told her, gesturing toward the long curve of bridge. The others were at the halfway point. “Although I must say, it’s their loss.”
Fingertips brushed the back of his hand. You weren’t welcome because of how I brought you. There wasn’t regret, but something of apology.
Yena was never my goal.
Enris started walking, favoring his sore side. Aryl matched his pace. “It’s true,” he said aloud. “No offense to your Choosers, but I’m on a different type of Passage.”
Aryl tilted her head, regarding him from the corners of her eyes. “The Om’ray who make things. And if you find them, what then?”