Composed again, Taisal continued her argument, growing stern. “We must learn how Bern saved himself, Aryl. All he remembers is thunder and flame, a moment somewhere dark, confused, then finding himself on the bridge in time to see—to see the others fall past him.” Gentler. Aryl. “You’re the only witness we have. You must try to remember. Anything, everything.”
No, Aryl thought. She would forget it all. Afraid her mother could sense this rebellion, she closed her mental shields even more tightly than ever before. “Why does it matter?” she sighed. “Can’t you be grateful at least one survived?”
“Two,” Taisal corrected, gesturing gratitude with a lift of her hands. She gave her daughter a keen-eyed look. “Enough for now. Council can wait.”
“Council?” Aryl echoed, then was ashamed of the quiver in her voice.
“A new Talent is the concern of Council, Aryl. You know that. Bern’s ability must be understood and dealt with, for the good of us all.”
Power shivered between them, as if a knife had been half drawn to glint in the light. Almost as quickly, the sensation was gone.
Her mother’s lips curved in a tight smile, while Aryl’s eyes widened in dismay. Not at the unspoken threat . . .
Because she wasn’t sure who had made it.
The Adept rose to her feet. “Until tonight. Rest.”
After her mother left, Aryl scowled at her bed. Rest? She went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. The view through the gauze panel was improbably ordinary. From here, she could see six other homes, like hers wrapped around the main stalk of a rastis or a nekis’ trunk, like hers with white walls open to light and air through ceiling-to-floor panels of thin gauze. The remaining panels were so tightly woven as to be opaque, their surface watertight and private. Doors were the same, but bore unique patterns imposed by unbleached threads. The vivid red undulations and blobs might make sense to Tikitik, who had made them, or they might not. They didn’t to the Yena Om’ray, as far as Aryl knew, but—she squinted at a neighbor’s—some were prettier than others.
Narrow slatted bridges led from each door to the main bridge, though as many sloped up to that destination as down. Their homes were where they were, given their living supports grew at different rates. The main bridge was wide and strong, spanning air from the meeting hall—the one place large enough to hold all of Yena, if the unChosen were banned to feed biters on the outer deck—to the varied workplaces and warehouses. Those were the simplest structures of alclass="underline" roof, window panels and doors, floor. Following Harvest, they’d be full of tables where most of Yena would open pods and sort their contents. There would be others washing and teasing the threads from dresel wings for the waiting weavers, and those stacking pods to dry for carvers. Above all, those packing bundles of fresh dresel and sprouts for delivery.
Any other Harvest. Aryl knew they’d sit empty now.
Nothing was solid. When the M’hir blew and the rastis swayed, the entire Yena village swayed, too. Children learned early to secure their toys or see them fall.
She watched the few Om’ray on the bridges, their steps easily accommodating the occasional shift in wood and rope. Some carried small bundles; she guessed they were supper, perhaps last M’hir’s dresel. Others hurried by on their own business. Most would be inside, midsummer’s habit, when the afternoon brought a heavy, cloying heat interrupted by sudden downpours, and evening was preferred for socializing. The M’hir had begun to clear the air, if only for a brief while. Soon enough the Om’ray would change their ways to suit. The drier, less oppressive feel meant time to pull vegetation from the undersides and roofs of homes, to replace panels, to inspect bridges for rot before the rains returned. What grew here was intent on erasing the Om’ray, or consuming them.
Like now. Determined biters swarmed the gauze, climbing for her face as if they could somehow bite through the fabric. When they blocked her view, Aryl tapped them into flight with a finger, not admitting she was looking for someone.
Bern . . .
Guilt killed the questing thought before it was more than half-formed. Not the familiar sly guilt of having played a good trick on someone. Not the embarrassed guilt of having spied on another’s mind for an answer, or of having followed Bern to where a newly Chosen pair fumbled with each other’s clothing in the shadows in a way she’d thought hilarious and he’d . . .
Bern . . .
Aryl flinched and turned from the window. This guilt? Every thought of him cut. She was vaguely surprised not to bleed.
She left her room for the half-oval of the main hall. It was the largest space in their home, indented on one side by panels to protect the stalk of the living rastis. The floor of polished nekis wood incorporated and revealed the whorl of carefully cut and sealed fronds that supported the building. The resulting lovely pattern of grays, yellows, and rich browns was a pride of the Sarcs.
Her father, Mele sud Sarc, had filled this hall with his booming laugh. Now, her fingers touching this and that, Aryl wondered if laughter could die, too.
Here was the long burnished table they’d used as often for games as meals, set for only two. There were the pulls to bring the yellow sling chairs from the ceiling beams; easy to spin an unwary brother with the flick of a wrist. A pair were now anchored to the floor, unable to move. Other slings, these for storage, filled the ceiling like the clouds she’d seen for herself. The cupboards, sleek and elegant and old, had held hidden treasures—as well as a certain small sister at times.
She opened one at random. Empty.
Taisal lived here less and less, her duties as Adept calling her to the Cloisters, many of her possessions taken there as well. Costa—Aryl moved before her eyes had to fall on the closed curtain to his room, but not before she thought of Leri, his Chosen.
When a pair Joined, both changed. Everyone felt the new bond between them, strong and permanent, closer than that between a mother and her newborn, or heart-kin. There were outward changes as well. Over a span of days both finished maturing in body, ready to be parents themselves. Since this change was greatest in those who would be mothers, they spent that time alone with theirs, receiving the special knowledge they would need to understand the new workings of their body and the demands to come. Her impatient partner would be distracted by friends. It was a time of joy and celebration.
To Aryl’s profound annoyance, it was also a time when everyone else got jokes she didn’t.
But if one of a Joined pair died, the survivor changed again. Everyone could sense it: Chosen, but not. Om’ray, but not. When her father, Mele, had succumbed to a wasting fever, Aryl remembered flinching from the stranger who should have been her mother, comforted by Costa and others until she’d accepted the peculiar, hollow feel now bound to her mother’s presence. Once, maybe twice a generation, those left somehow drew strength from their loss, gaining in Power. Taisal, already in line to become an Adept, had been such.
M’hirs later, once old enough for the truth, Aryl had learned how close she’d come to losing both parents. Most survivors became lost within themselves, their inner voices fading, minds forever childlike. The rest? Died within heartbeats of their Chosen’s end, as if there could be no life apart.
She would be like that, Aryl decided, taking her lower lip between her teeth. If anything happened to Bern, she would have no reason to exist. A sudden, dramatic death. No more of this bell tolling and grief. No more being alone.
She scowled at the table. “Death is better.”
“Than supper?” Her mother pushed through the curtain from Costa’s room, a tray overloaded with bright red sweetberries in her hands.