He needn’t have worried. Aryl still smiled, if not quite as warmly. “Hello,” she said pleasantly, rising to her feet. “You must be Oran di Caraat. I’m—”
“Aryl Sarc,” the Adept interrupted. “Come with us.”
Enris thought Aryl braced herself; he wasn’t sure why. “Is it time for the feast?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to talk Enris into coming.”
Bern looked at Oran.
Just that. Normal in all Chosen pairs, an accustomed nuisance to unChosen, left to wonder what was exchanged. Enris had teased Yuhas about it, in what seemed another life. The Yena had claimed it part of being Joined, a joy to constantly gaze at one another. Especially, he’d laughed, with a Chosen as lovely as his Caynen. No secrets.
Bern looked at Oran, and there were secrets between them. Enris felt it, like the chill that slid down the mountain at sunset.
He wasn’t the only one. “What do you want, Bern?” Aryl demanded, her smile gone.
Enris was on his feet before he realized he was uneasy. There was something wrong here.
Oran’s dark eyes flicked to him. “This has nothing to do with you, stranger.”
“Aryl, please,” Bern said, breaking his silence. “Just come with us. We want to talk to you.”
“Alone,” Oran added, eyes still on Enris.
Enris deliberately lifted his hand and brushed the back of it along Aryl’s cheek and jaw. Don’t trust them, he sent through that private contact. Don’t go.
If I can’t trust my heart-kin, she replied, the words tinged with weary grief, who is left?
Aryl stepped away from him without looking back. The other two turned, taking positions on either side. Together they walked away.
Heart-kin? It explained a few things. It didn’t explain this.
Enris watched until he was sure they weren’t going to the meeting hall.
Then, he followed.
Chapter 32
UNTIL NOW, REGARDLESS OF HIS new status, Bern had been happy to see her—she’d known it, seen it. If Bern wouldn’t meet her eyes, something wasn’t right.
Aryl wasn’t tempted to reach to him. The physical fact of Oran di Caraat was unpleasant enough.
“Not the feast,” she observed after a moment.
“Be silent, unChosen,” Oran ordered. Her hair lashed across her face, forcing her to take it in both hands.
Aryl laughed. She couldn’t help it. She’d faced so much worse than this opinionated too-young Adept. “I might,” she offered mildly, “if you tell me what can’t wait until tomorrow. I’d like to enjoy the festivities.”
“You don’t belong there.”
The words came from Bern. She would have dismissed them from his Chosen, assumed an unseemly jealousy. From him? “Why?” she asked, stopping in her tracks to stare at him. “What’s this about?”
“You—”
“Hush,” Aryl snapped at the Adept. “I’ll hear it from someone I know.”
From the sour look on Oran’s face, she’d never been hushed before. Probably couldn’t climb either, Aryl thought uncharitably. “Well, Bern?”
He glanced over one shoulder, then the other. She saw no reason for it; the street was empty. “I listened to the others,” Bern said then, his voice low and strained. “I heard what they said about you.”
“That I helped save them?” Aryl made herself gesture apology, despite the tension crawling up her spine. “They’re too kind. You would have done the same.”
He scowled. “When Yena was attacked by the swarm, you were suddenly there, with the stranger. No one saw an Oud aircar bring you.”
That? “Of course they didn’t see it,” she said as reasonably as she could. “The glows were gone. The Tikitik took them.”
“Don’t bother to lie, unChosen,” the Adept accused. “We know what you can do.”
By an effort of will, Aryl didn’t react. There were no shields between Chosen, except those of courtesy.
She should have seen this coming.
“What do you know?” She stressed the last word.
“You do what’s Forbidden,” Bern burst out, his face flushed. “You’re the reason Yena was attacked—my family destroyed!” Something passed between him and Oran; he sagged and gestured apology.
To which of them, Aryl wasn’t sure.
His Chosen took over. “I know you possess a new Talent, one that can pluck an Om’ray from this world and lose him in another, deadly one. Or retrieve him, if you so choose.” Oran made the last sound unlikely.
Altogether, Aryl had to admit, a different way of looking at it. She looked at Bern. “When I saved your life. Heart-kin.”
Oran didn’t like the reminder.
Neither did Bern, whose face took on that angry, obstinate expression he’d shown his parents when they’d wanted him to work rather than climb with Aryl. “Then prove me wrong, heart-kin,” he challenged. “Drop your shields and share your thoughts with me as you once did. Show me how you came back to Yena.”
Which would be opening to Oran di Caraat as well. They all knew it.
Why did they care? Aryl wondered suddenly, her eyes narrowing. Bern hadn’t wanted to know more about the other. He’d been horrified—he still was. No, she decided, it was this young, too-ambitious Adept. They were Joined, but not like Costa and Leri, two halves of a loving whole, each enriching the other. This Oran ruled her Chosen; it was her will that drove them both. Why?
Oran was of Haxel’s ilk, but without the First Scout’s common sense or desire to help her Clan. This one wanted Power, for Power’s sake.
She wouldn’t get it here.
“Good-bye, Bern Teerac,” Aryl told him, knowing this time, it was the truth.
At first, Aryl stayed on Grona’s flat road, keeping to one side as she’d been told, in case an Oud drove by without warning. Though the ugly things were too slow to run over a sleeping aspird.
Walking at her normal pace, she soon passed the meeting hall, bright and noisy with voices. The feast had started at midday. From what she’d been told, a special one like this would last through truenight. Though they didn’t call it that, here. There was day and there was night and both, she’d been told, were safe for Om’ray to be out.
Her nerves had yet to believe it.
Aryl hesitated, looking back.
No one in sight. Bern and Oran had sputtered behind her, as if unable to believe she would dare walk away from a pair of Chosen, then been silent. They must have gone inside.
No sign of Enris. Packing, Aryl guessed. The Grona were generous; he’d have all the supplies he’d need.
She’d listen for him, she decided. For the first while. Make sure he was all right. Know where he’d gone. A discreet use of Power. Harmless.
No. That was the mistake she’d made before. For all she knew, some Grona could detect her reach. Let such a new Talent’s use by a Yena be exposed, just once, and she’d as good as exile her people again. Unless the Grona was Oran di Caraat. Aryl’s lips twisted. Would she want that for herself, too?
Enris Mendolar would be fine. He was smart and strong. Those who left on Passage were gone to those who remained.
As she would be.
She’d given her token to the Grona Council, so avoided the Oud. It was easy enough; their clumsy vehicles were confined to roads or tunnels. Daylight, rocks without appetite, no rain . . . Once past the last vacant home, she walked along the narrow jagged tops of Grona’s terrace walls, balancing without thought.
If anything, Aryl was bored.
Bored was better than anything else she was.
She hadn’t dared go first to the room they’d given her. Oran and Bern could be waiting there, this time prepared to insist. Or someone from her host family, not yet at the feast, with questions and honest concern. They’d likely have insisted she talk to Council and their Adepts.