Her cousin’s eyes were closed. It had happened again.
Taen nodded a greeting. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t know what to do—”
Seru’s GONE. With the desperate anguish of the very young.
Hush. The anguish vanished behind shields as Taen hugged her daughter close. “One moment we were talking about Grona,” she said quietly, “the next, Seru shuts her eyes and starts babbling nonsense. A stranger’s name. Something about frost and harvest. How there’s work to be done and we have to hurry. When I asked what she meant, she didn’t say another word.” A heavy sigh. “Better than screaming we’re all going to die.”
She wasn’t so sure, Aryl thought as she studied her cousin. Seru walked in a straight line—in the direction they all moved—but she lifted her feet too high as if forcing her way through drifts of snow. Not slowly either. Wherever she was going—wherever she thought she was going—she intended to get there without delay. “‘Work to be done,’” Aryl repeated. “What ‘work?’ Why ‘hurry?”’ She wasn’t going to try to guess what “harvest.” Nothing could grow here worth eating.
“A dream,” Taen dismissed with a shrug, one hand holding Ziba to her side as they kept up. “You woke her before,” she prompted.
“I’m not sure she’s asleep.” Weth could walk blind like this. But even if Seru had that Talent, how could she remember a place she’d never been? Aryl frowned. Should she touch her? Wake her?
Could she?
A flash of joy sped mind-to-mind through the exiles. Voices rose in greeting and relief.
Ael must be in sight.
“Go,” Taen said, smiling involuntarily. “We’ll stay with her.”
Ziba’s eyes widened. “No,” she protested. “You have to bring her back!”
Interesting choice of words, Aryl thought, giving the child a sharp look. “I’ll do my best,” she promised, unwilling to lie. “First, we have to keep her moving. Can you do that, Ziba?”
“But everyone’s stopped.” The child was right. Aryl cast an anxious look forward.
Taen laid her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Whatever passed between them settled the child. “We’ll bring Seru. Go.”
Their trust weighed on her heart; the blank nothing where Seru should be was worse.
It didn’t take long to find the delay. A silent knot of Om’ray stood around Ael, watching patiently as he held his Chosen close. Her uncle seemed oblivious to everything and everyone else, including the need to show the exhausted exiles the way out of the snow.
The other Chosen were allowing this—this utter waste of time. Aryl sighed and wiped snowdrops from her lashes, pondering the best way to interrupt their bliss. Surely, somewhere in the happy cloud of hair that presently shrouded both heads was her more sensible aunt.
Myris! This with what force she dared. We must go!
A blast of heat and longing and belonging assailed her. Aryl clamped down her shields, annoyed enough to stamp her foot. Chosen had no sense of priorities.
“Ael came that way.” Enris’ lips twitched. They’d laid Chaun on the ground; Husni cradled his head in her lap. The Tuana pointed.
“That way” was somewhere ahead and to the left along this featureless plain, a destination obscured by swirling snow. Aryl reached. Haxel and the others were close. The mere thought of rest weakened her knees. The others could be in no better shape. Even Enris, despite his sturdy presence at her side, had to be wearing down. “We need to go,” she said quietly. “If you and Gijs pick up Chaun again, maybe the rest will get the idea.”
As quietly. “They’ll follow you.”
No, she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
“Unfair,” he agreed, as if she had. “Doesn’t change the weather. They’ve come this far because of you, Aryl Sarc. You can’t stop leading them now, just because you wasted your strength.”
Lower lip secured between her teeth, where it couldn’t tremble, Aryl glared at the Tuana. He gave her a wide, unrepentant grin.
She whirled and strode away, without waiting for anyone else.
Her feet crunched dead vegetation, the sound muted whenever she stepped in one of the growing piles of snow. Her breathing was too loud and too quick to her ears. Fine to believe they’d follow. What if no one noticed she’d left?
A tuft of taller vegetation ahead. Without slowing, she yanked it from the hard dirt, shook it clean, and tied it in a knot.
If Enris was wrong, she’d look a thorough fool.
If he was right…she stopped there.
Then, behind her, came the rustle and muted comments of people picking up their packs, sorting their marching order, starting to move. She blew a soundless whistle of relief.
A quicker set of limping steps as someone hurried to catch up. “Aryl—”
She glanced sideways. Ael’s cheeks were flaming red. He began to gesture apology, and she touched his hand to stop it.
In the proper order of things, Myris wouldn’t be walking in this nightmare of whirling snowdrops, shouldn’t have been exposed to stupid lumps of ice, wouldn’t have been hurt. More for her list. Aryl took back her hand, drawing her icy fingers within her sleeve. “Tell me you found a warm spot.”
Ael’s joyful laugh startled her. “Oh, it’s warm,” he promised. “Wait till you see. That way,” he added, indicating a line of darkness that curved ahead, then bent to their right.
She squinted through the snow, making out a steep slope of dirt, weathered and loose. This had to be the near edge of the wide depression she’d seen from the ridge, the one that ran the length of the valley. “Another dry river,” she guessed, astonished at its size.
“And frozen rain.” Ael spread his arms to encompass the landscape around them—what they could see of it through the snowdrops. “Nothing here should surprise us, Aryl.”
But something had. She tasted his excitement. Ael might be worried about Myris, but above all he anticipated the Om’rays’ reaction when they saw…what?
“Warm,” she repeated. She’d settle for that.
The wind faded to a whimper around their ears. The snowdrops, contrarily, worsened, becoming larger. They stuck together in the air, drifting down in soft clumps, deadening all sound. One landed on Aryl’s forehead and melted to soak her eye and cheek, a drip tracing her jaw and sliding down her neck. She shivered. Truenight was almost upon them. They should be in sight of Haxel and the shelter by now, but the steady fall closed like woven panels around the exiles. She kept reaching for the others, reassuring herself they were together despite the poor visibility. She wanted to go deeper, to learn if Seru had regained her senses, if Gijs and Enris were tiring, if Myris and Morla were in pain—but refrained. She couldn’t help, even if she knew.
Shadows appeared to either side, indistinct through the snow, irregular in height and shape. The grove she’d seen—this had to be its start. Aryl quickened her pace. Strange, that the ground was smoother and more level than before.
Strange, too, that what she’d assumed were tall nekis stalks leaned against one another. Aryl blinked away snowdrops, frustrated.
A flicker of light beckoned ahead. Warmth, comfort. She sensed relief as those following saw it, too. Ael’s smile was in his voice. “There it is. Wait till you see—”
Do you see? The sending from Enris held none of the relief or joy of the rest.
A few more steps, another blink, and the indistinct shadows re-formed. Aryl slowed and stopped as she understood.
This wasn’t a grove.
Others passed her, packs coated in white, eager for shelter. Aryl let them.
Thick drops of snow slipped and danced around her, playing hide/seek. She scuffed her toe through what lay on the ground to find a pavement of flat, well-fitted stone, then looked up again. What rose beside her weren’t leaning stalks.