“Cold,” Gijs observed, a disembodied voice. The word echoed.
Silently, she counted steps. At twenty, she slowed. “We’re almost at the bottom.”
“This shouldn’t be here,” protested Enris. “Om’ray don’t trespass underground. The Oud forbid it.”
“They didn’t destroy it,” Haxel countered.
“They’d killed everyone. Why bother?”
She laughed. “Comforting, aren’t you, Tuana?”
“Here we are,” Aryl interrupted. The mound’s heart was as her mind expected. The firelight pushed back the dark on either side, through wide archways easily two Om’ray high. Colder here, much colder. She could see her breath; her warm Grona coats did nothing to stop her shivers. Or was it fear? She made a choice. “This way.”
“Wait.” There was a sound of metal sliding, a faint whomp, then the steps were illuminated in warm, yellow light. “Good. Still oil,” Enris commented, using his stick to ignite another of the round fixtures. There were a pair on each arch. “Glows don’t last long in the cold,” he said self-consciously as he noticed the others, including Aryl, gazing at him in wonder. “We make something similar. Good for working outside in winter.”
Gijs snorted. “You go out in truenight.”
“I do many things you don’t, Yena.”
Tension. Aryl hesitated, looking from one to the other. Something was wrong between them. What?
“Let’s go,” Haxel ordered.
The first room wasn’t, as Seru had feared, empty. As Enris hunted more of his oil lights to ignite, Haxel and Gijs walked a wide aisle between tall baskets and gourds, opening lids, exclaiming at what they found inside.
Not empty—but not the same. Aryl clung to the arch, feeling empathy for Weth, their Looker. Her mind demanded to see what it “remembered,” arguing against the reality before her eyes until her stomach threatened to lose the nothing it contained. The baskets should be shorter, wider. The gourds should be in clusters nearer that side, and why were they colored in elaborate symbols instead of plain?
Whatever was in her head, it wasn’t this moment, or even a moment close to it.
“Seru’s dream or yours?”
Aryl focused with relief on Enris, who was as he should be, though with a thunderous scowl she ignored. He was leaving; let him worry about Vyna, not her.
“Mine,” she told him. It wasn’t a lie. “But not like a dream. I know things about this place—I can’t explain how. The other storeroom—somehow I’m sure it was used for seeds and tools. I can tell you names, words for things I never learned. This room was for food and—” as Gijs pulled out a length of fabric, “—other supplies. But it’s not the same. It’s changed…
“…I think,” she warned hastily, feeling an abrupt lurch inside, “I’m going to be sick.”
She shut her eyes, numb with more than the cold, and fought her unhappy stomach.
Aryl… Fingertips brushed her cheek. Power followed, a shock like icy rain down her back. She opened her eyes and glared. “Why did you do that?”
“You don’t feel sick now, do you?” Enris smiled at whatever showed on her face. “I’m hungry. As the one who ‘knows things,’ how about finding food?”
About to deny any such ability, Aryl found herself walking forward. The Tuana was right. The room grew longer as Gijs and Haxel continued to find more lights on its walls. There had to be dozens of baskets, some shoulder-high. Even more gourds. Whatever else Sona had been, they’d been rich beyond any Clan she knew. “Why so much?” she mused, fingers leaving trails on a dust-covered lid.
“This?” Another laugh. “You should see what my Clan stores for the winter—and we barely have the cold. Grona spends most of the warm weather putting away supplies and still has lean times. You Yena are spoiled. Food grows for you all the time.”
“Dresel can only be harvested once a year,” she reminded him. Om’ray couldn’t live without it, not in the canopy. Once a year, the M’hir Wind would blow over the mountains. The Watchers would sound their alert and Yena would climb. They’d risk their lives to snatch pods from the air. Once, she’d never imagined or wanted another life.
Would any Yena climb a rastis in the coming M’hir? Would any hooks flash, stealing treasure from the snatch of a wastryl?
Would she even know?
“Starving,” Enris prodded. “Skin and bones.”
Aryl flushed and lifted a lid at random. “Here.”
He peered inside. “You’re not serious.”
She looked, too. The basket was filled to its brim with wizened red lumps the size of her smallest finger, utterly unappealing.
Aryl popped one into her mouth before she realized what her hand was doing. About to spit it out, she stopped, entranced by a sweet, rich flavor. A tentative chew released more.
Seeing this, Enris put two in his mouth, his face taking on a comic look of rapture.
Aryl swallowed and smiled. “They called it rokly. It grows on a vine, like sweetberries.”
“So it wasn’t a game.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I was afraid of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ziba.” Enris sighed heavily. “She’s too young to sort dreams from real memory. Taen and Syb should be told. Maybe they can shield her.” He glanced to where Haxel and Gijs were moving a gourd into an open space, both of them needed to tip and turn it on its base. “You should all be careful,” he urged quietly. “Something’s put this knowledge in your heads, Aryl, or put it where your mind can find it. We don’t know how—or why.”
She brought her lower lip between her teeth.
He gave her a quizzical look. “You do agree, don’t you?”
“About Ziba? Of course. And Juo’s unborn. We should protect them. But I don’t see the harm, Enris. Look at all this,” she gestured at the room. “We’d never have found it on our own.”
She felt a jolt of dread before he buried it behind shields. “Tell me you aren’t planning to stay here,” Enris demanded, leaning forward. A lock of black hair fell over one eye, and he shoved it back impatiently. “Tell me you’re going to pack all you can and leave for Rayna as soon as Chaun can walk. Aryl, please.”
Her heart raced. “Om’ray lived here once—”
“And the Oud ended them!”
“Tell me Rayna will take us,” she retorted fiercely. “Tell me they won’t be sorry if they do.”
She hadn’t meant to say it. She hadn’t, Aryl thought with a pang of guilt, known she would.
Enris drew back, his eyes bleak. “Is that what you believe? That Yena’s Council was right after all? That your people deserve to be thrown out on their own?”
Insufferable Tuana. “Think what you like. You’re leaving.” She started to turn away. His big hand trapped her arm. “Let go of me.” It was like trying to shake off a mountain. Haxel and Gijs were ignoring them—too obviously. Aryl felt her face grow hot. “Let. Go.”
His fingers opened, but stayed on her arm. “I’d like to think you’ll be safe. All of you.” His voice deepened to a distressed rumble. “Staying here isn’t the answer, Aryl. Listen to reason. You’re too few. You need other Om’ray, a Clan. Your people will go wherever you lead—”
Let GO! Her sending hurt him; his hand dropped to his side and he gave her a stricken look.
She didn’t care. “We’re no longer your concern, unChosen. Take your Passage. Find joy.” If the traditional farewell came out as a snarl, the Tuana deserved it.
Maybe he’d leave now. Aryl half ran past Haxel and Gijs, both of whom exchanged looks but didn’t say a word. She stopped at a group of baskets and began tossing lids aside without seeing what was in them.