“Sona” meant nothing to Aryl. What did was the stricken look on her cousin’s face. “It’s all right, Seru,” she soothed, mystified. “You’ve been having bad dreams. That’s probably what it was. A dream.”
“No.” Seru’s chin trembled. “We’re getting closer with every step, Aryl. Closer to where they died! All of them died!! It’s dangerous here! We have to turn around. You have to believe me!”
They had an audience; there was no avoiding it. The other exiles granted them a semblance of privacy by a sudden interest in drying boots and clothes. Enris, who sat near enough to hear every word, gave Seru a pitying look before turning away.
She noticed. Her small frame straightened within its burden of heavy Grona clothing, and she blinked as if to fight back tears. Stung, Aryl touched her cousin’s hand. He doesn’t know you as I do, she sent, tight and private. And it was true. Power and Talent weren’t the only strengths an Om’ray could possess.
I don’t know how I know. Repeated mind-to-mind, the words came laced with dread. I feel—I feel them die, Aryl. I hear your voice and their screams at the same time. I— Seru rubbed her arms vigorously. “I hurt with their pain.”
Aryl’s fingers left her cousin’s hand, curled to meet her palm. The exotic Power of a Chooser, Seru’s longing, her need. Easy to sense that, too. The disinterest of the only candidate for her Choice had to be a torment. The instinct consumed Seru from within, fought her valiant effort to restrain her Call and save her strength for the march.
For how long? A Chooser could wait, sometimes must wait, but there was always Choice. Wasn’t there? She remembered a story, one of the glowlight scares for those too young to understand its true horror, about a Yena Chooser denied Choice. Her drive faded, then left. Her immature body remained as it was, infertile and barren, her mind partnerless and alone. One day she’d walked into a stitler’s trap, and no one believed she’d been careless.
Not Seru, Aryl vowed to herself. She would have a future. Parth would have a future.
All of Yena’s families would survive.
“I’ll see what Weth found,” she promised aloud, her voice steadier than she’d expected. She eyed her still-damp wraps with distaste and left them, grabbed her wet boots, and forced them on with a grimace. “Go tell Myris what you’ve told me.” When there was no reply, she glanced up, not surprised to see her cousin’s face had clouded. Aryl knew that stubborn look. “Please,” she said softly, tying her laces.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” Each word flat and hard.
“I didn’t say there was. Myris isn’t a Healer.” But they both knew their aunt could ease the emotions of close kin. Worth a try, as far as Aryl was concerned. Maybe Myris could calm Seru, stop her dreams from affecting her while awake. At least keep her quiet. They had no Adepts of their own; no one who could repair a mind or protect the rest of them from its failure. “She’s wise, that’s all,” Aryl said with care. “She might help you understand—”
“Understand what?” Seru scowled. “I’m not imagining this, Aryl. You think because my Power’s less than yours, I don’t know how to use it. I do. I have to. I’ve always had to. That’s why I know this is real. Sona died.” Her cousin stopped, her head rising to stare up the rise where Weth was now talking to Haxel. “Om’ray died. That’s what you’ll see.”
Enris squatted at the near edge. Aryl noticed his hand hovered over the disturbed ground but didn’t touch it. “Oud,” he said at last, then turned his head to spit eloquently.
In disbelief, she stared at what should have been the road across the next valley floor. Should have been. From their feet—at the base of the hill Weth had climbed to meet them—to where it curved to disappear past the next abrupt rise of rock, the ground was no longer flat. Instead, its surface heaved and sank as if stone had momentarily become water, leaving ripples that grew in size toward the middle of the valley. The largest were, she estimated, more than two Om’ray high. Difficult obstacles, Yena or not. Worse, the footing between looked soft and treacherous. The disturbance stretched to either side, filling the valley.
They couldn’t go this way.
“How?” Haxel asked, also staring ahead. “How did they do it?”
Enris rose to his feet. “Does it matter?” He brushed dust from his legs. “The reshaping was long ago. See the plants? The weathering on exposed rock? They’re done. For now.”
He spoke casually, but Aryl caught something restrained in his manner, a new tension. She was tempted to lower her shields and reach to him, but didn’t. Even if manners seemed less important in this wild place, Haxel would likely notice.
“We can go around it,” Weth offered. Leri’s cousin, of the same height and slender frame but, unlike other Teeracs, her eyebrows and hair almost white against her tan skin. As with other Lookers Aryl knew, she was visibly restless, her eyes flicking from side to side as often as they fixed on someone else, her body tense, its weight shifting from one foot to the other. Possessed of an uncomfortable Talent, a Looker was alarmed by physical change in a remembered place. A band of tightly woven cloth hung from her neck, a blindfold Weth would use if confronted by too much change, too quickly. Her visual memory was so precise, she could close her eyes to retrace her own steps, and often did, as if memory was more trustworthy.
Aryl shaded her eyes with one hand, studying their options. Haxel, Syb, and Ael did the same. Enris didn’t appear interested. He tossed a handful of dirt into the wind, then stared into the distance toward their goal, making a soft, irritating whistle between his teeth.
She ignored him. Weth was right. They could move along the slope of the ridge. Though wide, the disturbance created by the Oud didn’t appear to extend all the way up the valley. Disturbing, to think the creatures might have focused their destruction on the road itself, as if to cut off movement in this direction. Why? Aryl couldn’t forget Seru’s feeling about this place. Had someone—or several someones—died when the Oud struck?
If so, how had her cousin known?
As for the other choice? This valley, like the others they’d passed, opened its mouth to the Lay Swamp. Cutting close to that dangerous shoreline would expose them to any Tikitik riding in the shallows. Worse, they’d have to be away from it before truenight, or face what might come out to hunt.
Aryl squinted up the valley again. Rock, rock, and more rock. Difficult and exhausting to climb. There was no way to know how much the detour would delay their crossing.
Or, she shuddered inwardly, if there were hunters hiding amid the rubble.
Ael spoke up. “Syb and I can take one route each. Report back—”
“We stay together,” Aryl countered without thinking, then gestured a hasty apology to Haxel. The First Scout led in this wilderness; she hadn’t meant to usurp her authority.
She didn’t want any.
Haxel merely raised an eyebrow, stretching her scar. “We’ve another problem, don’t we, Tuana?”
The whistle ended. Enris tipped his head at the mountain ridge ahead of them, its top edge cloaked, as always, in heavy cloud. “Only if we’re caught in the open.”
“There’s nothing but open,” Haxel pointed out. “Such clouds on a changing wind mean an early winter storm,” she clarified for the rest of them. “A hazard Grona’s excuse for a First Scout did know. Enris is right. We’ll need shelter before it hits. That’s the priority.”
“Winter? Will the water turn hard, like wood? The Grona said that’s what happens.” Syb was clearly entranced by the possibility. Aryl shivered. Water should behave like water, in her opinion.
“Not these streams.” Enris sounded sure. “But there’ll be a nasty bite to that wind soon. It’s going to get cold.”