Maybe not biters.
But she did miss flitters. And wysps.
Her family.
Without conscious decision, Aryl lowered her shields, relaxing her inner guard the smallest possible amount, and reached farther than before. Not to contact her mother, she thought, only to find her, be sure she was safe.
That she lived.
Her unexpected awareness of the Human, though dim and vague, had come when she hadn’t used strength to find it. Now, Aryl did the same. Relax rather than concentrate. Better to be attracted to the glow of Om’ray than seek it. To let the here-I-am become the who-I-am…
To this Talent, those were the same, she realized abruptly. Had it been a habit, all her life, to ignore that extra information, the way she’d ignore the drone of biters or drum of rain? There’d been no need to consciously know everyone nearby—unless, of course, she wanted to win at seek. There’d been every reason to hide that ability, according to Taisal. What was new, was likely Forbidden.
Not here. Not anymore.
Aryl reached for Yena’s Om’ray, ignoring every other glow, paid attention. Names filled her mind…no, not names. Identities, resonating one to another. No Om’ray existed in isolation, not even the Lost. Each came with bonds. Chosen to Chosen. Mother to child. Families. Heart-kin. Their connections crossed and blended, like a net woven in light.
Within it, she might have been home again, surrounded by those who belonged together. Rimis Uruus. Her Chosen Troa. Their son Joyn. Tikva, their grandmother. Alejo Parth, Seru’s tiny brother. More. Aryl reached. Vendans. Kessa’ats. Teeracs.
Sarcs.
Among them. There. Her mother.
Alive.
But it wasn’t like home. The more Yena Aryl found, the more wrong they felt. Bonds were strained or too thin. Connections were missing.
The exiles. Too many had been torn from the fabric of Yena itself for it to stay whole. Whole as it had been, for as she recognized the tear, she could feel its shape changing. Bonds thinned beyond comfort were being turned toward others. Connections lost were being replaced with new ones. Yena mended itself without regard to those now outside its reach.
Excluding them. Excluding her.
There could be no going back.
Aryl pulled away.
As she did, her awareness stumbled into another cluster of identities. Six Om’ray, closer to Sona than anywhere else.
Strands of interconnection…Chosen…mother/child…brother/sister…cousin…aunt/uncle/niece/nephew…heart-kin…
Bern.
Shields tight, Aryl rose slowly to her feet, facing the dark toward Grona. Did he look this way, she wondered? Had he seen her, too?
“Trouble?” Marcus wriggled free of his thermobed in a noisy, time-consuming effort that convinced her never to sleep in one.
“Someone’s coming,” she said before she thought.
“Oud?” He stared at the well-lit depression.
“Grona Om’ray. They won’t arrive until late tomorrow ’night—or the day after,” she corrected, guessing they’d camp another truenight.
She’d worry about them then. Him, then.
“Trouble?” Marcus asked again, his eyes wide.
Her quick denial died on her lips. “Change,” she offered, the truth, if hardly reassuring. The time she’d believed Om’ray incapable of harm to one another was long gone. Like the Sona.
The Human plopped down at the end of his thermobed and pulled the remainder of its soft mass awkwardly over his shoulders. “Not sleep.” A declaration of intent.
“As you wish.” She’d be glad of the company, Aryl admitted to herself, sitting again. After reaching Yena, the dark beyond the lights pressed too close, even if all it hid were the scars of Sona’s violent passing. She regarded the nervous Human thoughtfully. He studied what was long gone, a concept she was still fighting to believe.
He returned her gaze for a moment, then said quietly, “Ask.”
Perceptive, indeed. She half smiled. “I have a question about this place. About Sona.”
“To know what happened here?”
“The Oud happened.” As she’d mention a storm. The Human gave the nearby depression a worried look. “The Sona Om’ray disturbed the Agreement. Upset the peace,” she added, when he turned the worried look on her. “We’re safe.” Not that she was sure, but it was better than having Marcus run for higher ground. “How long ago? Can you tell?” He’d tossed his belt of devices into a corner of the tent—a revealing lack of respect for such technology. Ordinary to him, however extraordinary to her.
“Om’ray not know?”
Question for question, was it? Aryl made herself comfortable, willing to play for now. “None of us knew Sona existed before coming here.”
“You know name. How?”
One she didn’t want to answer. “When?” she countered.
Marcus took a handful of dirt and let it fall. Dust rose like smoke in the lights. “Recent. This century.” At her frown, “Wrong word for Om’ray time? How you count how old?”
A knot for a day. Age? “Yena count the M’hir Wind and the Harvest,” she offered dubiously. “There’s only one a year.”
He smiled. “Ah. Good. Same thing. All seasons pass one time, count one year. Same all your world.”
On her world. Implying other worlds. As if the “past” wasn’t enough to make her head feel swollen inside. But she had to ask. “A year isn’t the same on yours?”
“My world closer to its sun, shorter orbit. Makes my year faster. Trade Pact use standard year so all worlds have common reference. Otherwise, every time be different. Everyone be too early, too late!” Marcus paused his enthused babble. “Aryl not happy?”
Aryl was decidedly not, the “sun” and its behavior being a particular sore point and everything else he said making matters worse. “Om’ray are the world,” she informed him testily. “Nothing else is real!”
Foolish Human.
Who pursed his lips and appeared fascinated by the heatbox. “Is this Aryl truth—your truth?”
If there’d been condescension in his tone or manner, any hint of amusement at the “ignorant Om’ray,” she would have insisted what the Adepts taught was exactly that: her truth, too.
But there wasn’t. Marcus Bowman, Analyst and Triad First, seeker after the unimaginably old from another world, Chosen and father in his Human fashion, passed no judgment.
Forcing her to do it instead.
Aryl chose words with great care, more afraid of her own daring than of being misunderstood. “The truth is that Om’ray are always aware of each other. Part of each other. We must be.”
“Must be?”
“I’m uncomfortable,” she admitted with a pained expression she hoped he could read, “to be this far from my people. The only ones who willingly leave their Clan—” except Yena’s exiles, “—are unChosen. And they only travel to find another Clan.” Except Enris. “I think—maybe we speak of ourselves as the world because we can be no other place. Do you understand, Marcus? But I—” She broke into a sweat beneath the Human’s coat. “—I don’t think the world ends beyond us. Not anymore. There must be another side to this mountain. The waterfall must come from somewhere. You do.”
“I do.” Marcus leaned his chin in his hand, his elbow on one bent knee. A thoughtful pose. “Other side of this mountain are more. Many more. Mountain range. This waterfall come from river that cuts through range. I have seen. Aryl right. World bigger.”