There was no safety or protection here. They had to keep going.
Suddenly, a scream rent the air, felt as much as heard. Aryl recognized the source and threw herself forward.
“Seru!”
Chapter 2
“WE CAN’T GO THERE! WE can’t! Don’t—” the words dissolved into another scream.
The Om’ray clustered around the prone figure moved out of Aryl’s way, letting her through. Seru lay on her back, hands pressed over her face, fingers tangled in strands of wet hair. She no longer screamed, but squirmed fitfully.
“Seru!” Aryl dropped to her knees. “Seru?” she repeated, gently. “Cousin.” No response. She looked up at the others. “What happened?”
“We don’t know.” Taen held Ziba’s shoulders, her face and voice grave. Murmurs of agreement from the other exiles, an ebb and flow of emotion that read to Aryl’s inner sense as concern mixed with pity. “She was climbing with us, then she was down, screaming we had to stop. Why?”
“Seru’s been talking to herself all day,” the young Om’ray offered, eyes wide. “She wouldn’t listen to me.” This with profound distress.
“We’re too exposed here.” Rorn sud Vendan, Haxel’s Chosen, traded looks with Cetto. “I can carry her,” he offered. “She’s little more than bone and clothing.”
“Wait.” Aryl pressed her hand lightly over Seru’s, sending her cousin’s name through that contact. No shields barred her way. No consciousness responded. How was that possible? Her eyes widened in shock.
Seru was sound asleep.
An unnatural sleep. Aryl eased Seru’s hands away from her face, then stroked strands of hair from her pale forehead and cheeks. Her cousin’s lips quivered and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t stir.
Like last truenight.
Aryl laid her palms along her cousin’s cold cheeks and summoned her strength. Wake up, she coaxed, as if it were a normal morning, as if this were a day when a pair of giggly young unChosen might sneak away from chores and spy on those who did work. Sleepy Seru. We’ll be late. C’mon. It’s me. Aryl.
A disgruntled huff of warm breath in her face.
Wake up. Lazy Seru. Wake up. She hid her own fear, did her utmost to project only anticipation and pleasure. Her awareness of the other Om’ray faded as they tightened their mental shields. It helped her focus; the reason for it didn’t. She shared their instinct for self-preservation. If Seru’s mind was damaged, contact risked them both.
Snow swirled and danced in silence; chill wind snuck between the legs of those waiting and found its way down the neck of Aryl’s hood. She didn’t move, didn’t stop sending.
At last, Seru’s eyelids fluttered open. She blinked away snowdrops. Her green eyes, their gaze vague, strayed until they caught Aryl’s. “Why are you taking us to Sona?” Her voice, though hoarse with the aftermath of screams, was disturbingly calm and reasonable. A bead of blood marked a crack on her lower lip. “We can’t go there. Everyone’s dead. Can’t you hear them warn us away?”
With a gasp, Taen drew Ziba back into the crowd. The rest exchanged troubled glances and Aryl didn’t blame them. Her hands trembled as they left Seru’s face. “Wake up!” she insisted, this time aloud.
Another blink, then Seru’s eyes snapped into focus. “Aryl?” Her brows knitted together as she noticed the others staring down at her. “What am I doing on the ground?” A look of dismay. She beckoned Aryl closer, then whispered urgently. “I didn’t fall, did I?”
“Of course not.” What could she tell her? Don’t worry, Seru? You’ve been climbing in your sleep? You’ve had another bad dream? You said things none of us understand? It didn’t make sense, Aryl fussed to herself. She did know none of this would reassure those hovering anxiously around them. “It’s the cold,” she improvised hastily. “You aren’t used to it. You—fainted.”
With perfect timing, snow swept between them, the wind tugging at their clothes. Seru’s shiver reached her teeth and she sat with Aryl’s help. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
A touch on her shoulder that wasn’t wind. Aryl. We have to move.
“Let’s get you on your feet, Cousin.” Aryl acknowledged Gijs’ sending with a somber I know.
Husni, Cetto’s Chosen, and Myris closed on Seru, chattering in anxious synchrony about the effects of such dreadful cold and how badly they felt, too. Seru, for her part, was unsettled by the attention of her elders; her cheeks flushed in spite of the cold.
How could she not remember shouting? How could she sleep while climbing in this difficult place—and not fall?
Only one thing was certain. It hadn’t been the cold.
“Do you want me to stay—” Aryl began.
“We’ll take care of her,” promised Myris. Seru averted her eyes and started climbing with the others.
Lip between her teeth, Aryl watched her go. Their only Parth. Their only Chooser. Seru was young and strong. She shouldn’t be the first to falter—shouldn’t falter at all during what was—what had been—easy travel for a Yena.
She felt someone’s attention and glanced up. Through the haze of falling snowdrops, Ziba regarded her solemnly from the top of the rise, her hand tight in her mother’s. As the two turned to take their place in the line of exiles, the child twisted to look back. “What killed Sona, Aryl?” she called out, loud and frightened. “Is it going to kill us, too?”
Taen’s head bent over her daughter’s. Reassurance, Aryl supposed, wishing she had some. Whether inspired from dream or something more, Seru’s shouts had shaken everyone’s confidence in this path. But they had no other option.
Followed by Juo and the others, the two disappeared down the other side, leaving Aryl alone.
Not entirely. Slowing down, Yena?
Admiring the scenery. Aryl smiled. The snow made it impossible to see any distance. The ridge itself had vanished into bands of gray and white, along with the valley floor. Didn’t matter. With a flash of her inner sense, she knew exactly where Enris was: farther down the slope, but closer than before. He’d made up time while they’d stopped with Seru; possibly found a superior route.
If the Tuana outpaced her on the flat, he’d be insufferable for days.
She wiped drops from her face and climbed hurriedly after the others.
The storm eased to sullen misery for the rest of the afternoon. The snow became little more than an unpredictable nuisance, drops to splatter into an open eye or mouth, mounds to fill nooks and crannies, so already numb fingers must push into the cold wet stuff to find a sure hold. The wind fretted at them, poked through ill-fitting clothing, unerringly found whatever was damp.
The Yena exiles maintained their pace. No one called for a rest; no place offered shelter if they had. Aryl followed the trail left by the others, the shape of a booted foot pressed into melting snow, the dark stain of soil where someone had yanked free yet another tuft of vegetation in hopes of a warm, evening fire. These were the only traces held by rock and loose pebbles. She noted that, as she noted everything she could about this place. They had to learn to survive here.
They’d never last the journey to Rayna otherwise.
Gaining the high ground, Aryl paused to survey her surroundings before the plunge into the shadow of the next ravine. There were fewer such gashes in the mountain ridge this far up the valley; unfortunately, each was deeper and more treacherous to climb than the last. Aryl wasn’t surprised to see those in the lead, already halfway up the other side, were angling downslope as well, to where the ravine walls weren’t as rugged. At this rate, she thought ruefully, they might meet Enris after all.