“Both!”
“I promise.”
If the words were less than steady, Seru pretended not to notice. “Good,” she replied. “I’d better get back. Hoyon claims it’ll be a bad storm. The undercoats, you know.”
“The undercoats,” Aryl agreed fervently.
Sona’s light, mobile clothing cut the wind, but did little to keep out the deeper cold. Seru had dreamed again last ’night, more productively than Ziba, who recalled only dreams with sweets. The loose white coats they’d guessed were for indoors or spring were meant to go under the windproof outer one. The combination was warmer by far, while easy to move.
Doubling the number of alterations needed. Sona, Aryl decided, seemed to do that to its new inhabitants. She glanced up the valley, coated in fresh snow. “A shame you don’t have them ready. Haxel’s sending me off again.”
“I heard. With the Grona. Enjoy yourself.”
Aryl gave her cousin a shove. “Go.”
About to drop to the ground, Seru paused. “What do you think of Hoyon?”
That the most dangerous fools were those who believed themselves right? That if he wasn’t a fool, he was something worse? Aryl settled for, “I think he should talk less.”
“He doesn’t talk to Oswa at all. Or Yao. Have you noticed?”
Chosen varied, but to ignore his own daughter? “That’s—” It was more than strange, as was his failure to help search for her. Om’ray parents, Adept or not, were close to their young children, whose maturing minds depended on theirs. “Yao’s different—” she began.
This gained her a fierce “Aryl Sarc!” A reaction she should have expected, Seru having been forced to leave her beloved baby brother in the care of the Uruus family. “Hoyon’s the one to blame here.”
“She is different.”
Deep offense. “A Tikitik is ‘different.’ Yao’s a wonderful child. Any family would be glad of her. You wait till you’ve one of your own.” Seru swung down and landed lightly, then walked away.
Yao was different, Aryl reminded herself. Perhaps enough to cost her bond to her father, if not her mother.
Another change, she thought, troubled. This one at the heart of what they were.
Chapter 12
“MUST YOU WALK SO quickly?” Aryl didn’t bother to answer. If the Grona couldn’t keep up, they could follow behind. It wasn’t as if she could lose them.
“Is there a reason you have us running?”
Because they’d wasted the entire morning?
Aryl eased her pace, slightly, and glanced over her shoulder. “Recognize those?” she said, pointing at the snow-cloaked lumps to either side.
Hoyon, red-faced and panting, gave her a sour look. “Rocks.”
“That’s what they’d like you believe.”
His eyes widened.
“We’re safe in daylight—as long as we keep moving.”
Oran, head bundled in bright Grona scarves so only her eyes showed, merely lengthened her strides.
Just the three of them. Bern, who had been Yena and—however reluctantly—a skilled maker of rope and ladders, had, in Haxel’s unarguable opinion, use. The trip itself was, also in her opinion, safe. After all, if there were Oud, who else could talk to them but their Speaker?
If she’d looked a little too pleased with herself, not even the Adepts had dared protest.
Aryl had been tempted.
They were already at the second arched bridge. The sun was overhead, turning shadows an impenetrable black, reflecting from snow piles with painful intensity. Exposed stone sparkled like the wings of the flitters that flew highest in the canopy. Stark. Beautiful.
Sona’s valley was never the same twice. A lesson, Aryl decided, to be remembered.
“Are you taking us to the end of the world?”
Not far enough, she thought. “We’re close. Feel the waterfall?” She could, drumming through her thinner boots. They looked puzzled. “We’re close.”
“And you’re sure the Cloisters is intact?” Every word from Oran had been variations on that theme. “You should show us.”
Lower her shields to these two? “You’ll see for yourselves soon.” Aryl turned away and resumed walking, faster than before.
As if she could outrun them.
Snow could lie. It coated the hill of bone and shattered homes, blurring its shape, hiding its source. The Grona thumped and scrambled up the slope on their too-big boots, oblivious to what lay beneath, their labored breaths puffing in the cold air. Aryl didn’t bother to tell them they climbed on Sona’s first Om’ray. They wouldn’t care if they knew. What Om’ray would?
She’d become strange, she thought without regret, and made her steps soft.
The waterfall was even more impressive under a clear sky, its vast weave of plumes distinct and white against the spray-dark cliff. Aryl tilted her head but couldn’t see its upper reach through the mist at the top. The sun, she decided, must pass through it.
Straight ahead, she spotted the arrangement of ropes and wood Rorn’s group had constructed—while she waited for Oran and Hoyon—to take advantage of the nekis stalks leaning into the pit. They could suspend containers out in the falling feathers of water, catch what they could, then haul them back to empty into waterproof bags. They’d passed them, Rorn and Syb, the three unChosen, on the way back, bent under their loads. The five reported seeing no other life. She’d trusted Marcus to stay out of sight.
Veca and Tilip were working on a cart. Once finished, it would help only if they could get it close to the water. Aryl tucked her lower lip between her teeth as she considered the problem. Impossible to haul anything with wheels, as Enris had shown them, over this loose, rubble-strewn hill.
It would be possible if they went around the hill, to the side of the waterfall beyond the Cloisters, where the nekis had never grown along that edge, or had been removed by the Oud. Easier access to the water itself as well. Aryl flushed. Too easy, for a fool running in the dark.
The grove was in the way. She grinned. They could copy the Human. Cut their own path around the hill.
Cut down nekis?
When had she started thinking like those who lived on the ground?
When it became their new home, she told herself sternly.
Hoyon stopped, shading his eyes with one hand. “I don’t see the Cloisters. We’ve come too far.” There was a tremor in his voice Aryl understood. Hadn’t she felt the pull of other Om’ray fading as she moved farther and farther away?
It no longer bothered her.
Perhaps, despite all appearances, he missed his Chosen and daughter. “Don’t worry,” she said, finding it odd to reassure an Adept. “The world doesn’t end. Not yet. There are mountains beyond this. The waterfall comes from them.”
“Were you taught nothing at Yena? The waterfall comes from the Village of the Moons,” Oran stated, as if to a child, “where the Sun rests its fire in its hearth by night. There are no more mountains. The world—” her eyes narrowed, “—ends at that village. Hoyon’s right. There’s no Cloisters here. Take us back.”
Some things weren’t safe to argue. “We’re close now,” Aryl replied calmly. “Beyond the nekis.”
That drew a frown. “These can’t be what you climbed.”
“Yena’s are taller.” The Chosen of Bern Teerac. What other memories did she have? Doing her best not to wonder, Aryl led the way down the hill to where the grove began.
The growth, though stunted and bare, warmed her heart. Her fingers lingered on snow-dappled buds, the promise of leaves to come. No path here between the tight-growing stalks. She slipped out of her coat and hung it beside the one she’d left two days ago, offering not a word of explanation.
She glanced at her companions, waiting. Neither Hoyon nor Oran were heavy by Grona standards; they weren’t Yena-slim. Those stuffed coats made them twice as wide. As for the scarves?
Realizing what she expected, neither Adept appeared happy.