Another excellent reason to leave. A steady diet of the things and he’d become as thin as any Vyna.
He wouldn’t be able to leave unobserved. There were four “homes” and a storeroom between here and the outside. Vyna privacy was based on a deliberate turn of the head to not look directly at those already in a room—or those passing through—as if the pretense possibly mattered.
No one home in the first three. Enris opened the door to the next and strode inside. He’d never seen anyone there.
Until now. A smokelike mist, redolent with musk, swirled around the naked Chosen standing inside. She grabbed her cap from the table, fumbled it over her head. No pretense this time. She stared at him as he stared at her.
Who are you?
With a frantic gesture of apology, Enris hurried through, turned the next door, and bolted for the safety of the storeroom.
He slowed, tasting musk at the back of his throat. What had the Chosen been doing? He had a confused memory of…
A Call flooded his mind, pulled at his thoughts, twisted his senses. He stopped with his hand about to turn the door to outside. A Call from…
…the room he’d just left.
No. Impossible. He’d seen her. Too well. The swollen breasts and hips of a Chosen, a body ready to nurture new life. Her exposed hair had been strange, a thin pale fuzz like the coating of a fruit, but it had moved with her emotions.
He’d seen her.
The Call continued, stronger than Fikryya’s, than Seru’s. Despite his revulsion for all things Vyna, Enris hesitated, surprised by longing.
He had only to turn around. Go back through that door.
To what? What was she? A Chooser waiting for completion—or a Chosen half-thing? Or was this another aspect of Vyna, that their Choosers need not wait for Choice to mature?
Etleka claimed no father. Had he meant exactly that? No. Impossible.
Enris licked dry lips. Wasn’t it?
Did Vyna need the unChosen at all?
She did. She wanted him. Her urgent desire ached in his bones, fired his blood. Come back…let me offer myself…offer you Choice… Sweat stung his eyes as he resisted. Her Call, so close and powerful, weakened his shields, shook his hold on reality. The M’hir surged closer, pulled at his sanity, sang destruction…
No! He would not.
Rebuffed, the Call withered and stopped, a triumph of will over passion. He choked back a cry at its loss…turned the door and half fell through it…found himself…
Outside.
And ran.
Morning could be midday could be firstnight. The mist-laden water and clouded sky diffused light, confused all sense of time. His stomach helped, insisting he’d missed breakfast.
His pounding blood said he’d missed something else.
With an effort, Enris forced his thoughts away from the memory of her Call, of his ability to refuse it. She hadn’t sent again, perhaps stung by his rejection—Choosers, he’d noticed, didn’t take well to being spurned—perhaps gathering strength to send it again. If she did, could he resist her again?
Whatever she was.
Wrong to refuse, something inside argued. What was he waiting for? Enris suddenly thought of his cousin Ral, who doubted the next sunrise until he saw it for himself. He’d been fond of stories of unChosen who failed to find a Chooser. Their fate, according to these tales, involved a long and romantically miserable life made bearable by incredible feats of daring and accomplishment.
Kiric had lasted a year before walking off a Yena bridge. There, thought Enris bitterly, was the truth.
His own emptiness? He filled it with determination, with anger, with the need to help others. Made himself remember the pain Naryn had caused, when she’d tried to force him to answer her Call. With the terror of being lost in the M’hir, in that endless insanity of darkness…Should he add a new one? That his own ability might keep him from any Choice at all?
Enris broke out laughing. “Now I sound like you, Ral.” Who, for all he knew, had already Joined with sweet, if hiccup-ridden, Olalla. Besides, if he believed Etleka, he’d escaped a match that would have cost him dearly. He tugged his pants for reassurance.
Whatever else, he had to leave this place. To his inner sense, the Vyna were spread over more than the island. The denos-catchers were heading out in their floats, Daryouch and Etleka among them. Not that he planned an overwater route. Even if he could use his Talent to move one of the craft, the thought of what swam below?
No. A Tuana belonged on ground. Solid, flat ground.
Which meant a bridge. And he’d complained about Yena’s. At least they’d been wide, with rope rails.
Enris paused by one of the Vyna’s always-bright glows, gazed at it thoughtfully. “What powers you?” he asked it. No cell. No oil. But what?
The Vyna themselves? They used Power in novel ways.
Determined, if glad no one watched, he put his hand against its cool outer case. The light shone through his flesh, painting his fingertips pink. Cautiously, Enris lowered his shields, reached with the part of his mind that understood Power and objects, that could sense another’s touch.
Nothing.
What are you doing?
He tightened his shields and turned to face the sender, startled to have to look down. The mindvoice hadn’t felt childish. The shield he gently explored was as firm as any adult’s, yet this was a child too young to be away from her parent’s protection.
What are you? A miniature Fikryya, complete with the same haughty tone. She wore a shift, bright yellow, that went to her knees. A cap—also yellow—covered her head, answering his curiosity of whether all Vyna wore the things, although hers was adorned by black knotted fibers bound by wire in a tuft on top. Her slim wrists and ankles were covered in bands, not of metal, but of black thread strung through the eye sockets of white skulls, smaller than her fingertips. They were tied so they wouldn’t click against one another.
He went to one knee. My name is Enris Mendolar. What’s yours?
Tiny eyebrows collided. That’s not a real name.
Enris sensed her disapproval, as if he tried to make fun of her. He carefully didn’t smile. It’s not a Vyna name, he agreed.
A flare of curiosity, again with that unnatural control. You’re the one the esan dropped on the bridge. She eyed him up and down. You don’t look hideously deformed. This with distinct disappointment.
Very young, he decided, with growing concern. Let me take you to your mother.
Her eyes widened; he sensed alarm mixed with longing and a bitter resignation no child her age should be able to feel. I’m a fosterling. I’m not allowed near my mother.
Enris couldn’t contain his dismay at this; he didn’t try. That can’t be. Even as he protested, he reached.
The bond was there, between the child and her mother. It wasn’t the one he’d known, or what he’d felt between his new brother and Ridersel. Instead of that fierce, protective closeness, this burned with Power, as if ignited by the tension of distance, or as if both minds fed it strength to keep it alive.
And it felt like the connection Aryl had forged between them, in the M’hir.