Aryl found herself more worried for Naryn’s.
“The Choosers of my family have a reputation for being ‘noisy’ in their sleep,” she explained easily. “This will be my first chance to learn if I’m the same. You have exceptional shields, so I hope I can’t disturb your rest. You must be—”
“What are you doing here?” Almost an accusation. “You call yourselves Sona but you had a Parth Chooser—a Yena name. You had a home. You had a Clan. Against all custom and the Agreement, you chose to come here, defining this direction for all Om’ray with your presence, drawing Grona here, us. Why?”
Fair question. Aryl chewed her lower lip for a moment as she considered possible answers. But Naryn S’udlaat wasn’t any other Om’ray. Power radiated from her—controlled, trained. More than Oran or Hoyon. Likely more than her own. Naryn could be the first to learn to ’port through the M’hir, to help safely teach the others. She had to believe she was trusted and could trust.
The truth, then. “Yena’s Adepts decided to remove those with Forbidden Talent,” Aryl said bluntly. “Those who might risk the Agreement by daring to use their Power in a new way.”
“Remove? You mean exile?” Disbelief. “But you’ve children here, a pregnant Chosen—”
“Family didn’t matter. My own mother was one of the Adepts who tossed us from Yena.” Aryl tightened her shields, holding in the anger and hurt, but her voice was strange to her own ears, old. “They expected us to die. But we survived. We found this place.” And they would continue to survive, she vowed. “We’re Sona now.”
Naryn’s presence gained an easier feel, as if she’d heard something that reassured her—though what that could be, Aryl couldn’t guess. “The hoarding of knowledge should be Forbidden, not Power or Talent. Adepts keep too much from the rest of us, stop us from being all we could be. They have no right.”
Aryl looked up. “They protect their Clan.”
Naryn leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Do they? Or do they try to control us? Let me tell you why the other Tuana shun me, Aryl Sarc, because you and I have something in common. My mother—and father—are Adepts. And it was Tuana’s Adepts who made it impossible for me to stay there.”
A wet, dirty ball of scarf landed at Aryl’s feet, and Naryn’s glorious mass of dark red hair seethed with freedom.
Chosen. But not Joined to anyone here. How could that be? Unlike Humans, Chosen couldn’t be so far apart, not without agony. Unless—Aryl’s breath caught. Was Naryn like Taisal, having survived the loss of her Chosen, wounded to her depths…?
“Our Adepts forbade me to reveal myself.” Naryn rose, shedding blankets, her coat, the clothes underneath. “They called me ruined.” She stood, naked and perfect against the shattered beams and stone of Sona, her face set, without expression. The glows painted her full breasts and hips in light and shadow, drew a hint of curve between. “They don’t warn Choosers that if we try and fail our Choice, our bodies will not care. They don’t warn us that if we have no Chosen, our Power will seek elsewhere for its completion. They don’t warn us we will grow life within, and Join to that life.” Her long white fingers hovered over the faint swell of skin, their shadow partners like a stain. “No Chooser is to know. We would be too afraid…” Her brave voice failed and she began to tremble.
They were both outcasts. Aryl went to Naryn, threw a blanket around her shoulders, urged her down to the warmth of the rest, then held her as she shook. “Are you sure?”
Wasn’t it too soon? Those pregnant claimed awareness began shortly before their unborn was old enough to affect others unless shielded. In practice, some were a little slow. She wasn’t the only Om’ray to have inexplicable urges to change position or eat raw dresel near a mother-to-be.
Seru had said there were two unborn coming with the Oud.
“I thought it was Choice, at first. My body had changed—what else could it be? I told the Adepts to bring him back…that it had worked, that they had to let me—let us—be together. I begged them, Aryl, but they refused.” Naryn’s hair flailed against the blanket and Aryl’s arm; her body had grown still, warmed perhaps, or numb. “They already knew. Tuana’s Birth Watcher could sense the new life in me, that the bond I felt was a Joining not to another Chosen, but to this part of myself. That I was perverse. Ruined.”
Enris. Aryl trembled, suddenly sure. It had been Enris. Naryn was the Chooser desperate for his Choice. The one he’d resisted. The one he’d fled.
Naryn continued, her voice without emotion, her hair settling limp down her back. “The Adepts ordered me kept in the Cloisters, hidden from anyone else. A kindness to other Choosers. They said the birth would end my life, that if the child somehow survived it would doubtless be Lost, so I should hope it died, too.”
The sounds of wind and storm outside couldn’t touch the silence. He hadn’t known this, Aryl told herself. He wouldn’t have wanted this. No matter what Naryn had done or tried.
Then, with a hint of pride, “As if I’d let them dictate my fate. I went to the Councillor for his family and said I’d expose the truth—how I was going to die because of their unChosen’s failure to Choose—unless she helped me escape the Adepts. The old joop was glad to see me go. She brought me clothes, a pack, even gifts for my so-called Passage. That wristband. Neither of us could get a token, but she got me out of the Cloisters and arranged for Suen, my uncle’s heart-kin, to take me to the tunnels. Where I’d be now, if not for the Oud.” A bitter laugh that became a sigh. “As for the others? Menasel has the Talent to tell one Om’ray from another. The silly fool sensed me underground and convinced her cousin Mauro and the rest of his pack to follow. See where it got them?”
“They came to help you—” Aryl guessed.
“Hardly.” Naryn pulled free. “They thought I was sneaking down to make a trade with the runners and wanted to spoil it.”
“Why?”
“To punish me for taking up residence in the Cloisters, for being accepted as an Adept when they weren’t. For refusing to Choose Mauro—as if I could.” A pause. “To hurt me. Maybe that. Mauro has a taste for pain. I—I hope your Parth can handle him.”
Aryl couldn’t imagine any of it. She wouldn’t have believed any of it, except…she was a Chooser.
The imperative texture of the blankets beneath her hands…the depth of flesh warmed by the oilburner…the knife-sharp edge of every shadow…the music of their breathing…
Without warning, she felt everything, including the presence of those eligible unChosen the length of the rope away. Enticing.
Essential.
Her mother had felt this, her grandmothers, their grandmothers, generations stretching back through time she’d once never believed mattered, stretching ahead to create the future. All Choosers felt this…
“Aryl! Control yourself. Unless you want Deran and Ezgi breaking through what passes for the door.”
The slight rasp, the lilting cadence of the voice meant more than the words, meant less than what was building inside her. What had to be sent…
“Aryl!” There was pain now. “Show some sense!”
…and so she Called for the first time, a glorious outpouring of desire and longing through the M’hir, through space, across the world…
Slap!
Aryl’s head jerked back with the openhanded blow. Cheek stinging, she stared at Naryn. Embarrassment fought with affront.
“Now that was Power.” Naryn’s eyes were fever-bright. “I can’t believe anyone thought simply putting you out here would protect their sleep.” She laughed. “They felt that all the way to Vyna, mark my words.”
Embarrassment won. “I can’t—I can’t do that again.”