“They care,” she assured the Tuana. Hadn’t an Oud spent days trying to dig into Sona’s? Wanted her help to enter?
Curious? Or something more?
Naryn smiled suddenly. “He liked you—all of you. Didn’t he?”
“Enris?” Aryl fingered the rope. “He was welcome.”
“Of course.” Her smile faded. “Enris could have been an Adept—should have been—but he didn’t want it. I did, and he thought less of me for it. For wanting to be powerful, to use my Talents. I shouldn’t have cared. I should have ignored him. He didn’t like me. Or my friends. He would never have come to my family to be my Choice. In front of everyone—he ignored me at Visitation—”
“We should get breakfast,” Aryl interrupted.
“You wanted to know why.”
Not anymore. “You don’t need to explain—”
“I do. I must. There was something about him I couldn’t ignore. You’ve met him—you know. When my time came, there wasn’t anyone else. I had to Call Enris. But instead of answering, he—he forced me away.” Naryn’s hair slithered over her shoulders. Her face, always pale, was like ice. “I hope you never feel pain like that.”
“Because he didn’t want you,” Aryl snapped. “You should have stopped. You should have let him go.”
“I couldn’t. He was pain and anger—” her voice broke, then steadied, “—he was everything wonderful. I had to hold on or lose him…but he was stronger. Too strong. He left me. Ruined me. I lost—”
“So did Enris,” Aryl snapped.
“I know.” Naryn lowered her shields, until Aryl felt sorrow laced with guilt, a growing determination. Then, You’re right, Aryl Sarc. We who can must protect our Choosers and unChosen, ease their Joining. If we don’t, we risk losing those of greatest Power. Like Enris and me. Like you.
There could be no lies here, mind-to-mind. Aryl knew, beyond any doubt, that Naryn cared about the future of their kind. However she’d come to this moment, whatever she’d done before, she would do anything to ensure no one else suffered as she had.
Could Sona ask more?
She wouldn’t.
Tell me about somgelt.
Before she Called again and someone answered.
Interlude
WHEN THE CALL STRUCK, ENRIS Mendolar was doing his best to sleep on top of a wall. Between the rumn and a healthy fear of rocks, he’d decided to wait out truenight where neither could surprise him. Aryl would have approved. His arm and leg dangled over the drop he hadn’t been ready to chance while exhausted—though given the mist, firstlight might not reveal much more of what lay below. Still, he hadn’t heard water, which meant solid ground. Probably. At firstlight, he’d…
The Call wiped every rational thought from his drowsy mind—including where he was and why standing suddenly would be a bad idea. He tipped, slipped, and dropped—not that he cared, his mind still caught by a Chooser’s NEED.
Unfortunately, the Call ceased before he hit the ground and Enris cared a great deal about the jolt of impact through every bone. He lay still, hoping his every bone wasn’t broken, and used the moment to gingerly explore the lingering taste in his mind.
Not the Vyna’s summoning.
Definitely not a succulent reflection of his mother’s cooking. This Call had been nothing so peaceful or welcoming.
It had been sheer demand, backed by extraordinary Power. Blunt, careless, utterly selfish.
Which didn’t mean his heart wasn’t pounding or that he wasn’t drawn to it. Irresistible. His right hand curled into a fist, denied.
Enris laughed, stopping when his body protested. Irresistible or not, he wasn’t going anywhere fast, for this new Chooser or any other reason.
“Now, where’s the door?”
The words bounced from walls to either side. Because he was in a narrow box. A warm, mist-filled, featureless box.
Could be worse. He would, if he walked in the only possible direction, put distance between himself and Vyna.
Could be better. No one chased him.
Ordinarily, Enris would take that as a good sign, but not here. They must have expected their locked door to hold him for the rumn—or for those who’d gladly feed him to the rumn, the result being regrettably the same. When he’d removed the door as an impediment, he’d expected to be chased by rumn-feeders. But not one Om’ray had followed him inside.
The hall had become a downslope tunnel—not a surprise. Of polished black rock, lit by those fire-powered glows—that had been, since there were no doors or intersections. Only a numbingly straight tunnel. He ran past a hundred glows before he slowed to a jog—after fifty more, he walked. After that, he stumbled forward, away from Vyna. Unpursued.
The first breaths of fresh, cooler air had been as good as a meal, a hint of natural light a lure. He’d found the strength for one more run, bursting from the tunnel into a narrow gap, sided in smooth black rock, roofed by a starred sky. Freedom!
Almost.
Too soon, the gap ended at another wall, this of cubes of black rock, providing ample hand-and footholds even for a Tuana. He hadn’t hesitated to climb, though it bore an unpleasant resemblance to the wall underground old Jenemir had shown him, the one that kept back molten rock.
At the top, seeing—or rather not seeing—what lay below, he’d wisely decided to take his rest before climbing down the other side.
Only to fall down it.
Still, as escapes went, Enris assured himself, growing more cheerful as he surveyed his new surroundings, he could definitely have done worse.
This was still Vyna. Their lights were embedded in the walls at waist height, a dazzling row reflected over and over in the polished rock. The mist that lipped against the wall behind him hung overhead like a ceiling, hiding any stars. Hiding him, too, he grinned.
Best of all, there were no suspicious rocks, only the solid slabs of black the Vyna felt were the appropriate construction material for everything. There wasn’t so much as a speck of dirt.
Enris started walking. The floor sloped downward, gently, no more than the tunnel. A good sign. With luck, he’d come out at the bottom of the mountain ridge, where reasonable Om’ray could walk in safety. Not to mention find a mountain stream with clear, lovely—
Crunchsnap!
He looked down and lost any cheer he’d felt.
It was a bone.
He looked ahead.
More bones.
Om’ray bones.
Scattered here. He kept walking, careful of his feet now, finding more and more until they lay in untidy heaps he had to step around. Most were old, weathered gray and brittle. Some were newer, bound together by wisps of skin and clothing. Was this how the Vyna disposed of their husks?
Something gleamed, and Enris picked it up.
A token.
There were more. Everywhere he looked, more.
These had never been Vyna.
He walked faster.
Yuhas, in a rare reminiscence about his life as Yena, had told him about a flower that produced an alluring scent, but when biters came within its petals, they slipped and fell into sticky liquid, to drown and be digested by the plant.
This, Enris decided, had been such a trap. UnChosen, drawn up the mountain by the lure of Vyna’s many Choosers, would have lowered themselves into this lighted gap, believing it the way to their desire. Once here, they’d find the walls too smooth to climb out, the door from the tunnel locked, and this.
Enris sighed and squatted on his haunches for a better look. The hole—there was no other word for it—was shorter than he was tall. Wide enough, but there’d be crouching involved.
The bars? He’d pushed them aside, fiercely glad to be the one to ruin the Vyna’s trap.