“Mother.”
“Come to explain yourself ?”
“Explain myself?” Hard to frown with dignity while biters feasted on her ears, but Aryl did her best. “It’s your turn for that. I know Yena’s Cloisters has a Keeper; someone who controls the dreams of your Adepts. Why dream to exile us? Don’t tell me it was to protect Yena from the Tikitik. There had to be an Om’ray purpose. Why?”
The very essence of dignity, Taisal lifted an eyebrow. “While I, Daughter, want to know why Yena’s Adepts now dream of Sona.”
Her heart thudded in her chest; could her mother hear it?
Oran.
It had to be. She’d succeeded after all, but told no one. Instead of controlling Sona’s Cloisters to dream of what might help her own Clan, somehow she was reaching out to others. But why? Aryl swallowed bile. “What do you dream?”
Distaste. “Walking on dirt. Cold. Darkness. Oud.” Taisal’s shields tightened until she seemed to disappear. “And what you can do. All of you.”
Not the time to admit “all” was an exaggeration. Not the time to vent her fury at Oran di Caraat or try to comprehend what the Adept might have hoped to accomplish.
“It wasn’t our doing. But—”
Her mother knew. Everything.
Relief made Aryl shake. She found words spilling out, urgent, important. “It means safety for everyone. Once every Om’ray can ’port, unChosen won’t have to risk Passage. We can travel wherever we want as easily as breathing. Share with each other. Once the other races accept it—”
“They won’t. They can’t.”
“The Oud have—”
“Some Oud—” disgust, “—Sona’s Oud. You’re a Speaker, Aryl. You of all Sona should realize just because the not-real look alike doesn’t make them the same. And what of the Tikitik? What of the Strangers? Will they let Om’ray become independent? Let us ascend to a power of our own? Shatter the Agreement?” Every word calm, measured. Aryl could hardly breathe. “Even if they do, for reasons of their own—” Taisal paused. Her hand grasped air and threw it aside. “Om’ray won’t.”
“Sona—”
“One Clan. What of the rest? What of those Om’ray who can’t do this—this ’porting? What of those who will not? Who rightly fear the Dark. Would you force them? Is that why you’ve made us dream?”
“I didn’t—” To Aryl’s dismay, her voice came out sullen, like a child’s. She did her best to modify it. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Those who can’t—others can do it for them. Those who won’t—” she didn’t finish.
Taisal did it for her. “—will if they must? Do you hear yourself? You would split our kind in two. Not Yena.” The words echoed along the bridge. “We will protect ourselves. Sian spent much of his life searching for ways to protect Om’ray from the Dark. Now he works to help us resist the urge to step into it, awake or asleep. We will keep even those who might be tempted safe from your—” her lips twisted, “—M’hir.”
Sian d’sud Vendan. Her mother’s heart-kin, before they’d Chosen otherwise. He’d come to the Sarc home regardless, stay till firstlight with Taisal debating this or that obscure detail about the Power and its use. She should have listened, Aryl thought desperately. Here was expertise, where she least expected it. Someone to guide their exploration of the M’hir. “We could use his help,” she began, unconsciously fingering her Speaker’s Pendant.
“To stop this?” Taisal stepped closer, her eyes alight. “Is that what you’re saying—is that the reason for the dreams? That Sona calls out for help, before it’s too late? Or is it already too late?” She lifted her hand to trace the curve of Aryl’s cheek in the air, then let it fall to her side. The relief in her face became something else. Dread. “Who?”
“Ael.”
Myris . . . ? They’d worked together to save her once; Taisal had helped pull her sister’s mind from the M’hir . . .
GRIEF howled through it now. It tore at them both—or did they feed it, mind-to-mind, for an endless moment, until it united them . . . the who-I-am of mother and daughter blurred together . . .
An echo. Enris, carefully distant. Carefully present.
Aryl reached for their link, used it and his strength to pull away from her mother. But not completely. She looked at Taisal, blinked tears to see her more clearly, and finally saw the truth.
Taisal di Sarc, who’d held to life and sanity when her Chosen died, hadn’t escaped the M’hir at all. She existed there. Only a constant outpouring of Power kept her here, too, and whole. It wove a net of connections that held Taisal’s mind together, connections on a level Aryl had never sensed before. She doubted her mother even knew. But they were there, binding Taisal to Aryl, Taisal to every Yena. More tenuous, still strong, Taisal to the exiles.
Immense Power, so much that the small fragment free of the struggle was enough to make Taisal an Adept. But if she weakened, if she gave up, she would be Lost.
And along came her daughter, romping through the M’hir like a child swinging on vines, playing with death. Causing it. A son, now a sister. Ripping Yena apart. Now, risking it again.
Was there any way she hadn’t failed her mother?
“Forgive me.”
Hush, child.
Sian knew, Aryl realized suddenly. He must. His study of the M’hir was no idle curiosity; he wanted to help Taisal. Were all Yena’s Adepts involved? Had her daughter’s exile been forced on Taisal for her own protection?
Was it her fault, as she’d believed?
They held no shields against one another; thoughts mingled. Aryl was surrounded by compassion and a hint of irony. “It’s not about us, Daughter,” Taisal said gently. “Other than Sian, it never was. It’s about saving the Chosen. Don’t you see? The rest think if they understand me, they’ll be able to prevent others from being Lost. Myris—” a flare of heartrending sorrow, “—might have saved herself, if she’d been able to break her Joining to Ael in time.”
NEVER!!! Throwing up her shields, Aryl clung to Enris with all her strength, rejected any thought of life without their bond. Without him.
Here, he sent, confused and alarmed. I’ll always be here.
Taisal’s smile was the saddest thing Aryl had ever seen. “Which is what I’ve told them—so very many times. They’re fools. Who would want to be as I am?”
Aryl took a shuddering breath, then another, easier one. The instinct to protect their Joining had her heart hammering in her chest, but she fought to overcome it. This was her mother. The words weren’t a threat. The idea—her breath caught, but she forced herself to continue—was important. To make a second Choice: follow a Chosen to his or her fate, or decide to survive. The loss it would spare a Clan . . .
Could she?
Her hands pressed over the life within her. For that life, Aryl realized with an inner shock, she might. She gestured a profound apology. “I’ll stop the dreams. Whatever happens to Sona, Yena shouldn’t be forced to face the same decisions—or risks.”
Taisal’s eyes glittered. “Do that, Speaker, and we will share whatever we know to help you protect yourselves.”
“Why were we exiled?” Aryl said softly. “Will you share that?”
A shadow seemed to cross Taisal’s face. “We don’t know,” she admitted at last. “A Keeper doesn’t control the dreaming, Aryl. Only makes it possible. Tikva could say only that the dreams came from the Cloisters itself. Ours . . . were terrible. Yena ended. The Cloisters, empty. You and the exiles survived, we could see that, but we had no way to know which was cause, which effect. We were being warned, that was all. Was it something to do with the Agreement? Perhaps. About the Dark—the M’hir? That’s what I believe. Still believe. You must stay out of it.” Fear. “If not for yourself, then for her.” Her hands reached, as if to gather Aryl close.