Safer to ’port back to Sona than risk climbing the canopy. Safer to stay distant, than risk the touch of an Adept. Aryl kept those hard thoughts private. This caring between them, this honesty, was an untried rope. I’ll be careful, Mother, she sent instead, and concentrated.
Yena disappeared . . .
... and she was gathered close by someone else, who seemed determined to prevent her taking a full breath.
Which was fine by her.
Oran.
Aryl had shared her memory of Taisal with Enris as he’d cradled her in his lap. Now, she felt the rumble of his voice through his chest. “That, we do together.”
She stiffened. “I made her Keeper.”
He laughed gently. “Oh, I’m sure she’d have found her way around Hoyon somehow. But it’s not our Adept who troubles me, Sweetling. It’s what she can do. Dreaming between Clans? Either it’s a new Talent, or the Adepts of Cersi have more in common than their attitude.”
Not a comforting thought. Aryl sighed. “Let me deal with one problem at a time. Sona’s—”
“Aryl. Are you in there?” Seru’s voice.
“That’ll teach you,” Enris whispered in her ear.
Aryl squirmed with sudden guilt. We should be hauling water.
We will. His fingers found a ticklish spot and she stifled her giggle against his warm skin. That’s better.
Better than the grief and melancholy that had overwhelmed her when she’d returned. There still, but deeper, freeing her thoughts. What about the M’hir? she sent.
“Enris—I saw you come in here.” An impatient creak as Seru pushed at their closed door.
The M’hir is a tool like any other, he replied. We’ll learn to use it safely. We must. It’s too important to abandon. You know that.
“Is Aryl with you? I need her.” Another, firmer creak.
She let him feel her doubt. As she rose from his lap her hair lingered on his shoulder, drew soft whorls along his neck. Their eyes met. Out loud, she said, “I’m coming, Seru.” Beneath,
What I know is our ignorance. What’s important is our children never suffer because of what we do.
Seru took her arm the moment Aryl stepped outside, waves of worry and consternation pouring through the physical contact. “Over here,” she said urgently, not apologizing for the familiarity. In fact, she used her grip to tug Aryl away from the building, in the direction that led . . . well, Aryl thought, puzzled, it led nowhere. They didn’t travel down the valley anymore.
“What’s wrong?”
Seru let go, but kept walking at a brisk pace. “A little farther.” She took Aryl to where the paving stones of the road lay heaved and tossed—where the Oud had set up barriers to trap any Sona trying to flee—then stopped to sit on one of the larger stones. Her hair squirmed under its net. “It’s about the baby. She’s coming too soon.”
This, on top of Taisal’s warning, brought Aryl to sit beside her cousin. “Mine?” she asked anxiously.
“No.” Green eyes widened. “Why would you think so?”
Never rush Seru, especially when she was agitated, as now. “Forgive me, Cousin,” Aryl said, fighting for patience. “What did you come to tell me? And why here?”
“Here is where I can’t hear the baby.”
“Which baby?” She’d been gone less than a tenth. Aryl vaguely remembered Juo’s gasp in the meeting hall, but birthing couldn’t be that fast. Could it? “Juo’s?”
“Of course, Juo’s. The baby’s impatient. It’s the wrong time.”
“Are you sure?”
Seru shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I believe—when I tried to convince her to relax and wait, that’s when I discovered something.” She drew up her knees and looked miserable. “The baby won’t listen to me!”
“Are you doing it right?” Whatever “it” was. Aryl had to admit she knew almost nothing about Seru’s special Talent. Oh, everyone knew Om’ray births often required a Birth Watcher to convince the baby to relinquish its tight hold on its mother. Otherwise—there was no otherwise. The baby had to be willing to be born. Or, apparently, not to be born. “It’s your first time—”
This drew a withering look. “I’ve helped my mother since I was four, Aryl di Sarc. You know that. This is . . . Juo’s baby is different.”
“Different?” Did being pregnant herself explain why the word twisted inside her? “Is she all right?”
“Healthy, yes. But the baby—Aryl, she’s only aware of her mother. She can’t sense other Om’ray. She can’t believe me. What do I say to such a child? How do I tell her she won’t be all alone when she leaves her mother, when she always will be?”
Another one?
Aryl shivered, though the slanting sun was warm on her skin. “We need Oswa,” she told Seru.
Oswa di Gethen, who’d given birth to a daughter with the same affliction.
Yao.
By dint of hard work—and a plentiful supply of weathered wood and rock—Sona could boast that each pair of Chosen, and their children, if any, had a home of their own. The Yena unChosen—Cader, Fon, and Kayd di Uruus—shared one building and had invited Worin Mendolar to join them, much to the young Tuana’s joy. Oran’s brother, Kran, stayed with Deran di Edut of Tuana, when not with his sister. The di Licor sisters would have happily moved away from their parents also, but when they were not scouting with Haxel, their mother kept them close. Not Choosers yet—but soon.
Myris would have known, Aryl sighed to herself. Beko di Serona would be first, already prone to such wild swings of mood that Husni suggested she move to the other side of the valley until Chosen. Instead, she lived with Menasel and her Chosen Kor d’sud Lorimar.
Only Naryn lived alone. She had kin. Her cousin Caynen di S’udlaat was Joined to Yuhas, once of Yena. But the invitation to live together hadn’t been offered. Aryl wasn’t sure if it was Yuhas, who was Enris’ closest friend at Sona, or Caynen, with her own reasons.
The homes were small by Grona standards, adequate by Yena. Aryl didn’t know what the Tuana thought, though Enris muttered about improvements—usually after he bumped his head on the lowest end of their roof. As “improvements” required materials they didn’t have at Sona, she tended to ignore him. Every home had the essentials: a door, walls, and roof. Some had a window opening; all had a hearth for a fire and a hole in the roof for its smoke. Floors were dirt or uneven paving stones. Better floors could wait until they had food growing between their homes.
Gijs and Juo had built a bed platform and roughed a table and bench. For the baby, Haxel, being Juo’s closest relative at Sona, had given the Chosen her cloak. The cunning fabric, tightly woven from wing thread, was both light and waterproof. It made a fine hammock.
A touch of home in a place not yet one, Aryl thought, de terminedly looking away. Four of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder by Juo’s bedside: she and Seru, Naryn and Lymin di Annk. All pregnant and offering support.
All worried this might happen to them next. That, they didn’t say.
Here. The door opened, cooler air swirling around their ankles. Oswa and Gijs. She looked ready to bolt the other way; he looked desperate.