There were secrets. Some doors couldn’t be opened. Some levels couldn’t be reached.
Secrets that could wait, all had agreed, until the vital spring seeding was complete.
All but two, she recalled with a grimace. Their pair of Grona Adepts had envisioned moving right in, eager to live apart from the rest and do whatever Adepts did alone.
Not, Haxel ordered in no uncertain terms, while Sona needed every hand to dig dirt and carry water. The Cloisters wasn’t going to feed them.
Naryn tilted her head just so. Impatience, by any measure.
What had she missed? “He saw her ‘come out,’ ” Aryl repeated, then blinked. “She can unlock the doors?”
“With no trouble at all.”
“Then Oran’s finally pregnant.” Aryl wasn’t sure how she felt about that, though it was, she realized with a wince, the right timing. The Adept and Bern had, to his obvious relief, finally consummated their Joining. Though she detested the notion, it was apparently her doing. She and Bern had been heart-kin, a connection that encouraged a certain resonance, Myris had explained, with dimples, when Aryl and Enris had so robustly consummated their own.
Enris, wisely, had refrained from any comment whatsoever.
“Seru’s problem.” Naryn dismissed the subject of Oran’s pregnancy with a callous shrug.
Aryl felt a rush of sympathy for her cousin. Well aware of the Adept’s opinion of her, Seru kept her distance. Now they’d be forced into one another’s company, for the sake of the unborn.
Pregnancy, however, didn’t explain why Oran would bother with locks. If anything, she ’ported more frivolously than the children. “Why the doors?”
Naryn’s smile was unpleasant. “Her friend can’t get in otherwise.”
“Hoyon.” Who had yet to ’port.
Like any Talent, there were those who took to it like breathing, those who struggled, and those who possessed no ability at all. The Adept could send objects into the M’hir, just not himself. His Chosen, Oswa, though less powerful, had needed only to share Aryl’s memory of how it was done.
How much of Hoyon’s “couldn’t” was fear? Not the first time she’d wondered that. For something this new, Adept training was of no use. There’d been no way to predict who of Sona would be capable or how the Talent would manifest beyond oneself. Touch mattered. Only Aryl could ’port another Om’ray through the M’hir without touching that individual, but she couldn’t do the same for an object unless she held it in her hands. Enris and Fon could send anything they saw into the M’hir, but not reliably bring it out again.
As for ’porting itself, Power made a difference: the weaker couldn’t travel as far as those stronger, though no one knew why. Aryl suspected a deeper instinct kept Om’ray from staying too long with the M’hir. That darkness was utterly strange. Terrifying, consuming, alluring. It took Power to stay sane amid its chaos, to forge a connection to another mind. All the while, time crawled, measured itself in that outpouring of strength, became finite. Overstay, and risk losing oneself.
She and Enris had yet to find limits to their range. Seru and a few of the others, including Haxel, could ’port no farther than the mounds. The rest practiced ’porting to and from the Cloisters’ Council Chamber, safe from watchers, when not working the fields. Or played ’port and seek to torment their elders.
Hoyon should be strong enough.
Fear, then. She and Enris had been driven into the M’hir by desperate need. Maybe they should find Hoyon his own crisis. At the thought, the free ends of Aryl’s hair lashed against her back.
The two Grona, busy inside the abandoned Cloisters. “What are they doing?” she puzzled aloud. “The place is empty.”
Its surroundings weren’t. The Oud gnawed at the nearby cliff with their machines, day through truenight according to scouts. The Stranger camp stood between that busyness and the grove around the Cloisters. It was no place for Om’ray to be careless.
“Someone should find out.”
Meaning her. Aryl glared. “Why me?”
Her friend merely smiled gently. You’re the one they fear.
Games. Fine for children, Aryl fumed to herself as she drew on her second-best tunic, then yanked free the Speaker’s Pendant to lie on top. Her hair shivered itself free of dust, then fought her attempt to bind it again. The stuff was every bit a nuisance. If she could, she’d shave it off.
The notion sent it writhing into her eyes.
Let me. Enris was behind her, as abruptly as the sun coming from behind a cloud. Aryl closed her eyes, feeling her hair ripple and wind itself through his fingers, cling to his wrists. Highly unfair, that it obeyed his touch and not hers.
Unfair . . . and delicious. Her bones wanted to melt. More often than not, this was where her hair escaped the net entirely, along with all responsible thought. Not this time. I have to deal with them.
“I know.” Aloud, to hide his opinion. Which, she thought with some asperity, told her anyway.
“I can’t leave it to Haxel,” she said, turning to face him. “Last time . . .”
His lips quirked. “What’s wrong with a turn at the watch fire?”
Aryl didn’t bother mentioning their restless sleep that particular truenight. Had anyone trusted the inexperienced Adepts to stay awake? “If there’s another confrontation, you know what’ll happen. Haxel will insist they go back to Grona. Cetto and Morla would agree in a heartbeat. The rest—?” They hadn’t had an issue divide them. She’d prefer to keep it that way. Sona’s numbers were too few, their cohesiveness as a Clan still fragile. “Having our own Healer is a comfort,” she finished lamely.
“We wouldn’t need a Healer if Marcus—”
“No.”
Aryl recognized the glint in his eye: one of her Chosen’s usually admirable qualities, that stubborn streak. “—if Marcus taught me to use his technology,” Enris went on as if she hadn’t objected. “You’ve seen it. Worin’s leg might never have been smashed. The Strangers’ healing machine is as good or better than anything Oran can do. Marcus would teach me.” If you asked.
Oh, she understood that desire. The wonders in Marcus Bowman’s camp by the waterfall tempted her as well. But the Human had agreed to let her and her alone decide how much contact he should have with other Om’ray. For good reason. Aryl pressed two fingers gently over her Chosen’s lips. We can’t rely on their devices. They won’t be on Cersi forever. We must depend on ourselves.
Enris caught her fingers, kissed them, held them in his. “And we will. The Strangers’ machine gives us time to find another Healer. Aryl. You must see it. Those Adepts have to go. Why wait for the next time they cause trouble? Sona won’t be whole as long as Oran and Hoyon fight you for leadership.”
“I’m not fight—” His smile stopped her protest; Aryl settled for glowering. “We can’t send them to Grona,” she said instead. “Oswa and Yao belong here, with us.”
“And Bern?”
Anything but a simple question. Enris was the most easygoing and charming Om’ray imaginable, willing and able to find the best in others, to inspire it. That he’d come to so thoroughly dislike Bern sud Caraat, her former heart-kin, had nothing to do with jealousy. Chosen, Joined for life, could have no doubt of each other. But distrust rumbled beneath the words.
And contempt.
Aryl leaned her forehead against Enris’ chest. “He was my friend.”
“Who smiles and whispers, and spreads doubt about everything you say or do, while Oran plays the noble Healer.”