He supports his Chosen. You do the same.
Not so. His big arms drew her close. I love my Chosen to distraction, but when you’re wrong—Aryl felt his deep laugh—I’m the first to tell you.
And you’re so perfect . . .
A rush of heat. “How right you are,” he murmured into her hair, which squirmed joyfully against its net. His hands began exploring.
Insufferable Tuana. “I’ll see you later,” Aryl told him, then concentrated and pushed . . .
Aroused, the M’hir’s heaving darkness was wilder than usual. No surprise, Aryl thought wryly in the brief instant before she emerged.
So was she.
Sona’s Cloisters didn’t rise on a stalk, like Yena’s, but rather sat on the ground like a discarded flower. Oud had thrown dirt against its windows and filled in the lowermost platform. They’d sought a way inside . . . curious about what none of their kind had seen.
Marcus Bowman was curious, too, but knew better than to attempt such trespass. He might hope for an invitation, but even if she could bring herself to consider it, her Human friend was no longer alone.
For the Oud had made a discovery in their cliff, drawing what Haxel and Aryl glumly considered too much attention to Sona’s remote valley. First had come the rest of Marcus’ new Triad, for the Strangers worked in threes, each with a specific task. In his words: Analyst, Scantech, and Recorder. Aryl had seen them from a distance. Not Human, unless they came in a wider range of body shapes than she’d appreciated; he’d explained once that each Triad had to have different species.
Only a few, those who were or looked Human, stayed past truenight; in that, Marcus managed to keep some order in his camp, or the prohibition against non-Humans too close to Cersi’s own races continued. A third building had gone up. More aircars came and went, even in storms, as if what had been found here mattered more than personal safety.
Not, Aryl thought with a sigh, that she’d noticed much concern for that in Marcus Bowman either. The Human made Ziba seem cautious, not to mention he could be distracted by a biter.
She delayed the inevitable.
Aryl brushed imaginary dust from her tunic. She’d ’ported inside the Council Chamber. Windows stretched to the high ceiling, their lower two thirds obscured by gravel and dust thanks to the Oud. The floor, which should gleam, was dull. No dust, as if the inside of the Cloisters cleaned itself, but no feet or cloth had burnished its surface for long years.
Eighty-three years, according to Marcus, had passed since Sona’s destruction by the Oud. That was his skilclass="underline" to follow trails through the past as a hunter would prey by the bend of a frond or an impression on bark. What Marcus and his fellows sought lay so long ago that—if she believed him—lakes and mountains had swallowed the remains of those who’d once lived on this and other worlds.
The Hoveny Concentrix, he called them. A vast civilization blending thousands of different kinds of beings that had failed long before the current blend of races, the First, laid claim to this part of space. Most recent of all, his kind, Humanity, with their far-flung Commonwealth. At this edge, a Trade Pact had formed with the First. Layer upon layer of civilizations, stretched through time as much as distance.
Enris found the concept fascinating.
Aryl found it troubling, if she thought of it at all.
Though it was hard not to think of the past, here, standing where unknown Om’ray had stood. Her sleep was no longer visited by their memories, the dreams a Cloisters sent to inform Choosers and Adepts at need. On the journey here, Seru had dreamed the death of Sona’s Om’ray, a warning to keep away. When they’d refused to take heed and settled in the ruined village, new dreams had shown them where to find food, as well as images of how the Sona had lived.
This had been a prosperous, advanced Clan. Every Sona, not just Adepts, could read and write. They’d lived in peace with their Tikitik neighbors, trading certain crops for wood for their homes, for the knowledge of how to make a difficult land fruitful. Numerous, too. Cetto estimated Sona’s village could have housed over a thousand Om’ray, and there had been a second settlement, outside the Cloisters, devoted to the aged and infirm.
No Clan boasted such numbers now. Pana came closest, at over seven hundred.
The dreams had ended—as if they should somehow have learned all that was necessary. But they hadn’t, Aryl thought, gnawing her lower lip in frustration. Was the purple plant a weed? Would summer here be hot and dry, or turn cold too soon? How did they preserve any food that grew? They didn’t know how the mounds worked, or if their once-opened doors could be resealed.
All of Sona had died when the Oud moved in to reshape their valley. Aryl’s darker imaginings suggested a second disaster, because the Tikitik and Oud lived in Balance, trading Om’ray Clans like baskets of fruit. No one knew of another lost Clan, which meant nothing. None had known of Sona either. When she’d led the exiles here, the Oud had claimed them. It hadn’t been long before the Tikitik had demanded and received that terrible compensation: the Oud reshaped Tuana, leaving only its Cloisters, and those sheltered within, unharmed.
Only the Cloisters.
Like Sona.
Aryl stilled, the way she would if she’d heard a strange sound in the canopy and waited to see if it was something with a taste for Om’ray flesh.
Last spring, she’d known the world was defined by Om’ray.
An illusion. Om’ray did not travel beyond their sense of one another and inhabited just this small corner of Cersi. Cersi herself was but a single small world; the stars overhead shone on more than she could count in a lifetime.
Last spring, she’d known a Cloisters was where Adepts practiced their Talents, safe from observation by Tikitik or Oud, aloof from the rest. A Cloisters was where Adepts added to a Clan’s record of names and Joinings, and where the aged and the Lost could live out their days in peace.
Was that illusion, too? Did Clans have Cloisters for no other reason than Om’ray were frail things and some must survive each change in their neighbors, Tikitik or Oud?
“Why?” Aryl asked. “What use are we to them? Why is there an Agreement at all?” The words rebounded from pale yellow walls and closed doors, hung at the ceiling as if searching for answers. Died into silence.
A silence broken by distant footsteps.
Abandoning questions about the past, Aryl sped in pursuit. Oran, at a guess. She favored the lighter footwear they’d found among Sona’s supplies. Hoyon preferred his Grona boots.
She knew her way. Like Speaker’s Pendants, every Cloisters followed the same design; she’d been in this part of Yena’s. As Aryl ran for the closest door to the corridor outside, she kept her shields tight, though she doubted either Adept would welcome contact with her mind. They’d tried to force the secret of ’porting from her once. Tried. That day, she’d discovered her mind could be a weapon as deadly as a longknife.
Naryn hadn’t been wrong about the fear between them, only in who felt it most.
A knife was clean, honest. What she could do—Aryl shuddered inwardly—what she could do if rage gripped her, if she lost all decent control, was an abomination. To rip apart who someone was and toss the terrified fragments of their aware mind into the M’hir . . .
She’d never do it again. She’d never let another Om’ray learn how.
A promise she couldn’t expect Oran and Hoyon to believe.
The corridor was lit by glows lining the junction of wall to ceiling, glows with no power cells to replace, as ordinary lights had. The floor, smooth and resilient underfoot, was of no material known to Om’ray. Every so often, the plain walls were broken by closed doors of metal, clear unbreakable windows, or by small metal frames surrounding disks and squares of unknown purpose.