“Aren’t they welcome?” She’d been afraid of that. How did ‘M’hiray’ appear to ordinary Om’ray?
And when had she accepted the distinction, too?
“Welcome?” Enris looked thoughtful. “No one’s said. That’s not why, though. It’s the connection you discovered, through the M’hir.” His hand sketched a link between them. “Turns out to be stronger than the link to other Om’ray. Anyone who leaves is drawn back.”
“You tried.” He wouldn’t take another’s word for something this significant.
“Yes.” His face turned bleak. “At first, I thought it was simply the instinct to return to my Chosen—not that I had to worry about your getting up to risk yourself anytime soon.”
Aryl snorted.
“But it was different,” Enris went on. “At Sona, with the others, I felt—it was like being back in the aircar. I needed to return. Though not as strong. Nothing,” he said soberly, “could be.”
That moment, that feeling. Aryl caught her breath. Was that when Om’ray had split in two?
“It has to be,” she said aloud.
“Has to be what?”
She could see it as surely as his dear face. “Stretch a rope too far and it becomes weak. When Marcus flew us over the mountains—what if it weakened our connection to other Om’ray? Enough so this new bond took over when we fell out of the world and were about to be—” What? Lost? Was that what lay beyond the world? Nothing but minds and selves dissolving in the M’hir? Aryl forced away the terrifying image. “When we went too far,” she finished, proud of her steady voice. “Without a strong link to other Om’ray, only our connection through the M’hir could save us. And it did. By pulling us together. All of us. Here.”
His eyes lit with comprehension. “Of course. The Cloisters where we practiced ’porting. Where Oran was the Keeper.”
“The Cloisters that shared her dreams with all of Cersi.” Aryl shook her head, but it wasn’t denial. “My mother told me a Cloisters affects the binding within a Clan. Sona’s is the only one tied to the M’hir.”
“Meaning we’re tied to it?” Enris shook his head. “I hope not. As it is, we’ll have to keep ’porting for supplies. We’ve nothing to trade with other Clans.” An abrupt, bitter laugh. “We’ll need those coats.” He hesitated. “Any chance you can tell the Oud to drain the lake?”
Aryl didn’t bother to point out that only her Chosen would think she’d remain Speaker with three older ones already vying for that position. Or that they had no idea if any Oud survived to do the repair. “If they don’t,” she told him, “we’ll have Tikitik for neighbors.”
“Tikitik?” He scrunched his face. “Wonderful. I doubt they’d let us go back to the old ways here—fire, living on the ground. Oh, no. There’ll be climbing. Next there’ll be biters. You know they prefer my skin to yours.”
He kept it light for her sake, Aryl thought. She moved to sit beside him, rested her head on his chest, and wrapped her arms around his middle. Her fingers didn’t meet. Their minds did, a deep mingling that couldn’t hide the truth.
If they were now M’hiray, not Om’ray . . . if their children would be . . .
Enris laid his hand over the swelling below her waist, spread his fingers as if to hold the small life within safe from the future, but neither of them could.
What would be the shape of their daughter’s world?
They wanted her in the Council Chamber. Haxel could have used her at Sona, gathering supplies. Husni, Aryl thought with wry amusement, would probably let her help with the interminable parches.
This was where she belonged. Aryl unhooked the blanket from the opening, letting in the warm midday sun. Only good sense, she’d told Enris, to find a quiet task that would let her body finish the recovery started by Oran.
He’d agreed without any remark about Yena durability or Yena pride. Meaning she hadn’t fooled him at all.
Asleep, the Human wasn’t peaceful. His mouth worked silently. His head rolled from side to side so she had to replace his pillows often. As for the tremble in his legs?
Understandable, for a broken mind to dream of danger and flight, Sian had told her. He’d relinquished his bedside place with reluctance. Her mother’s former heart-kin, like Yao, saw not a Stranger or a not-Om’ray, but someone in pain he couldn’t help.
She’d gestured gratitude with a sincerity the Yena Adept appeared to find startling. She should have trusted Taisal’s judgment, Aryl thought, embarrassed by her younger self.
Sian hadn’t left her much to do. Aryl rearranged the Human’s belongings on the crate-table: the sum of his possessions. A couple of small devices of unknown function, an ordinary-enough comb, a handful of the Human’s dreadful rations.
She pulled his image disk from her pocket. “I promised,” she whispered. Not that any of them were safe.
“What’s that?” Yao’s chin lifted from her knees. She sat on a pillow in a shadowed corner, so quiet and still Aryl had almost forgotten her presence.
“It holds images of his family.” Not knowing how to make it work, Aryl set it carefully by the comb. “His sister. His Chosen. Their young son and daughter.” His Chosen, being Human, wouldn’t die or be Lost when Marcus was gone. She’d have to live with her grief, and raise their children alone.
“Karina and Howard,” Yao said promptly. “Marcus told me. Howard gets into mischief all the time, like Ziba. Karina behaves. Like me.”
How well a baby could behave was an open question, Aryl thought, smiling to herself, but didn’t doubt the affection between Human and child. Or why Yao stayed by Marcus tenth after tenth, instead of playing with her friends.
Healers were rare among Om’ray. That important Talent showed itself first as an ability to sense who was injured or ill, a need to be near them. Costa’s Chosen, Leri, had been drawn to an injured scout, when only a child herself. Even if distressed their daughter was drawn to a Human, Yao’s parents should be glad for her future.
If Hoyon looked beyond his hooked nose, Aryl grumbled to herself. “You missed lunch,” she commented.
“Lunch?” Yao leaped to her feet, then looked at Marcus. “I’m not hungry,” she said bravely, sinking back down.
Unlikely. “Go.” Aryl made a shooing motion with her hands. “I’ll be here.”
The child disappeared with a grin.
Going back to the crate-table, Aryl laid out the scraps of fabric Enris had given her, the ones with words in Comspeak on them: Archivist Second Class Tomas Vogt, Archivist Second Class An Tsessas. She agreed with her Chosen; Marcus would want to know about them. She added the geoscanner. It was his, too.
“Don’t turn . . . on here, Aryl.” An urgent whisper. Brown eyes watched her. Had he been asleep at all?
Anxious eyes. “You’re safe,” she soothed. Something made her collect the fabric scraps before she sat beside him. “Those who took you are dead, Marcus. All of them. Their machine exploded like the vidbot.” If louder.
“Good,” with venom. “Thieves . . . killers.” Marcus made an effort to calm himself. “The machine is . . . called a starship. Aircar that . . . flies between . . . worlds.”
“Starship.” He’d used the word before. Aryl wasn’t sure she liked the sound of it, stars being among the untouchable confusions the Human so casually added to her life. “It wasn’t the starship you expected—the one to take you home?”
Definite offense. “No! Not mine!” A terrible cough. “Pirates!”
His language might sound right to her ears now. That didn’t, Aryl thought with some frustration, give her every meaning. She left the topic of “pirates,” sure it was a word to give Haxel later, and put the ’scanner on the bed. “Can you use this to call for help?”