Not every rastis endured. Yena knew it. Add any weakness, be it damage from crawlers or rot, to the weight of vines? A canopy giant would bend to the M’hir Wind . . . and fall. Killing everything that lived within its fronds.
A warning to heed, for the life inside her, for the mind Joined to hers, for everyone she cared about. Aryl found herself sitting up. I am not weak. To herself as much as Taisal.
You never will be. Which is why we depend on you, Daughter. A burst of warmth, quickly replaced by urgency. Are you ready? It’s almost time.
Aryl rose to her feet. “Yes.”
She turned from the Human’s husk and walked outside.
And found Naryn.
She stood alone, half shadowed by the wall of crates. Her hands were at her sides. Her hair, free of any restraint, had confined itself in a coil around her neck. Red, like blood.
Naryn, here’s Aryl! She can help! Beneath Anaj’s mindvoice surged desperation. Aryl, something’s wrong.
Aryl couldn’t move. She didn’t dare. Rage choked her. Blinded her. Naryn had betrayed Marcus.
Hadn’t they all?
Those who’d come in their starship to kill and destroy. Those who’d taken his trust and tried to steal his life’s work. His friends. Who hadn’t failed him?
Aryl. LISTEN! You have to help Naryn.
Who didn’t move. Perhaps didn’t dare. The edge was that close, Aryl thought with her own desperation. If either of them moved, there’d be no stopping—
FOOL! Harsh, with all the Power and fury of a full Adept. Aryl gasped at the impact, her thoughts scattered. The Human was no victim, not in this. It was his will to be scanned. He told Enris you were wrong. Insisted it be done for the good of the M’hiray. For your good.
“He was out of his mind!” Aryl couldn’t take her fingers from her longknife. “He was dying!”
Naryn had to hear, but there was no change in her face, cut in half by light. Her visible eye gazed into the distance, glittered blue with the lake’s reflection. It was as if Aryl wasn’t there at all.
Dying, he made more sense than the entire Council. Don’t waste his courage.
“Why are you here?” She’d begged Enris to take Naryn away, to keep her away.
Because we need you! Naryn’s trapped in the Human’s memories. You have to help. It’s your fault, Aryl di Sarc. You pulled them apart. What were you thinking?
“I wanted to kill you.”
And almost killed your Chosen, Anaj chided. What good would that have done, I ask? Bad as a Xrona, hands first and head second, if you use heads at all. Help Naryn out of this tangle. Or will you waste what Marcus Bowman suffered to give us?
Stung, Aryl opened her mouth to protest, then abruptly closed it.
She knew better than anyone the Human’s ability to persuade others, to convince them the very world wasn’t what they believed. She knew his courage.
Enris and Naryn would have worried not only about harm to Marcus, but about her reaction.
Which, she flushed, came close to as thoughtlessly violent as the Old Adept said.
I am a fool, Anaj.
Yes. But apologize later, with an undercurrent of fear Aryl couldn’t ignore. Whatever held Naryn in this state, it was beyond the Old Adept’s ability.
Hopefully not beyond hers. Aryl took Naryn’s limp hand in hers and reached carefully, lowering her own shields. Nothing of Naryn blocked her way.
Nothing of Naryn could.
For her mind was crowded. Blurred faces, bodies pressed one to another, voices overlapping in confused shouts and whispers. Too many to count. Too many to exist. There couldn’t be this many Humans in the world, Aryl thought in horror. There wouldn’t be enough air to breathe! Not only Humans. Other kinds of faces and bodies tumbled and oozed and insisted they be remembered.
ENOUGH! Aryl shouted. Somehow, she pressed them back, sent them away! They tattered and spread apart, like spray from a waterfall, to disappear into the depths.
Until a single form remained, standing alone. Before he could turn, before she had to see him again, Aryl retreated, rebuilding her shields.
“Aryl?” Sanity in Naryn’s eyes at last. And an understandable caution.
“It’s all right.” Aryl threw her arms around her friend, who stiffened as if expecting to be thrown to the platform again by a maddened Yena. “It’s all right.” You did what I couldn’t have done, she sent. Marcus was right. Heart-kin.
Arms crept around her, tentatively squeezed back.
Sorry about the hair, Aryl added.
You should be. Naryn pushed away, but gently. “He saw beyond the mountains, Aryl. I have those memories.” She rested her hand on the crate wall. “And these.” This with innocent wonder. “The Hoveny.”
If she remembered that, but not the unsettling mass of Humans, Aryl decided, well enough. “We’re needed,” she said quietly, feeling Anaj’s emphatic agreement. “But first—” she nodded to the shelter.
“He’s gone, then.” Naryn’s hair loosened from her throat to hang in limp waves. She touched the bloodstain on Aryl’s tunic. “You didn’t kill him, heart-kin. We all did.”
Together, they went into the shelter. Aryl wrapped his few belongings in the Human’s Om’ray-shirt, and put that in his hands. All but the image disk. Answering an impulse she didn’t try to name, she tucked the device in her pocket.
Then Naryn pushed the husk of Marcus Bowman, their friend, into the M’hir.
As the blanket slumped flat, Aryl concentrated . . .
The urgency she’d sensed from Taisal and Anaj was everywhere. When Aryl appeared in the Dream Chamber, she could feel it pulse against her shields. Urgency, but no panic. The minds around her brimmed with purpose and determination.
The M’hiray were leaving.
She’d gone first to the small room with their belongings to change clothes, careful to transfer Marcus’ image disk to a safe pocket. Now, she needed Enris. He was here, her inner sense told her.
And he was.
Complete with an angry red line scoring his left cheek, every bit as long as the scar on Haxel’s.
“About that—” Aryl began as he approached.
The rest was lost against his mouth. They held each other as if they’d been apart years instead of moments, emotions surging back and forth between their minds until they blurred into one, filled with grief and sympathy . . . remorse and understanding. Love, most of all.
When they finally moved apart, Enris regarded her somberly. “You told me Marcus could change the world with his words. And he did. He said there were no Tikitik or Oud beyond the mountains. No Om’ray. Aryl, he knew where we could go. He knew we should. We owe him whatever future we have.”
“A future he died for.”
Her Chosen’s dark eyes held hers. “There are worse deaths than the hand of a friend. A very quick friend,” he added with a slight shudder.
“You were there?”
“For all of it.”
Aryl scowled. “Prying.”
“Being the Chosen of Aryl di Sarc.” The hint of a smile. “Something that requires extraordinary ability and courage.”
He could add good reflexes, she thought. Without them, that slice would have been something far worse. Aryl leaned her forehead against his chest for an instant of mute apology, then stood back. “What happens now?”