“Have you dreamed?” Aryl asked, guessing the answer.
Oran’s lips pressed together.
Which meant no. She resisted the urge to shake the other. The Grona Adepts’ hoarding of secrets made everyone’s life more difficult, including their own. Her hair slithered restlessly over one shoulder. She mollified her tone—the hair being another matter—and allowed sincerity and concern past her shields. “How can the rest of us help?”
“The others can’t.” Oran smoothed the robe over her knees, traced a curl of embroidery in the fabric, her gaze intent on those actions. “You might,” she said after a long moment.
Aryl carefully tightened her shields, particularly those which—sometimes—kept her dear and ever-vigilant Chosen from sensing her reactions. Amazing, the self-control their Joining had taught her. Among other things.
She coughed and focused. “How?”
Oran turned her hand. Its calluses were hardened now, no longer red and swollen. She’d learned their value. “Come with me.”
Courage indeed. Without hesitation, Aryl touched her fingertips to the other’s palm.
The chamber disappeared . . .
. . . to be replaced by chaos.
Aryl blinked and stood. Oran remained seated, head down, face in her hands. She’d used the last of her strength in the ’port.
A ’port into a stinger nest, Aryl decided. One just prodded with a stick. Her. Angry voices crossed from every side. Suspicion and fear rilled from mind to mind. “Fool! Why did you bring her here?” “She found us!” “Can’t trust her! Send her away!” “Oran, did she hurt you?”
The last, from Bern as he dropped to his knees before his Chosen while giving her a scathing look, was more than enough. Aryl sent a snap of irritation. Deran cried out. The rest fell silent and stared at her.
In the respite, doubtless brief, Aryl surveyed the strange room. What was this place? As large as the Council Chamber. An entire Clan could fit in here. The construction matched the rest of the Cloisters, plain yellow walls and resilient floor, but the windowless walls were broken by narrow doors, five evenly spaced along each long side, two on each shorter one. The lighting came not from ceiling strips but from panels behind knee-high platforms.
The platforms. Oran and she had ’ported to sit on one; there were more. Far more. Oval in shape, they lined the walls, each topped with a soft pad of some brown material she’d never seen before. Beds, Aryl decided. For the Adepts? She’d believed her mother had had her own room, sparse but comfortable. Had she been wrong?
Yena had thirteen Adepts. There were beds here for many times that number.
The two closest bore additional blankets, familiar ones. They’d come from the storage mound. As had, Aryl frowned, the incongruous pile of dishes, pots, and—yes, that was one of the oil heaters used for cooking—on the floor. The bulging sacks leaning against the wall doubtless contained food as well as extra clothing. The Tuanas’ doing, she guessed. No Yena would take from his own.
Yet two were part of it. Gijs had the grace to flush a dark red. Bern, preoccupied with his weary Chosen, paid no attention. Fools. She restrained her temper. “How can I help?”
Hoyon sank down on the bed behind him. His hands trembled. “You can’t.”
“You don’t belong here.” This from Menasel.
Aryl smiled her mother’s smile. “Neither do you. Them—” with a nod to exhausted Adepts, “—I can understand. Why are you here? Or you, Gijs. Kran. Deran. Bern. Someone else does your share of the work right now.”
Deran scowled fiercely. “I’m no digger in dirt.”
“What do you plan to eat next winter?” Aryl found herself honestly curious. The Tuanas of Sona shared a past and future, but remained distinct: Naryn and the Runners, who worked as hard as any Yena, and Deran and his once-privileged kin, who had the oddest notion they should be entitled to not work at all. The two groups spared no words or kindness for one another.
Oran lifted her head, golden hair flooding over her shoulders. “Peace, Aryl. They work here, for us. We must concentrate on our task; we are helpless while dreaming. Without any Lost—” A shrug.
As if it was a detriment, not to have mind-shattered Chosen to serve her. And she never would, Aryl hoped fiercely, though what she could do against a fact of Om’ray life was beyond her imagining. The death of one of a Joined pair meant the loss of the other’s sense of self, if not another death. The only exception had been her own mother, Taisal. “You brought me here, Adept,” she stated grimly, regretting that decision. Though now she could return to this sanctum of theirs at whim; from the unsettled feel of their Power, the others realized it too.
Hoyon scowled. “Why, Oran?”
Oran gestured a perfunctory apology. “You need more than I can give you.”
That was it? Oran wanted her to restore Hoyon’s strength with her own. Aryl’s hand wanted to find the hilt of her longknife. Not helpful. She rested her fingers on her belt. “Strength for what?”
“The Cloisters must accept him—” Oran flinched and fell silent, but her eyes were hot.
Aryl had felt it, too. A crack of Power, stinging even to those not its target. Oran wasn’t the leader of this pair, as she’d believed. Hoyon d’sud Gethen was.
Leader of nothing else. Don’t think to challenge me, she sent to the Grona Adept. She’d kept it private, but his defiant glare at her didn’t fool anyone. Fear spilled past his shields, thick and cloying. The others exchanged troubled looks.
Aryl felt unclean.
“Explain yourselves,” she pressed. “Now.”
“He’s tried and failed.” Bern was clearly pleased to have Hoyon put in his place. “A gift of strength won’t help. The Cloisters doesn’t want him.”
Would none of them make sense? “The Cloisters is a building.”
“It’s much more.” Oran gestured at the room. “This is the Dream Chamber. Here, we can learn whatever we need. Once the Cloisters accepts Hoyon as its Keeper.”
“You talk of what’s forbidden to non-Adepts!” Hoyon subsided at Aryl’s lifted brow, though he looked as if he’d bitten into a rotten fruit.
“ ‘Keeper?’ ” she repeated. “What’s that?”
“Not what. Who.” As if goaded by Hoyon’s warning, Oran spoke quickly. “The Keeper is the one Adept given the ability to open the dream records for the rest. But Sona’s hasn’t listened to Hoyon.”
Adept babble. Aryl decided to leave the question of how a building could listen alone, though she did approve this one’s taste. “Will it listen to you?”
A reasonable question. Hoyon jerked as if she’d hit him.
From the joyous lift of Oran’s hair, this wasn’t the first time she’d considered stepping into Hoyon’s place. However, she schooled her face and bowed very properly toward the other Adept. “I would not presume. Hoyon d’sud Gethen is my senior. My teacher.”
A poor time for Oran di Caraat to exhibit humility, false or real. Aryl was conscious of their audience: the pair of Tuana, Kran and Bern, Gijs. Nothing that happened with such wit nesses would be secret for long.
Which worked both ways.
She smiled. “I’ll ask Naryn, then. She’s had Adept training—”
“No!” from Hoyon.
“She can’t,” from Oran, whose lips twisted. “Even if she were a full Adept, there’s what grows inside her. The Cloisters won’t accept a pregnant candidate.” She rose to her feet, shaking off Bern’s solicitous hand. “I will make the attempt, with Hoyon’s permission.”
“But you’re pregnant,” Aryl protested.
“I’m hardly so careless.”
“You were seen opening the lock—”
Before Oran could reply, Menasel spoke up. “We all can,” the Tuana Chosen boasted. “They added our names to the records—”