“Only yours?” Aryl cut in.
In the ensuing silence, she looked at each of them in turn. Gijs lowered his eyes. “Only yours,” she repeated, sure now. Poor Juo.
Games and secrets. They destroyed bridges. They left Om’ray stranded and alone. They risked everything. Sona had forty-six Om’ray. Barely enough to plant and tend a crop. There would soon be babies needing care. The eldest among them could fail in the coming winter.
The river had yet to flood.
The blood pounding in her ears was louder than their breathing. A presence filled her mind—Enris, alerted, not yet alarmed. Aryl sent a pulse of reassurance she most assuredly didn’t feel, then tightened her shields.
She looked at the Grona Adepts. “Every name. By truenight.”
Oran’s hair flailed, but she didn’t argue.
“Everyone to see this place and understand what you would do here.”
Hoyon opened his mouth, then closed it.
“And if you succeed—anyone who wishes dreams with you.”
That was too much. “Only Adepts dream to order!” Hoyon shouted.
“Then,” Aryl told him calmly, “when you correct the records, make everyone an Adept.”
She concentrated and pushed herself through the M’hir before they could react.
Chapter 2
“ENRIS D’SUD SARC.” Enris stretched out his long legs, put his hands behind his head, and grinned. “Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
What she thought, Aryl told herself grimly, she’d keep to herself. She concentrated on sharpening her knife. There’d been almost no reaction to her news about Oran and Hoyon, and the Cloisters. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be. Sona’s Om’ray tended to consider before they spoke. Meanwhile, Deran and Menasel, along with Bern and Kran, carried water. Gijs escaped that duty to finish his new home’s roof under the baleful eye of his Chosen. Oran and Hoyon remained at the Cloisters to prepare.
Whatever that meant.
Seru, bent over her sewing, glanced through a restless curl of black hair. “Seru di Parth.” Her nose wrinkled. “Doesn’t make me an Adept.”
That deep chuckle. “What I want to know is when we get our robes. There’d best be one my size.”
Aryl put down her knife and tossed an empty mug at his head. It disappeared mid arc.
“ ‘A waste of good dishes!’ ” The Tuana’s excellent imitation of Husni’s frequent complaint to those practicing their Talent made her lips quirk.
“You could have caught it,” she pointed out. To Seru, “The Cloisters answers to names it knows. Don’t ask me how. But only those with the “di” of Adepts are allowed into certain areas. Only they are free to learn through dreams.” She had no more desire than Seru to be an Adept and none to live within the Cloisters, but to learn? Her breath quickened. To be able to read and write . . . to discover the past of this place . . . “We could become so much wiser,” Aryl said earnestly. “All of us.”
“Not all.” Morla entered the Meeting Hall, shook dust from her jerkin, then took a seat at the table with them. She gestured gratitude as Enris poured her a mug of water. Her still willful white hair was tamed by a tight net. That hair and those wide-set gray eyes were Sarc traits; her diminutive size and clever hands? Pure Kessa’at. She’d been an outspoken Councillor of Yena, leader of her family, before the betrayal. At Sona, she plied her first trade again, woodworker, and rarely offered her opinion on anything else. Until now.
“Why not?” Aryl asked.
“There’s a reason Adepts are selected for their Power, why they are tested. The teaching dreams are risky. Few Om’ray have the strength to endure them.”
“According to the Adepts themselves. Convenient.” She gestured apology for her harsh tone—the elderly Om’ray didn’t deserve it. “We’ve dreamed. Seru and I. We were fine.”
A shiver of dread. No doubt of the source. Seru had been sent dreams of Sona’s death, full of screams and pain. A warning not to approach.
“They were useful dreams,” Aryl insisted. “We’ll be careful, of course, but—”
WE?? Enris’ sending made her wince. You mean to try this?
Don’t you?
Shields slammed between them. Outwardly, her Chosen appeared preoccupied with the packs hung from the rafters. Perhaps, she grumbled to herself, he searched for the mug he’d pushed. Given his Power, it was probably in Grona, if it left the M’hir at all.
So much they didn’t know.
“The ceremony will be a tenth after truenight,” Aryl said aloud. The dark wasn’t yet a friend, but it would hide the disappearance of Sona from any non-Om’ray observers. They’d ’port to the Council Chamber, the stronger taking the weaker. There, Oran and Hoyon would add their names to the records.
For Husni, their keeper of tradition, had insisted there be a proper ceremony. In Yena, there would be flowers and dresel cake once a baby received its name, or a Chosen arrival was granted his new one. Tuana and Grona—no surprise—believed in feasts. Tai sud Licor, from Amna, spoke wistfully of boiled swimmers and dancing.
“About that.” Morla leaned forward on her elbows, eyes somber. Both wrists were wrapped with colorful cloth—a habit she’d kept after the broken one healed. Many of Sona’s new Om’ray had taken to the harmless fashion, that warmed arms and left hands bare. The Yena had adopted Tuana-style boots. The Tuana and Grona Chosen liked Yena hairnets, except for Oran. So quickly, they became different from other Clans. “Being together, not working for once. We could ring a bell for Mauro.”
Every Cloisters contained deep-throated bells; by tradition, one was rung for each death. Aryl glanced at Enris. He pursed his lips and gave that small headshake the Human used for “no.” Their habit now. As for Seru . . .
Her cousin hunched over her work, applying needle and thread with unusual force considering she sewed baby clothes.
Mauro Lorimar had come to Sona with his fellow Tuana, bringing with him a dreadful, un-Om’ray joy in the pain of others. At home, he’d led a group against Enris, beating him severely. Here, he’d tried to Join Seru, dragging her mind into his madness.
He’d deserved his fate, Aryl thought grimly. As did Seru, happily Joined to Ezgi, once of Serona.
Morla waited, the image of patience. She hadn’t, Aryl realized abruptly, come to suggest this on her own. “Haxel sent you.” The First Scout’s quick knife had saved Aryl, trapped in the M’hir by Mauro’s attempt to Join with her instead. No Om’ray was known to have killed another before, though to be fair, Mauro had hardly seemed one of them by the end. She shuddered inwardly. “She shouldn’t regret what she did.”
“That one?” Morla’s face wrinkled. “Haxel’s only regret is that she didn’t move faster.”
Enris dropped his feet to the wooden floor. “Rorn,” he declared.
Haxel’s Chosen? “Why?”
“Haven’t you noticed? He’s her conscience.”
“It might help Menasel.” They all looked at Seru, who blushed. “Mauro was her cousin,” she went on, determined, if hesitant. “It might help—everyone. We’ve done nothing to mark the passing of Tuana.”
Aryl was jolted by grief. Enris gestured apology as he tightened his shields, his eyes hooded. She laid her fingers on his arm. We are one, she sent gently. Never fear to share your pain.
“How can we ring bells for Tuana?” Morla asked. “We don’t know—I’m sorry, Enris—but we don’t know how many died there, or who.” She gestured apology, but went on, “Surely the survivors have rung their own bells.”