Riders of the Storm

Chapter 4

“NICE BRIDGE.”

Aryl ignored the comment and the deep laugh that went with it, though Veca gave Enris a dour look. Which was hardly fair. He’d been as good as his word, rejoining them soon after they’d begun to march again. He’d willingly taken a share of Chaun’s awkward weight, too. They’d made better speed with his help.

Just as well. The wind had a bite to it, and smelled of lightning. Sheets of rain obscured the ridge on the other side of the valley; it wouldn’t be long before it reached this one and their coats were still damp. She hoped it wouldn’t freeze on them. Firstnight was upon them, its shadows barely darker than those of the clouds, sure to steal what remained of the day’s warmth.

As Veca blithely predicted, there was a bridge near the mouth of the next gorge, but it was broken. Luckily for the exiles, the riverbed it had been built to span was dry and empty.

Aryl wasn’t sure which bothered her more: the twin arches that ended in midair above a tumble of smashed stone, or the missing river.

No, she was sure. “Where’s the water?”

“Who cares?” Veca pointed to the other side. “Haxel and the others aren’t far now. Let’s go.” She headed toward the riverbank; the others began to follow.

Aryl frowned. “Do rivers disappear in Tuana?”

Enris signaled Gijs he was ready to go, but words brushed Aryl’s thoughts. Show me.

She retrieved her memory of the raging torrent she’d seen from atop the ravine wall. “Veca saw it, too. Impossible to cross. It should be here.”

A flare of curiosity, as quickly damped. “A puzzle for another day,” Enris decided. To Gijs. “I swear he’s gained weight.” He made a show of favoring his right shoulder as he slipped the sling’s rope over what padding his coat and a folded scrap of blanket could provide, all the while careful not to jostle its passenger. “Sure he’s not sneaking food on us?”

Gijs managed a weary smile at this. He’d refused to let anyone else take his share—he and Chaun were heart-kin.

Aryl tucked the unconscious Om’ray’s hand inside his coat, pausing to reach and assess his condition as best she could. Chaun’s pain had eased to a dull ache. She thought she might be able to rouse him, but didn’t dare. Instead, she sent a little of her strength along that contact, more confident this time she was actually helping.

As she stood, she managed to touch Gijs and send him what she could. She thought he stood a bit straighter. Hoped, anyway.

Yawned.

She closed her mouth quickly, embarrassed. They were all bone-tired, but no one else moved like they felt their arms and legs were about to fall off, no one else yawned. She was young and stronger than most. They relied on her.

All of them.

Her fingers found Enris as he passed, but the instant she began to send him strength, his shields slammed in place, making him virtually invisible to her inner sense. Outwardly? He glared at her and jerked away from her touch. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Furious. He was furious.

How? No one else had noticed. Why was he angry? Aryl took a step back, a stinging heat rushing to her cheeks. The step became a stagger, the ground unsteady beneath her feet. She swayed with it as she would with a branch in the M’hir.

What was happening?

Everything pulled away; voices muted, light dimmed, motions were slow and disconnected. She clung to what awareness she could, watching Enris shrug off the sling and come toward her. She put up her hands…he was angry…she’d done something wrong…why was she wrong…what was wrong…

As her eyes closed against her will, her shoulders were gripped with bruising force. Strength flooded her body until she gasped and jerked free, feeling her every muscle on fire. “What?!!” She stared at Enris, dumbfounded.

“We can’t carry you both.” Low and fierce. “Never give what you need. Use more sense!”

He turned and picked up the sling, moving, to Aryl’s restored perception, with his usual vigor.

Impossible.

He had just done for her, much more effectively, what she’d tried to do for her people. Enris Mendolar, Tuana unChosen, metalworker, couldn’t know more about Power and its use than anyone she’d ever met. Couldn’t be more powerful than an Adept.

Could he?

Aryl let several more exiles step in between before she followed, paying little attention to the route Veca had picked to cross the empty river.

She caught herself smiling, and had no idea why.

Beyond the fractured bridge, the valley narrowed and bent sharply toward Grona, as if hiding a secret. Even here, it would take the better part of a day to cross. Anyone doing so would face a wall more cliff than slope, a steep barrier Aryl thought might be entertaining to climb in better weather. Not in this. She tucked her hands inside her sleeves, blinking away snow—that misery having returned with a vengeance—and wondered why any Om’ray would live where the worst of all seasons could pass in the same day.

They were close now. Everyone could sense the others, that one was coming to meet them. Only Aryl—and his Chosen—knew it was her uncle, Ael sud Sarc. She peered through the whirling snow, hoping for a glimpse of the grove of stunted nekis she was sure she’d spotted from the ridge. She’d told no one else, but it must be their destination.

A tug on her sleeve. She glanced down to find Ziba, her face contorted, tears streaming down her cheeks. The child was distraught to the point of invisible, her emotions swamped by the need to return to her mother. Aryl bent to comfort her, to learn why Taen sent her while so upset, but the child spun out of her grasp and ran back down the line of march.

Seru. It had to be.

Aryl reached for her cousin and found…nothing.

She followed Ziba, careful not to run and draw attention. With the promise of shelter, everyone was walking with cheerful faces and renewed energy, including old Husni and Juo, who’d stayed together. Morla smiled at her, her injured wrist cradled to her chest, her solicitous Chosen hovering at her side.

Those coming last weren’t smiling. Taen, Ziba now clinging to one arm. Tilip and young Fon Kessa’at, both looking worried. Together, they surrounded Seru, walking with her, but at a distance. As Aryl neared, she could see why.

Her cousin’s eyes were closed. It had happened again.

Taen nodded a greeting. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t know what to do—”

Seru’s GONE. With the desperate anguish of the very young.

Hush. The anguish vanished behind shields as Taen hugged her daughter close. “One moment we were talking about Grona,” she said quietly, “the next, Seru shuts her eyes and starts babbling nonsense. A stranger’s name. Something about frost and harvest. How there’s work to be done and we have to hurry. When I asked what she meant, she didn’t say another word.” A heavy sigh. “Better than screaming we’re all going to die.”

She wasn’t so sure, Aryl thought as she studied her cousin. Seru walked in a straight line—in the direction they all moved—but she lifted her feet too high as if forcing her way through drifts of snow. Not slowly either. Wherever she was going—wherever she thought she was going—she intended to get there without delay. “‘Work to be done,’” Aryl repeated. “What ‘work?’ Why ‘hurry?”’ She wasn’t going to try to guess what “harvest.” Nothing could grow here worth eating.

“A dream,” Taen dismissed with a shrug, one hand holding Ziba to her side as they kept up. “You woke her before,” she prompted.

“I’m not sure she’s asleep.” Weth could walk blind like this. But even if Seru had that Talent, how could she remember a place she’d never been? Aryl frowned. Should she touch her? Wake her?

Could she?

A flash of joy sped mind-to-mind through the exiles. Voices rose in greeting and relief.

Ael must be in sight.

“Go,” Taen said, smiling involuntarily. “We’ll stay with her.”

Ziba’s eyes widened. “No,” she protested. “You have to bring her back!”

Interesting choice of words, Aryl thought, giving the child a sharp look. “I’ll do my best,” she promised, unwilling to lie. “First, we have to keep her moving. Can you do that, Ziba?”

“But everyone’s stopped.” The child was right. Aryl cast an anxious look forward.

Taen laid her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Whatever passed between them settled the child. “We’ll bring Seru. Go.”

Their trust weighed on her heart; the blank nothing where Seru should be was worse.

It didn’t take long to find the delay. A silent knot of Om’ray stood around Ael, watching patiently as he held his Chosen close. Her uncle seemed oblivious to everything and everyone else, including the need to show the exhausted exiles the way out of the snow.

The other Chosen were allowing this—this utter waste of time. Aryl sighed and wiped snowdrops from her lashes, pondering the best way to interrupt their bliss. Surely, somewhere in the happy cloud of hair that presently shrouded both heads was her more sensible aunt.

Myris! This with what force she dared. We must go!

A blast of heat and longing and belonging assailed her. Aryl clamped down her shields, annoyed enough to stamp her foot. Chosen had no sense of priorities.

“Ael came that way.” Enris’ lips twitched. They’d laid Chaun on the ground; Husni cradled his head in her lap. The Tuana pointed.

“That way” was somewhere ahead and to the left along this featureless plain, a destination obscured by swirling snow. Aryl reached. Haxel and the others were close. The mere thought of rest weakened her knees. The others could be in no better shape. Even Enris, despite his sturdy presence at her side, had to be wearing down. “We need to go,” she said quietly. “If you and Gijs pick up Chaun again, maybe the rest will get the idea.”

As quietly. “They’ll follow you.”

No, she wanted to say, but couldn’t.

“Unfair,” he agreed, as if she had. “Doesn’t change the weather. They’ve come this far because of you, Aryl Sarc. You can’t stop leading them now, just because you wasted your strength.”

Lower lip secured between her teeth, where it couldn’t tremble, Aryl glared at the Tuana. He gave her a wide, unrepentant grin.

She whirled and strode away, without waiting for anyone else.

Her feet crunched dead vegetation, the sound muted whenever she stepped in one of the growing piles of snow. Her breathing was too loud and too quick to her ears. Fine to believe they’d follow. What if no one noticed she’d left?

A tuft of taller vegetation ahead. Without slowing, she yanked it from the hard dirt, shook it clean, and tied it in a knot.

If Enris was wrong, she’d look a thorough fool.

If he was right…she stopped there.

Then, behind her, came the rustle and muted comments of people picking up their packs, sorting their marching order, starting to move. She blew a soundless whistle of relief.

A quicker set of limping steps as someone hurried to catch up. “Aryl—”

She glanced sideways. Ael’s cheeks were flaming red. He began to gesture apology, and she touched his hand to stop it.

In the proper order of things, Myris wouldn’t be walking in this nightmare of whirling snowdrops, shouldn’t have been exposed to stupid lumps of ice, wouldn’t have been hurt. More for her list. Aryl took back her hand, drawing her icy fingers within her sleeve. “Tell me you found a warm spot.”

Ael’s joyful laugh startled her. “Oh, it’s warm,” he promised. “Wait till you see. That way,” he added, indicating a line of darkness that curved ahead, then bent to their right.

She squinted through the snow, making out a steep slope of dirt, weathered and loose. This had to be the near edge of the wide depression she’d seen from the ridge, the one that ran the length of the valley. “Another dry river,” she guessed, astonished at its size.

“And frozen rain.” Ael spread his arms to encompass the landscape around them—what they could see of it through the snowdrops. “Nothing here should surprise us, Aryl.”

But something had. She tasted his excitement. Ael might be worried about Myris, but above all he anticipated the Om’rays’ reaction when they saw…what?

“Warm,” she repeated. She’d settle for that.

The wind faded to a whimper around their ears. The snowdrops, contrarily, worsened, becoming larger. They stuck together in the air, drifting down in soft clumps, deadening all sound. One landed on Aryl’s forehead and melted to soak her eye and cheek, a drip tracing her jaw and sliding down her neck. She shivered. Truenight was almost upon them. They should be in sight of Haxel and the shelter by now, but the steady fall closed like woven panels around the exiles. She kept reaching for the others, reassuring herself they were together despite the poor visibility. She wanted to go deeper, to learn if Seru had regained her senses, if Gijs and Enris were tiring, if Myris and Morla were in pain—but refrained. She couldn’t help, even if she knew.

Shadows appeared to either side, indistinct through the snow, irregular in height and shape. The grove she’d seen—this had to be its start. Aryl quickened her pace. Strange, that the ground was smoother and more level than before.

Strange, too, that what she’d assumed were tall nekis stalks leaned against one another. Aryl blinked away snowdrops, frustrated.

A flicker of light beckoned ahead. Warmth, comfort. She sensed relief as those following saw it, too. Ael’s smile was in his voice. “There it is. Wait till you see—”

Do you see? The sending from Enris held none of the relief or joy of the rest.

A few more steps, another blink, and the indistinct shadows re-formed. Aryl slowed and stopped as she understood.

This wasn’t a grove.

Others passed her, packs coated in white, eager for shelter. Aryl let them.

Thick drops of snow slipped and danced around her, playing hide/seek. She scuffed her toe through what lay on the ground to find a pavement of flat, well-fitted stone, then looked up again. What rose beside her weren’t leaning stalks.

Though it was wood.

Huge splintered beams—some heaved upright and tangled, like sticks tossed by a child and let fall, others protruding from mounds—bordered this road. For road it was. Making this a place—a built place—before its destruction. Home to the forgotten Chosen whose headdress pressed against her skin.

Sona.

Only one word, but sent with a certainty she shared. Enris was right. This had been the home of a Clan. But what did it mean? What had happened? Were they safe or now in danger from more than the storm?

There, with the last group of exiles, came the only Om’ray who might have answers. How Seru Parth knew anything about this dead place, Aryl couldn’t imagine, but she no longer doubted. She took a step to intercept her cousin, then hesitated.

Seru was chatting happily to Ziba, pointing ahead to the welcome light, laughing as if they’d been out for an afternoon’s visit instead of a march across ice and rock.

As if she’d never left her body empty on the road.

“Come,” Enris said softly. “Answers can wait for a roof.”

Haxel had indeed found them a roof: the remains of a building with a few roof beams askew overhead. Stone and black wood rose as walls to shoulder height on three sides, barring the cold fingers of wind. The First Scout and the others had moved loose rubble to clear a flat, if not level, area within, in so doing discovering the remains of a stone hearth. It held a crackling fire for the first time in—none of them bothered to speculate how long this place had been a ruin. Om’ray lived in the known and the now; for the first time, Aryl understood the comfort that could give. A shame she couldn’t bring herself to feel it.

Their carefully gathered twists of dry grass were put aside for the future; there were abundant splinters of dark, wide-grained wood to burn. Splinters. As if the split and shattered remains of beams and floorboards were anything so harmless. Those still framing the door and inner walls were deeply inset with carvings, images of growing things twined around complex, unfamiliar symbols. They’d had meaning, once. The others ignored them, after commenting on the quality of work. Such always outlived its maker. They were comforted by that, too.

Aryl leaned in a shadow against the tallest portion of surviving wall and tried not to frown.

The rest of Yena’s exiles sat shoulder to shoulder, chapped faces rosy in the light of the flames. Some opened their coats to coax what warmth the fire offered; others snuggled together under blankets. Close quarters for twenty-three, but no one complained. They were together.

Packs hung from the straightest beam to keep them out of the way. That, and because Husni fussed about crawlers spoiling what food remained. Despite seeing no other life for days, canopy habits persisted. Their assortment of mismatched pots, packed with snow, nestled near glowing coals. A trick from Grona. Before their arrival, Syb and Weth had made a soup from the bread they’d carried, letting it simmer and thicken while they’d waited for the rest of the Om’ray. The result had no taste but, Aryl decided, fishing the inevitable gritty bit from between her teeth, the hot moist stuff might have been fresh dresel by the speed with which the first offering disappeared. Their largest pot was stewing a second batch—Myris had volunteered her entire packet.

Their elders smiled wearily at one another. Ziba was snugged under Seru’s arm, both with their eyes more closed than open.

She wouldn’t disturb this hard-won peace, Aryl decided. Plenty of time to talk to her cousin in the morning.

At the thought of spending the night, she wrinkled her nose. The place reeked of wet boots and burning wood. The air glittered, firelight caught by the fine, acrid dust they’d kicked up on arriving, yet to settle. Shelter, indeed. How quickly she’d grown used to sleeping outside. She resolved to be grateful—and look for better tomorrow.

Enris propped himself against the wall beside her. He shoved a lock of dusty black hair from his forehead, leaving a streak. His eyes, bright and dark, surveyed the room. “Yena don’t build like this,” he stated. “Not from what I saw in the canopy.”

So she wasn’t the only one restless. “The Tikitik built our village,” Aryl explained, pitching her voice to his ears. “Yena Om’ray—” she paused to choose her words, “—made homes.”

The Cloisters held records: names and Joinings, births and deaths—collected and understood by Adepts. All ordinary Yena knew of their past was the echo of those gone before held in the beautiful cunning of their woodcraft: cupboards and furnishings, forgotten hiding places, sturdy bridgework. Homes where Om’ray feet polished floors to gleaming, themselves works of art. Homes entrusted to the First Chosen of each generation, to be lovingly maintained for the next.

Homes. Ashes falling like black snowdrops into the Lay Swamp, scorched remains abandoned in the canopy to be overgrown by vines and thickles. To rot and be erased.

Stone was better. Aryl pressed her shoulder blades against the wall for comfort. Stone, or beams like these, she thought, following a dark line with her eye. They must have been made from entire, full grown stalks, cut to lie flat atop one another or fit end on end. Too heavy for a Yena home, carried high on the living fronds of a rastis, but their thickness promised endurance and protection from the cold.

“You’re right, though,” she mused. “This doesn’t look like their work.” The Tikitik coaxed living stalks to their bidding. She’d seen it for herself. Yena homes owed their structure to assembled pieces already in their final, useful shape, ready for gauze-on-frame windows and dresel pod roofs. These beams? Their initial shaping bore tool marks like those Yena woodworkers left on the planks they trimmed to replace wear on bridges or ladders. “Do you see the carving? That’s not Tikitik.”

Enris made a pleased sound. “No? Then I’ve something else to show you—tomorrow, when we’ve decent light.”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed, trying not to yawn. She ran her hand along the stone. “Is this at all like Tuana? Oud work?”

“Oud dig holes,” he snapped, as if insulted. “Tuana Om’ray build for ourselves. But not—” said more thoughtfully, “—not like this. We’d never waste wood on supports. It doesn’t grow on the plains. All we have comes from the Oud—scraps from disused tunnels.”

Aryl wrinkled her nose again. These dry lifeless mountains were bad enough. If there were no nekis or rastis, she didn’t care for Tuana’s plains either. Not that her preference mattered. “Where do the Oud get it?”

“No one knows.” With a “who cares?” shrug.

So Tuana shared Yena’s lack of curiosity about the not-real beings who lived on Cersi. She shouldn’t be surprised; it was an Om’ray trait. One they couldn’t afford, she fumed to herself. The exiles had to learn everything they could to survive.

“The Oud know,” she challenged. “We should.”

“I never wondered before,” he admitted. “Maybe they trade with your Tikitik for pieces.”

Tired as she was, Aryl straightened to stare up at Enris. “Oud and Tikitik?” He might have redrawn the world. “Together?”

That wide grin. “Hardly together. Trade’s one thing. Getting along’s another. From all I’ve heard, they like each other even less than they like us. Without the Agreement, who knows which of them we’d still have?”

“How do you know we’d still be here?”

Enris gave her a very strange look. “We are the world.” As if she’d somehow forgotten who and what she was.

“Are we?” Aryl murmured. When he would have protested, she gestured apology, her hand heavy. “We’re all tired,” she said. “We’ve a place to sleep. Be glad of that.”

“After going how far the wrong way?” A grumble like the storm outside. Fingers brushed the back of her hand. Oud re-shaped this place once. Enris held back something more. She sensed its troubled edge.

Her people were safe and content, she fumed. Was it too much to ask to savor that victory? Maybe Sona deserved it. With a mental snap she instantly regretted.

Enris gave no sign she’d struck at him. Did you? he sent almost gently. Do they? This with an unnecessary nod at the Yena exiles sitting in front of them.

Though busy with pots and embers, Haxel looked up, the beginning of a question on her face. Aryl made herself smile back. “You’re making people nervous,” she said. Not quite a whisper.

“As they should be,” he countered the same way. “Don’t let them stay too long, Aryl. You can’t trust the Oud.”

“I’m not a fool.” She might not have met one, but every Om’ray understood their world. Only Om’ray cared about Om’ray. “We can’t leave until Chaun and Myris can travel. There are others hurt. Let alone Juo. We don’t need her giving birth mid-journey. We’ll use the time to find food…get some rest. All of which, I’m thankful to say, can wait for morning.” With a yawn, Aryl leaned against the Tuana’s comfortingly solid arm as she contemplated where to sleep. “Anyway,” she continued idly, “what’s this ‘don’t let them stay?’ It’s not as if you’d leave without us.”

She’d meant to lighten the mood; instead, the words fell into silence, like a treasure let drop in the black waters of the Lay. Despite their physical contact, her inner sense gave her nothing beyond the who and where of him. She drew back and twisted to look at him. His face, smudged by exhaustion and dirt, was shadowed more than revealed by the flickers of firelight. Reflections like tiny flames danced deep in his dark eyes as he returned her gaze.

Then, predictably, the corner of his wide mouth crooked up, creasing a dimple. “I’m the one who’s seen an ice storm before, remember?” he said lightly. “Delay too long and no one’s going anywhere. Even Grona warned against travel late in the cold season. You’ve had a taste of it.” Before she could respond, the Tuana pushed himself from the wall and her. “Speaking of taste—” a too-quick laugh, “—looks like there’s more ready.”

Aryl watched Enris squat beside Gijs, as if he had nothing on his mind but a still-empty stomach. The other Om’ray made room with a laugh and some comment she didn’t catch.

She took her lower lip between her teeth, not hungry at all.

Enris hadn’t said he’d leave them.

He hadn’t said he’d stay either.

“Tomorrow,” she said out loud. “Everything looks better in daylight.”

“Which implies sleeping first.” Haxel replaced Enris, her lean form taking much less space. Unlike the Tuana, her emotions—satisfaction, pride, determination—were easy to read. Deliberately so.

Aryl tightened her shields to keep in her own. The First Scout had a right to her pride: she’d found safety for truenight. No need to share her own foreboding—or Enris’. “I’ll help keep watch outside.”

“Leave it to those who’ve had some rest. You led well today, Aryl Sarc.” A stronger flash of pride. “As I expected.”

Before Aryl could utter a word, the other Om’ray was on the move through the firelight and shadow, touching shoulders, helping arrange blankets as more and more of the exiles stretched out near the fire. Haxel finally settled beside Weth, who’d managed to spoon some liquid between Chaun’s slack lips before donning her blindfold. The conflict between her Chosen as she remembered him and his pale strange face must have become too much for her Talent to reconcile.

Led well?

If she’d hadn’t led them at all, Aryl reminded herself bitterly, Weth and Chaun would be sitting across a table, supping by the light of glows, not a fretful fire. He’d tell her one of his stories and she’d laugh—or they’d fall silent, as Chosen were prone to do, and gaze into one another’s eyes, fingertips just touching, thoughts and selves mingled in a haven of their own.

Lie down before you fall down.

Her look of affront was wasted. Enris had his broad back to her, busy slurping his share of bread-broth with gusto. Aryl yawned involuntarily until her jaw ached and her eyes watered. Tempting to stay where she was. And prove what? Hardly a good example in someone who led. However unwillingly.

With a sigh, she went in search of room on the floor for her bed.

Before it left, the storm wandered the ruins. Snow curled around the base of stone, dusted askew beams to lines of white. Fingers of wind explored emptiness and rustled withered stems. A last chill breath guttered the fire that held back the dark, stirring the hair of those who slept like the dead.

On some level, Aryl heard the storm, shivered in the chill, but these were distant, unimportant things. The other pressed against her like a lover in the night, seeking entry, whispering seduction.

She resisted with all her strength, not knowing if she struggled to push the wild darkness away or to pull herself free of it, only that if she let it claim her, what she was would be lost.

As she fought, whispers became voices, clamoring to be heard. She refused to listen, heard herself moan and came half awake at the sound.

They—something—tried to speak to her through her mouth. She pushed harder and…

…was awake.

Aryl froze in place, her hand hard against her lips. When no further sound came out, she lowered her hand and eased herself up on an elbow.

The fire was banked; Enris had shown them how. The light from its embers bathed the low rounds of shoulder and hip, the huddles of blanket and coat that marked where Om’ray lay asleep. She was the only one awake.

A dream. That was all.

She was the only one awake, she realized a moment later, but not the only one disturbed. Sobbing, so quiet Aryl almost missed it over the breathing of the rest. Seru. Did she dream, too?

Someone else squirmed and whimpered. Aryl reached, careful to lower her shields only enough to seek outward, not to send and disturb.

Ziba?

She shouldn’t be surprised. What they’d faced today would give anyone bad dreams, even a youngling with the courage of any Chosen—

Yet another soft complaint. Aryl reached again.

Juo.

Even easier to explain, she decided. All the bedding they’d carried couldn’t counteract the hard cold pavement beneath, cracked and heaved into sharp edges. Hardest on poor Juo, swollen with her unborn. Wise Husni had refused to lie on the stones, instead curling against her seated Chosen, who, to everyone’s amusement, had began to snore at once. There they were on the other side of the fire, like a pair of ancient rastis whose fronds had intertwined until neither could fall alone.

There was light, similar to the radiance that found its way through curtains. A soft, comforting light.

Nothing was wrong. She’d dreamed.

That was all.

Aryl started to close her eyes, settling back down. She was so tired…

…light took a red tinge, like blood bathed the walls, then suddenly faded. Darkness assumed movement and form to tear at her consciousness, like a wind trying to tear her from a safe hold.

…Aryl thrust herself from the other place, her heart pounding, eyes wide. She sat up.

Impossible. It hadn’t been real. Couldn’t be real. Her mind couldn’t slip into that place while she slept. She was safe.

She had to be.

They had to be—

She’d dreamed.

That was all.

Words formed, as if echoing her thoughts…Bad dream?

Bad rock, Aryl managed to reply, careful to add overtones of rueful amusement as she settled back down. She pretended to fidget and forced a smile in case Myris could see her face. My bones need more padding.

Her aunt couldn’t afford to use her Talent until she healed, not that Aryl would have a choice if Myris detected turmoil. She had to trust her shields, being unable to move out of contact without disturbing Veca, close behind her.

A pillow would be nice. A flash of pain, quickly hidden. Ael groaned in Joined empathy but didn’t wake.

Aryl cupped her hand against her aunt’s soft cheek. Too warm. Rest, she sent, along with a careful sharing of her own strength, and felt more than heard Myris sigh in relief.

She waited until sure her aunt slept. Longer.

Then she lay back, eyes open, to wait for daylight.

When all darkness would be gone.

Despite breath-fogging cold at firstlight, no one lingered in their shelter. Their still-warm bedding went to the injured, while Ael and Weth rebuilt the fire. There was no question of leaving today. Myris was feverish and too quiet. Chaun had roused to open his eyes and smile, nothing more. Husni chided her daughter’s Chosen for lying around while others worked, but when she turned away, her face showed every Harvest. They all shared the involuntary waves of agony when he moved; only Weth could persuade him to swallow. He was worse.

Sona was worse by the light of day, too. They used the name, though no one could give good reason beyond a wary look toward Seru Parth. In turn, she remained obstinately herself and refused to talk about what she called “yesterday’s weather.” That weather had blown itself over the mountain ridge and away, its clouds a tatter of wisps in the sky, its snow and rain little more than dark stains. In this valley, stone shed water or dirt sucked it down. As well, they’d collected what they could before truenight, Aryl thought, licking always-dry lips.

A long night indeed. She hadn’t slept again for fear of dreams—in revenge, her mind might have been a wing on the M’hir for all the control she’d had over the direction of her thoughts. Seru. Ziba. The darkness. Bern and his Chosen. Myris. This place—its past. Her mother. Yena. The strangers. The headdress and bones. Tomorrow.

Enris.

No more of him, Aryl vowed, tightening her belt to silence her empty stomach. With daylight had come common sense, or its kin, pragmatism. The Tuana was a stranger, on Passage. Their paths had crossed, to the exiles’ benefit. If he felt the need to continue his journey alone, it was his right and obligation. However long he remained, they’d take advantage of his strength and knowledge.

If she could avoid him this morning, all the better.

The exiles divided into groups to search for their most pressing need: food. Aryl had hoped to go with Seru, to talk to her cousin. Haxel and Cetto claimed her first.

“Reminds me of the nekis that fell one M’hir,” Haxel said finally. “Took a good portion of Parth grove with it. Remember, Cetto?”

The former Yena Councillor stood with one hand shading his eyes, though the rising sun—and Amna—was behind them. “Wasn’t this bad.”

The three of them were atop the highest beam roofing last night’s shelter, its wide surface secure, if tilted. It provided a useful viewpoint. Aryl found its height a comfort. She pursed her lips and surveyed their surroundings once more, this time looking for detail rather than absorbing the shock.

The valley narrowed here to perhaps an easy half-day’s walk from one formidable cliff wall to the other. It drew tighter still not far ahead, where another twist hid what might be its beginning.

Two lines scored the valley floor. One, the dry riverbed, its pattern of tumbled stone hinting at the force which had once scoured its width; the other, matched to the river’s course though set high above its bank, what had been a roadway of pale, cut stone, now fragmented and heaved. Aryl’s gaze followed the ruined road and empty river to where they disappeared from sight around the valley’s bend. Where did they go?

As for where they were…the road cut through what had clearly been a village, between this side of the river and the cliff, from its extent, more populous than Yena had ever been. The violence from beneath that furrowed and tossed the ground of the valley mouth hadn’t so easily erased Sona itself. The buildings, though small, had been sturdy. From what she could see from this vantage point, most had been attached to one another by low stone walls and rooftop beams, providing extra strength.

Not unscathed, however. Most of those beams had come free of their supports, to lie like tossed sticks. Some of the stone walls had crumbled; others stood seemingly straight and untouched but spanned dark pits where the ground had been eaten away from below.

Homes, she guessed. Om’ray homes—another guess—of a style unknown to the exiles. Each opened to a narrow roadway off the main one; each shared walled open space with their neighbors, now choked with dead vegetation. Aryl watched Syb and Taen try to force their way through one such space. They soon gave up and rejoined the rest, searching what homes remained accessible.

“Can we be sure this was once Om’ray?” Cetto rumbled. “There’s no Cloisters.”

“Here,” Haxel pointed out.

She was right, Aryl agreed. Though Grona’s Cloisters sat near their homes, Yena’s was a good distance from their village—why, no one knew or wondered. “That could have been their meeting hall.” The First Scout indicated a mound of shattered wood across the main road, half buried in soil and stone. A large building, set to overlook the river. If these had been Om’ray, it would have hosted every gathering of importance, as well as those for the joy of being together.

Aryl shuddered. Then her attention was caught by a gleam across the river. The rising sun had reached an area filled with white straight stalks—stalks with, she squinted to see, familiar branched tops. Many were toppled, most leaned in disarray, but she knew what she saw. “Nekis!” She hadn’t been completely wrong.

“We looked.” Haxel made a gesture of disgust. “Dead, like the rest of this place.”

“How?” Aryl stared at the plants. She could understand those broken or buried failing to survive, but these were the canopy’s most common growth. Nothing stopped young nekis surging from the ground, or regrowing in their multitudes from a fallen parent.

“In the groves, their feet are in the Lay Swamp,” Cetto suggested, his low voice somber. “Perhaps when the river failed, these did, too.”

Could strong, towering nekis—though none of these had been tall—be killed so easily? Aryl found the parched grove more a blow than the village. She’d thought of the groves and canopy as permanent fixtures of the world. Her home. At best, the swamp beneath them had been a nuisance, a threat to the careless. A new notion, that its black and dangerous water had been necessary to the growth above.

“Firewood.” With that practical dismissal, Haxel directed their attention closer to hand. “There’s something I don’t understand. Those lines—they go under the buildings. See?”

Obviously something other than the crumbling walls or roadways. Puzzled, Aryl followed the scout’s impatient finger as it indicated where they stood, the remains of the next building, then jabbed over to one closer to the other end of the village. At first, she saw nothing but the confusion of debris and time.

Then, she saw it. Haxel’s “lines” weren’t walls, but narrow depressions. They bounded the village, a course of small, similar stones. Once she recognized them, she saw they ran everywhere. If they’d been connected before the destruction, they would have formed an intricate network of shallow ditches. Some went beneath each home, reappearing on the other side.

Aryl’s eyes flashed to the dry riverbed. She laughed, overjoyed by the simple elegance of it.

“I fail to see anything amusing about this place,” Cetto grumbled.

She gestured apology. “It’s only an idea…”

“What?” demanded the First Scout.

“When the river was full—” Aryl used her hands to mimic that flow, “—it would spill over at that point.” She indicated where the boundary depression cut through the riverbank, what would have been upstream of the meeting hall and village. “Remember the ravine, after the ice rain? Water takes the low path. It would flow into all of these lines.”

“Why?” Haxel asked. Both older Om’ray were frowning. “There are better ways to bring water to a home than this.”

Aryl thought of her brother Costa, and the containers of growing things in his room. How they needed water brought to them to survive. “Not to the homes,” she thought aloud. “To the spaces between them. This is a dry place—too dry for plants.” The rightness of it made her heart pound. “Maybe these Om’ray grew their food like the Grona, but instead of fields and the chance of rain, they grew it here, between their homes, and took water from the river.”

Haxel wasn’t slow. “There are stone ditches like these through the nekis grove.”

Om’ray who grew their own grove? Aryl’s eyes widened. She couldn’t imagine living like the Grona—or Enris’ Tuana, for that matter. But this? “What if we could bring the water back?” she asked abruptly.

Cetto’s deep astonished laugh lifted a few heads their way. “You never think small, Aryl Sarc.”

Haxel didn’t smile or say a word. But as they climbed down to rejoin the rest, Aryl noticed the scout lingered to look up the valley for a good long time, to where the outthrust of cliff hid the river’s source.