Rift in the Sky

Anything but a simple question. Enris was the most easygoing and charming Om’ray imaginable, willing and able to find the best in others, to inspire it. That he’d come to so thoroughly dislike Bern sud Caraat, her former heart-kin, had nothing to do with jealousy. Chosen, Joined for life, could have no doubt of each other. But distrust rumbled beneath the words.

And contempt.

Aryl leaned her forehead against Enris’ chest. “He was my friend.”

“Who smiles and whispers, and spreads doubt about everything you say or do, while Oran plays the noble Healer.”

He supports his Chosen. You do the same.

Not so. His big arms drew her close. I love my Chosen to distraction, but when you’re wrong—Aryl felt his deep laugh—I’m the first to tell you.

And you’re so perfect . . .

A rush of heat. “How right you are,” he murmured into her hair, which squirmed joyfully against its net. His hands began exploring.

Insufferable Tuana. “I’ll see you later,” Aryl told him, then concentrated and pushed . . .

Aroused, the M’hir’s heaving darkness was wilder than usual. No surprise, Aryl thought wryly in the brief instant before she emerged.

So was she.

Sona’s Cloisters didn’t rise on a stalk, like Yena’s, but rather sat on the ground like a discarded flower. Oud had thrown dirt against its windows and filled in the lowermost platform. They’d sought a way inside . . . curious about what none of their kind had seen.

Marcus Bowman was curious, too, but knew better than to attempt such trespass. He might hope for an invitation, but even if she could bring herself to consider it, her Human friend was no longer alone.

For the Oud had made a discovery in their cliff, drawing what Haxel and Aryl glumly considered too much attention to Sona’s remote valley. First had come the rest of Marcus’ new Triad, for the Strangers worked in threes, each with a specific task. In his words: Analyst, Scantech, and Recorder. Aryl had seen them from a distance. Not Human, unless they came in a wider range of body shapes than she’d appreciated; he’d explained once that each Triad had to have different species.

Only a few, those who were or looked Human, stayed past truenight; in that, Marcus managed to keep some order in his camp, or the prohibition against non-Humans too close to Cersi’s own races continued. A third building had gone up. More aircars came and went, even in storms, as if what had been found here mattered more than personal safety.

Not, Aryl thought with a sigh, that she’d noticed much concern for that in Marcus Bowman either. The Human made Ziba seem cautious, not to mention he could be distracted by a biter.

She delayed the inevitable.

Aryl brushed imaginary dust from her tunic. She’d ’ported inside the Council Chamber. Windows stretched to the high ceiling, their lower two thirds obscured by gravel and dust thanks to the Oud. The floor, which should gleam, was dull. No dust, as if the inside of the Cloisters cleaned itself, but no feet or cloth had burnished its surface for long years.

Eighty-three years, according to Marcus, had passed since Sona’s destruction by the Oud. That was his skill: to follow trails through the past as a hunter would prey by the bend of a frond or an impression on bark. What Marcus and his fellows sought lay so long ago that—if she believed him—lakes and mountains had swallowed the remains of those who’d once lived on this and other worlds.

The Hoveny Concentrix, he called them. A vast civilization blending thousands of different kinds of beings that had failed long before the current blend of races, the First, laid claim to this part of space. Most recent of all, his kind, Humanity, with their far-flung Commonwealth. At this edge, a Trade Pact had formed with the First. Layer upon layer of civilizations, stretched through time as much as distance.

Enris found the concept fascinating.

Aryl found it troubling, if she thought of it at all.

Though it was hard not to think of the past, here, standing where unknown Om’ray had stood. Her sleep was no longer visited by their memories, the dreams a Cloisters sent to inform Choosers and Adepts at need. On the journey here, Seru had dreamed the death of Sona’s Om’ray, a warning to keep away. When they’d refused to take heed and settled in the ruined village, new dreams had shown them where to find food, as well as images of how the Sona had lived.

This had been a prosperous, advanced Clan. Every Sona, not just Adepts, could read and write. They’d lived in peace with their Tikitik neighbors, trading certain crops for wood for their homes, for the knowledge of how to make a difficult land fruitful. Numerous, too. Cetto estimated Sona’s village could have housed over a thousand Om’ray, and there had been a second settlement, outside the Cloisters, devoted to the aged and infirm.