Rift in the Sky

No Clan boasted such numbers now. Pana came closest, at over seven hundred.

The dreams had ended—as if they should somehow have learned all that was necessary. But they hadn’t, Aryl thought, gnawing her lower lip in frustration. Was the purple plant a weed? Would summer here be hot and dry, or turn cold too soon? How did they preserve any food that grew? They didn’t know how the mounds worked, or if their once-opened doors could be resealed.

All of Sona had died when the Oud moved in to reshape their valley. Aryl’s darker imaginings suggested a second disaster, because the Tikitik and Oud lived in Balance, trading Om’ray Clans like baskets of fruit. No one knew of another lost Clan, which meant nothing. None had known of Sona either. When she’d led the exiles here, the Oud had claimed them. It hadn’t been long before the Tikitik had demanded and received that terrible compensation: the Oud reshaped Tuana, leaving only its Cloisters, and those sheltered within, unharmed.

Only the Cloisters.

Like Sona.

Aryl stilled, the way she would if she’d heard a strange sound in the canopy and waited to see if it was something with a taste for Om’ray flesh.

Last spring, she’d known the world was defined by Om’ray.

An illusion. Om’ray did not travel beyond their sense of one another and inhabited just this small corner of Cersi. Cersi herself was but a single small world; the stars overhead shone on more than she could count in a lifetime.

Last spring, she’d known a Cloisters was where Adepts practiced their Talents, safe from observation by Tikitik or Oud, aloof from the rest. A Cloisters was where Adepts added to a Clan’s record of names and Joinings, and where the aged and the Lost could live out their days in peace.

Was that illusion, too? Did Clans have Cloisters for no other reason than Om’ray were frail things and some must survive each change in their neighbors, Tikitik or Oud?

“Why?” Aryl asked. “What use are we to them? Why is there an Agreement at all?” The words rebounded from pale yellow walls and closed doors, hung at the ceiling as if searching for answers. Died into silence.

A silence broken by distant footsteps.

Abandoning questions about the past, Aryl sped in pursuit. Oran, at a guess. She favored the lighter footwear they’d found among Sona’s supplies. Hoyon preferred his Grona boots.

She knew her way. Like Speaker’s Pendants, every Cloisters followed the same design; she’d been in this part of Yena’s. As Aryl ran for the closest door to the corridor outside, she kept her shields tight, though she doubted either Adept would welcome contact with her mind. They’d tried to force the secret of ’porting from her once. Tried. That day, she’d discovered her mind could be a weapon as deadly as a longknife.

Naryn hadn’t been wrong about the fear between them, only in who felt it most.

A knife was clean, honest. What she could do—Aryl shuddered inwardly—what she could do if rage gripped her, if she lost all decent control, was an abomination. To rip apart who someone was and toss the terrified fragments of their aware mind into the M’hir . . .

She’d never do it again. She’d never let another Om’ray learn how.

A promise she couldn’t expect Oran and Hoyon to believe.

The corridor was lit by glows lining the junction of wall to ceiling, glows with no power cells to replace, as ordinary lights had. The floor, smooth and resilient underfoot, was of no material known to Om’ray. Every so often, the plain walls were broken by closed doors of metal, clear unbreakable windows, or by small metal frames surrounding disks and squares of unknown purpose.

Advanced technology.

A thought impossible before she’d met Marcus and seen the devices and buildings of the Strangers.

Om’ray had built this and forgotten.

Another impossible concept. Until the Human had told her of other worlds and how cultures changed over vast lengths of time. Of how the Hoveny Concentrix had covered more worlds, with technology superior to the Trade Pact’s, only to collapse to ruins long before the Cloisters existed.

He’d gladly bring his devices inside this one, if she gave him the chance. He’d pore over every part, babbling his Comspeak to himself, making vids and records and drawing Human conclusions about Om’ray that would change them even more.

Some risks she wouldn’t take.

Aryl turned the corner and stopped in her tracks.

Empty corridor stretched ahead.

Oran must have ’ported away. Coward. Aryl lowered her shields the merest amount and reached.

“I don’t believe it,” she whispered aloud.

Not one, not two, but seven Om’ray—below, on another level. Furious, she reached to learn who else shirked their responsibilities.

Oran. Hoyon. Oran’s brother and shadow, Kran Caraat, as yet unChosen. Bern. No surprise.

Two former Tuana: Deran Edut, another unChosen, and Menasel Lorimar, cousin of the twisted Mauro, dead by Haxel’s ever-pragmatic knife.

Gijs sud Vendan, who should keep better company.

Oran had a gift for finding weakness.