Riders of the Storm (26 page)

And was the most relaxed of them here, by face and voice. Why not? Cetto and Husni were his grandparents. Weth—who squinted uncomfortably at him as much as smiled—an aunt. He who'd been Bern Teerac stood among friends as well as family, a homecoming the likes of which no unChosen who'd left on Passage could expect.

Did he also expect a welcome?

Bern turned his head to stare right at her, as if somehow hearing his name in her thoughts. He hadn't. He couldn't. No matter the bond they'd forged as heart-kin, hers was the stronger Power. He could never see into her mind without permission, a permission she'd never again give. Not when his was Joined for life with Oran di Caraat's.

Could he see her heart,
feel
what she kept from the others?

Let him. Aryl made herself smile.

“We came,” he said, as if to her alone, “because I knew you'd need help.”

“What kind of help, Grandson?” Cetto's deep voice drew Bern back around.

“Yena don't know the mountains—”

“Ah.” A warning in that tone, to those who knew Haxel. “You came to give us good Grona advice.”

Bern, who did, gestured a hasty apology. “Of course not.” He quelled a scowling Hoyon with a look. “Oran and Hoyon are Adepts—”

“Troublemakers, you mean.” This from Veca. Tilip stirred beside Aryl, echoing his Chosen's anger. “We've no need for Adepts.”

“Peace, Veca.” Barely taller than Ziba, Morla's soft voice nonetheless commanded attention. “These are our guests. They may have more to offer. Something useful. Can you grow food, Adept?” to Hoyon, who looked as if a small biter had attached itself to his nose. “Can you tile a roof?” to Oran, whose hair twitched its outrage. Morla shrugged. “If you can't, well, no offense, younglings, but you should go back where others will provide for you. We will not.”

“You need me,” Oran replied with total conviction. “You've injuries.”

“This?” the former Councillor lifted her bandaged wrist and flexed the fingers of that hand. “Doesn't slow me at all.” Veca grinned.

“Oran is a Healer,” said Bern stiffly. “Her Talent drew us to your need.” He pointed to Chaun and Weth, the latter looking up with abrupt hope. “How could we not dare this difficult journey? We're family. Om'ray. Nothing else matters.”

A stir throughout the room. Healers were rare. Valued. Oran hadn't, Aryl realized with a chill, been wrong to expect a welcome here.

She did wonder what Grona's Council thought of their own people roaming the slopes after a pack of exiled, ungrateful Yena.

“We don't ask to stay. We brought our own supplies.” Oran's glance into her cup was less than appreciative. “Give me a tenth, no more, to rest from the journey, and I'll do what I can for your people before we leave. We'll be gone by truenight—”

“We can't go so soon!” Oswa spoke for the first time, a hand fumbling for her daughter. “We can't! Hoyon, tell them. There's a storm coming—Yao's too small. She's already exhausted.”

An instinctive swell of
care
and
reassurance
answered. Oswa quieted in response, her lips trembling, eyes wide as she looked from face to face. Strangers to her, Aryl reminded herself.

Haxel made a brusque gesture. “No one goes out in truenight or bad weather.”

Hoyon managed to bow despite the coat. “Thank you.”

The First Scout's smile twisted her scar. “As for you, Oran di Caraat? If you're a Healer, prove it now.”

 

Aryl watched Bern walk out in the road past the coals of the watch fire, make a bold show of scouting for threat. No self-respecting Yena would swing his head from side to side when a subtle flick of eyes covered the same range without shifting balance. A display for Oran's benefit, no doubt. Was he aware of his surroundings…did he see what they were building here?

From Haxel's sour expression, she wasn't the only one to judge him. The First Scout went to the door of the second shelter, but didn't open it. “In here.” When Bern went to enter, she snapped, “Not you.”

Oran hesitated, her yellow hair moving in heavy, unsettled waves, ends plucking at the weave of her scarf.

“I'll come with you,” Aryl said quickly. If the Grona Adept was a Healer, the sooner she saw Myris the better. “It's my aunt.”

“Myris?” Bern gave her a startled look. “What happened? Is Ael all right?”

So now he cared?

Her own scorn made her ashamed. He'd known them all his life, too. “She was struck by falling ice, like Chaun. Ael's with her.”

“Where you should be.” Haxel looked set to grab Oran and throw her through the door.

Before that disaster of manners could occur—inciting a justified rebellion in their hoped-for Healer, not to mention her Chosen's likely regrettable response—Aryl pulled the door aside. Oran pressed close, in a hurry to see Myris or avoid Haxel. Or both.

The door closed behind them.

Aryl was relieved to see the room appeared itself. Ael looked up, surprise on his face. “Who's this?”

“The Healer,” Oran announced, sweeping forward. She couldn't quite manage warmth in her voice, but bowed graciously in the Grona fashion as she removed her scarf and opened her coat. Both garments were thrust at Aryl. “I'm Oran di Caraat. I've come to aid your Chosen.”

“You're too young to be an Adept.”

Aryl managed not to smile.

“Do you want my help or not?”

As “not” wasn't an option, either for Myris or the grim First Scout waiting outside, Aryl spoke up. “Uncle, let her try.”

Oran's hair gave an annoyed flick. At her use of the word “try,” no doubt. Confidence was important, Aryl reminded herself. She put the Adept's outerwear on a basket—mercifully square and solid—and found a place to stand she hoped would be out of Oran's way.

Ael knelt by Myris, brushed limp hair from her forehead, then took her hand. “Go ahead,” he said at last.

The Adept frowned at them. “I require privacy. A Healer is left alone—”

“No.”

Only the word. Ael didn't look away from Myris to say it, but Oran knew better than to argue. She went to her knees beside the platform of blankets, the fingers of both hands touching as if to net a ball of air. She closed her eyes and moved her hands, still fingertip to fingertip, over Myris. Side to side, across her waist. Lower down. Then, up to her head. Aryl could detect the stir of Power; she didn't dare
taste
it and risk the other's concentration.

The movement of Oran's hands ended above Myris' forehead. Aryl didn't know what to expect. She focused on breathing very quietly.

The ugly bruise began to fade, from purple-black to brown to yellow, hopefully not another trick by her senses.

The gash itself knitted from both ends at once, until it became a smooth seam, nothing more than a scar.

This was beyond what Yena's Healers could do, Aryl was sure. Their best could speed healing by days, not cause it to occur before your eyes. Was this what Yorl sud Sarc, her mother's great-uncle, had done for his own ailing body? He'd needed her strength. Did Oran?

Aryl looked at the Adept. Her eyelids were half-closed, revealing only the whites of her eyes. Her face, chapped and reddened by days in the cold, had a new, sickly pallor. A sign of the effort she expended, to use her Power this way? Whatever else she felt about the Grona, this she respected. Should she offer—

Oran muttered under her breath, then screamed! The air filled with the miasma of rot, wet and cloying. The Adept's terrified face stretched until her chin touched the bed and ran below it. The world began to slip sideways, as if they clung to a great rastis as it fell…

“My-ris!” Her voice or Ael's?

Oran—the blur of color that was Oran to Aryl's distorted sight—continued to flow away. No, she fell! Aryl threw herself forward to catch the Adept, ease her to the floor. She heard a shout that turned itself to birdsong. Bern, she guessed.

Haxel would keep him out. Had to keep him out. It wasn't safe here.

For anyone.

Words walked by and shouted themselves at her. “Don't! Leave! Stay! Stay! Hold!”

Ael.

Leave?

Aryl fastened on the word, remembering what had happened with Enris, what she suspected about the Lost.

Was Myris—her mind—caught in the M'hir?

Without hesitation, without fear for herself, Aryl dove into that inner darkness.

MYRIS!

She
reached
for her aunt with all her strength, summoned an image of her well, of those wide gray eyes—so like her own—sparkling with mirth, her cheery smile…

…Aryl…?

Faint, frightened.
…where…am I Lost?

NO!
Aryl's denial coursed down that tenuous connection, Power forging a deeper, stronger pathway—like the Sona river, cutting through rock itself.

Amazement.

Ael?

Aryl refused to be distracted by his presence, or what it meant. She
reached
for her aunt, as she would when trying to contact her in the real world.
Myris. Listen to me. Hold on.

…Aryl…?
Stronger. Still frightened.
Confusion
threatened their link.
Where is this place? Where are we?

We're riding the M'hir,
Aryl sent, adding
encouragement
and
calm
to the words.
Follow me home.

As she had with Enris, Aryl
gathered
what was Myris close to her. Even as she held herself within the M'hir, she sensed Ael's presence as an echo of brightness, steady and sure.

And more.

Suddenly, she realized she could see—
sense
—all of the exiles. Not
where
they were, but
what
they were. Their Power, their vitality. They might have been her little fiches, aglow, dancing within that unseen wind. So much more than she'd ever felt before.

Enris, too. She
reached
for him, stopping just in time, fought to focus. Almost free.
Stay with me, Aunt,
she urged, holding on with all her strength.

There…at the edge of this strange vision. Another presence she
knew.

Not aware but as clear to her as if she saw him standing before her. What was Yorl doing in the M'hir?

Yet another. Taisal? Her mother. Unlike the rest, she watched, somehow. Was aware, somehow. Suddenly…she was closer…she was…

Here.
The connection between them locked in place.

Help or leave!
Aryl sent fiercely as she concentrated on Myris, on keeping Myris with her…on escape…

You can't save her.
An upwelling of
grief
threw the M'hir into chaos.
She is Lost.

No! Not while I have her…A
ryl tried to pull free of Taisal, who resisted. Insisted.

Save yourself!

As they struggled, tangled in the M'hir, in themselves…memory blurred. Did she see Taisal's tears at their parting, or feel her own? Did her heart pound with a mother's despair, or a daughter's rage? Which of them disobeyed, which of them punished, which of them would take a step to save the other, if it risked the rest…

Neither…they were Sarc, of a kind, and there would never be doubt. Their people came first.

The link strengthened, raw Power coursing between them. The M'hir steadied, grew almost calm.

Daughter.

Mother.

Myris…Aryl struggled to hold that dim, frightened presence…began to fail…
MOTHER!

We have her. Go.

A
flood
of Power, as if the M'hir itself threw them clear.

Hesitantly, Aryl opened her eyes.

The room was real.

Myris lay motionless. As before.

Then, without warning, a lock of hair stirred on the blanket. It slipped up and around Ael's wrist and with a glad cry, he bent over his Chosen. Dark hair blended with gold. His shields were nonexistent.

Aryl quickly tightened hers. “Ael. Uncle? Is she all right?”

He eased back, looked at her. Tears streaked his face. “Aryl. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. You did it.”

Aryl didn't correct him. But she hadn't done it alone. Taisal had risked herself in the M'hir to save them.

Why?

After condemning her for traveling the M'hir to save others. After helping exile—condemn—those the Adepts judged a threat to Yena.

Why?

With Yena protected, was that it? Was Taisal di Sarc willing to help her daughter and sister then?

Had she wanted to before?

Did it change anything?

“You'd better help the Healer.”

Aryl was aghast to see Oran sprawled on the dirt-and-stone floor as if her bones were missing. Her eyelids fluttered and jerked open as she fought to stay awake. Her eyes, when they showed, were shot through with blood, their expression alternately vague and alert. They found Aryl, seemed to ask a question.

“Ael says Myris is better—” a scowl dismissed that answer. What else? The rising commotion at the door? “I'll let Bern in,” she assured the Adept, but as she rose to do just that, Oran's hand clawed at her wrist.

“How—” she had to lean down to catch the broken whisper—neither of them had lowered shields, “—how dare you—should have—warned me—”

Remorseful, Aryl gestured apology. She hadn't considered any risk to Oran. Weren't Healers able to protect themselves? Maybe one older, with more experience, could have—not an observation to make Oran feel better. Instead, she bowed her head, Grona-fashion. “You saved them both.” That, to ease her pain. “Thank you.”

Oran finally put a sentence together. “Get me off this filthy floor.”