Rift in the Sky

Life. What remained of it.

Blinking away tears of her own, Aryl eased back. She adjusted the blanket that had fallen. Her hands shook and left incomprehensible symbols on the fabric. Blood. Naryn’s hair had sliced her skin. A clatter on the floor. The image disk. She bent to retrieve it, tried to think.

“He’s not dead.”

Aryl straightened so quickly the small form across the bed instinctively stepped back. But Yao wasn’t daunted. “He isn’t,” the child insisted. “Look.”

The Human’s eyelids had partially lifted, exposing red-stained whites. Lips peeled back from his teeth in a rictus of effort, as if another scream tried to escape, but he refused it. His hands clenched spasmodically, his body shuddering each time. The bandage around his neck wept blood.

Not dead.

Not alive.

Aryl sat on the bed, carefully distant, and stared at him. “What can I do? I don’t know what to do.”

She hadn’t expected an answer, but Yao offered solemnly, “I have a song. It makes me feel better. Marcus likes it. I could teach it to you and we could sing together.”

Aryl didn’t look at the child. “He wouldn’t hear it,” she said, lips numb.

“That’s because he’s thinking of bad things. You should make him stop. He’d feel much better.”

She lifted her head. Huge eyes in a small face gazed back. “What a wise person you are,” Aryl said gravely. She gestured gratitude. “I need you to leave us alone, Yao. Please.”

The child walked to the doorway, then turned to look at Marcus. I wish he was my father. Then was gone.

Wise, indeed.

Aryl put the disk, warmed by her flesh, on the table. She covered the Human’s hands with her own.

And dropped her shields.

... The mind, fraying along every pattern, memories dissolving into chaos. PAIN . . . rushing to fill every empty space. Worst of all, awareness.

Marcus knew what was happening to him.

That was all he knew.

“Hush. Think only of your world,” Aryl urged gently, her inner sense focused on him, sharing his agony. “Your home, Marcus. That special place . . . a place you want to show me.” Impossible to cause more pain than he felt, so she poured Power into the demand, forced him to listen.

With an effort, he responded. He may have uttered words aloud; she didn’t hear, preoccupied with catching memories as they surfaced, holding them before they fractured and were lost.

She’d expected Marcus to think of home and family. Instead, her mind filled with darkness . . . then a sudden light.

Lights hanging from wires. Lights attached to walls. Lights on poles. Together they fought to illuminate a too-vast space, angled and rising away in polished steps. Steps with—another memory—carved seats for those who’d never be mistaken for Human. One wall was lit, its surface dancing with more carvings, with eyes and forms, and postures that were and weren’t beautiful but which—another—must have meaning to a different kind of mind.

Here—another—purpose. Here. Stand here, and whispers lift to the farthest corner, heard as if spoken by the one next to you. Whatever had been here, made this, had spoken, and listened. Commonality. A place to start understanding.

All this, buried and ignored. Not of interest or value—another memory—an old door, an older passage, then, all alone, a wall fell away.

To reveal what flooded a young mind with the thrill of the past . . .

Peace settled around the memories. Happiness. It had been the best time of his life. This was his Yena. His canopy.

Aryl watched the memories transform his face: how the jaw lost its taut line, the eyes softened, then closed. She waited until he breathed more easily, more and more slowly.

And when she was sure Marcus Bowman had forgotten everything else, when there was no more pain or awareness, when he believed himself back there and had no sense of here or her, Aryl swept her knife clean and deep across his throat.

Chapter 14

BELLS RANG FOR THE DEAD. Aryl listened, but heard only the rustle of a blanket and the lap of water against the platform.

What was a Cloisters made of? she wondered idly. Not metal. Not wood. Another question of so many she’d meant to ask him.