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offered bravely. Her Talent to affect the emotions of others might be restricted to very close kin; it still took its toll on her, regardless of outcome.
    Aryl gestured gratitude. “What you should do is eat,” she urged.
    â€œI can’t. Not without something to wash it down. Ziba! One of those sacs, please?” Myris left in pursuit of water, a little too obviously avoiding Seru.
    Did the past leave its trace? Something to touch a mind in the present? If so, Aryl feared she knew where it would be. That darkness between minds, the whirling seductive abyss through which she’d sent Bern and traveled with Enris—whenever she’d allowed herself to enter it, she’d felt it wasn’t empty. There was a sense of being observed, of some intangible presence.
    Her mother, Taisal di Sarc, claimed the minds of the dead lingered there, able to lure the living from their bodies. She wasn’t sure she believed Taisal, though it was true the darkness drew as much as terrified her. Just to think of it, standing here on this mountain in the middle of nowhere, brought it swelling into awareness, like the irresistible pressure of the M’hir Wind against her innermost self.
    If she let herself go, it would carry her away.
    Aryl worried her tongue at a stubborn crumb of bread lodged beside a tooth, studied the faces of those nearby, stamped her worn, damp boots against the ground until her feet were warm. She held to the real, to what was here and now. After a too-long struggle, the other place receded. All was improbably normal.
    She shuddered. Dangerous. Deadly. That darkness was part of Taisal since the death of her Chosen, Mele, Aryl’s father; it was part of those less fortunate Lost, whose minds no longer functioned.
    And part, Aryl admitted, of her as well.
    As for Seru? Was it the source of her dread?
    Aryl knew better than to reach for her cousin. This was not the time or place for extra risk. She took another bite and frowned. As for her find? This wasn’t the time or place to spread the news a Chosen had died here either.
    She’d show Enris, but he was inconsiderately out of reach. Or…there was someone she could trust to keep this secret.
    Aryl tucked away her bread and started to climb.
    Â 
    While the others rested, Veca Kessa’at had climbed to a vantage point to pick out their route. The tall, rangy Om’ray had been a promising young scout, until Joining Tilip Sarc. After Choice, like many, she turned to an occupation posing less risk to both their lives and became a woodworker like Tilip and her grandmother, Morla Kessa’at. Their quiet son, Fon, though younger than Aryl, showed the same interest. A valued, productive family.
    Yena’s Council had exiled him with his parents and great-grandmother—why, she couldn’t imagine.
    Veca’s teeth bared in what wasn’t a smile as Aryl joined her on the spit of rock. “Got any ideas?” she half shouted, gesturing over the edge.
    â€œThat bad?” Coat fluttering, Aryl braced herself and looked down, forewarned by a roar that wasn’t wind.
    The sheer drop at her feet wasn’t the problem, though the scar in the rock was fresh and angry. They had sufficient ropes to get everyone down. Once at the bottom, though, they’d be trapped. Instead of the narrow ribbons of water they’d encountered thus far, barely worth a jump, here an angry torrent tore down the ravine. White fists slammed against huge boulders or bullied their way between in muscular currents. Directly below, Aryl watched the water plunge over a rock step. Clouds of spray, like snowdrops, obscured its fate.
    And everywhere, the hard glitter of ice. It coated the boulders. It grew from the rocky banks like teeth.
    â€œThat bad,” Aryl agreed. They couldn’t cross this.
    Veca squatted on her heels and rubbed one hand over her face. Weariness smudged the skin under her eyes; worry tightened the edges of her