twin before Platt’s warriors located her, especially since they had been unsuccessful thus far.
It didn’t take long, though, for disappointment to return. When night after night of searching turned up nothing, Dari seemed more unhappy than ever, and Aron would have done anything to please her, including doubling and tripling his efforts in their graal training sessions.
What do you see?
Dari’s voice floated like sweet music through Aron’s senses, heightened by the depth of perception he enjoyed on the other side of the Veil. He tried to focus on the lyrical notes of her speech, on the gauzy warmth of her spiritual presence beside him, but it was no use. He couldn’t do what she was asking him to do, and he hated himself for it.
Aron slid back to full awareness and opened his eyes, taking in the stone floor and bearskin rug beneath him, the stone walls of Dari’s bedchamber, the fire blazing in her hearth, and Blath sitting in a chair by the far window, staring away from them, into the gray light of the cloudy day. Aron’s fingers traveled down his leg until he touched the polished gray cheville that marked him as a Stone apprentice. The smooth, banded agate he now wore seemed perfect to his eye, more complex than he ever imagined colorless rock could be, and he knew its contours, shades, and hues so well he might have had this very cheville since birth. Like the gray tunic and breeches he wore, it was part of his life now, a fact he accepted. His cheville, his apprentice’s clothing, the never-ending ache in his muscles from training and the additional exercises he took on to improve himself, the bruises on his back from his latest round of extra “training” with Galvin Herder… at least those things were simple and easy.
Dari was not, and neither were her demands.
The outer surface of the rock felt cool to his touch. Dari’s room was cold despite the fire, but she was so close to Aron, sitting almost knee to knee, that he wondered if her presence kept him warm.
What do you see?
The question echoed through the faint mental connection that remained even though Aron was no longer in a meditative state.
“Nothing,” he said aloud. “Well, nothing but you and Blath and your bedchamber and the light coming through your window. I can’t see Iko in the hallway, but I’d wager he’d yelp if I stuck a burning stick beneath the door.”
Dari’s eyes opened, and Aron stared into the dark, glittering depths. No matter how tired and sad she had become over the days and weeks and cycles of fruitless searching for her sister, she remained endlessly beautiful to him.
“Aron, you have been at Stone for a year and a half.” Dari rubbed the sides of her head, then fidgeted with the peridot cheville—a fake, fastened by clasps—that she kept on her ankle during waking hours. “You have mastered the basics of regulating your body and thoughts, of healing yourself and others from minor accidents and wounds, of understanding the world around you in new and deeper ways. You’ve even become skilled at tasks like reading the nature of legacies and concealing your own mind-talents from any who might try to pry. What stops you from using your graal to look across distances on the other side of the Veil?”
Aron’s cheeks warmed even as his belly tightened. He tried to use some of that regulation of body and mind she had taught him and shrugged in response, hoping his expression remained as placid as Stormbreaker’s always seemed to be. “Perhaps it’s a talent I don’t have.”
“You’ve done it before.” Dari gazed at him, and Aron was aware she was searching for the truth. Maybe sensing it, like he was supposed to able to do so easily. “You could do it again, but you don’t choose to try.”
With a frown, Aron did his best to keep a dense cloak about the innermost workings of his mind. He even repeated the words to a traveling song to himself, over and over, to keep her from prying too deeply through the trace of mental connection they shared. That was, of course, futile, at least where Dari was concerned.
“You don’t… want to view the countryside of Eyrie from the other side of the Veil. But why?” She stared at him all the harder, her black eyes bright with frustration and confusion. “Stormbreaker and Lord Baldric value war news, especially what they can learn from sources