The Return We Carried

The two paths lay across the basin, bright enough to color the roots beneath our feet. I wanted to touch both. The relay had asked us to choose one, and my hand stayed curled against my dress while the pale line toward Orivane’s signal gave a faint, distant pulse.

“Can we ask what happens to the path we don’t carry?” I said.

Orivane rested against my palm, warm through the connection. “I can ask. The answer may be limited.”

“Ask anyway.”

The basin’s light rippled outward. I remembered the interruption learning from our choices, and kept my thoughts turned toward the people beside me: Aunt Seli’s hand near mine, Rellin following the exposed roots, Pellune perched at my feet. Vaust stood outside the ring, waiting. None of us had crossed the hollow’s middle.

Orivane sent the question. The answer came slowly, in pale marks that hovered above the waterless basin. It translated them in pieces. “The unchosen signal will remain recorded. The return will not be carried along that route now.”

“Recorded where?” Vaust asked.

“The relay does not specify.”

“So we don’t know whether we can come back to it,” Pellune said. Her wings gave a small, uneven glow. “That’s a very tidy way to say we might lose our chance.”

Orivane did not answer at once. The bright path toward its network pulsed again, and I felt its attention turn toward it. I had heard it speak of home in careful words. The signal had made those words less distant. Now the hollow had placed the way forward beside the way back to the guide, and only one could come with us.

“I want to follow that signal,” Orivane said. “I cannot tell you where it leads. I may not recognize it again if we leave it.”

Pellune’s glow dimmed. She rubbed one wing against the other. “And the guide is still holding the dark away.”

“I know,” Orivane said. “I remember being sent away. The guide did that so I could continue.”

I looked toward the pale line bending back to the figure at the hollow’s edge. The guide had lifted its hand to answer us, then braced it against the interruption again. It had kept the path open long enough for us to arrive. I wanted to give it the chance to come back. I also knew what it would mean to ask Orivane to leave its first clear signal behind.

Aunt Seli moved closer to the basin. “We should hear everyone. Then we choose together.”

Rellin crouched by the outer roots. He traced one with his thumb without crossing the ring. “The roots toward the guide are still joined to the path we walked. They’re strained, but they know where they’re going. The other line is clean and strong. I can’t tell what lies at its end.”