Reclamation

"You left her there?" Aria's hand curled into a fist. Eric reached out and covered her clenched hand with his own. Heart started and drew away. So did Aria.

"I had to," said Jay. "We didn't leave her alone. Our base coordinator, Lu, is with her. Cor was supposed to come find her family…I don't know what happened to her. She should have been here days ago."

"She was," said Aria. "Or at least, she was in a village near here. Now she's dead."

The expression bled slowly out of Jay's face. "What…"

"We don't know," said Aria. "We found her in the swamp. She had my sister's namestone with her."

"She was carrying that so she could find your family. She…" Jay left the sentence unfinished. He held his face perfectly still. For a moment, Eric thought he was simply holding back his grief, which was natural, but there was something more to it than that, something Eric couldn't decipher. A spasm of distrust ran through him.

"You see what things have come to?" said Jay. "We need to put an end to this now."

"We need"—Aria raised her eyes and Eric saw a dangerous glint behind them that even a few days ago he would not have recognized—"to get my sister out of that place of yours."

"I couldn't agree more," said Jay soberly. "But we also need to get you down there. You've been trained to use your stones. You wouldn't be overwhelmed by…whatever they activated."

"We hope," said Heart to Jay with surprising gravity. "The apocrypha point to it. But in case she fails we also need to get to First City. We need to rouse the Temple and the First King against these…"

"Vitae," supplied Aria. Heart continued to look at Eric.

"Vitae," said Jay. "Come now, Heart, there's no time for old prejudices here either."

Heart bowed his head like a student before his master. "Of course, you're right, Messenger."

Eric felt his stomach lurch and the distrust redoubled. Who is this Skyman who's gotten my Heretic brother-in-law so cowed?

To Eric's surprise, Aria just suppressed a smile. "My Lord Heart of the Seablade will be pleased to know that this despised one agrees with him. The intervention of First City would buy valuable time." Heart snorted and opened his mouth, but Aria ignored him. She turned to the Skyman and switched back to level-eye language. "Jay, you and I could go to my sister and your complex while Eric and my Lord Teacher Heart go to First City and…"

"No," said Eric flatly.

Aria blinked. "Well, surely you don't think the First Teacher would listen to this despised one?"

"And he will listen to me?" Eric held up his hand, palm out and wiggled his fingers at her. "I must be the biggest Heretic the Realm has ever known. At least you kept your hand marks. What kind of welcome do you think I'm going to get in the Temple?"

"Your father will hear you," said Heart. "And he will require First Teacher Signed to Still Water to do the same."

"You fool!" Eric leapt to his feet. "You blood-crossed fool! You've been used for years and finally sent to die and you still think you know what my father will do!"

"Eric." Aria looked up at him and there was genuine concern on her face. "I hate to agree with him, but we have to try it." She spoke in Standard. Eric was very aware that Jay was watching them both closely. "We need all the help we can get," she said. "Even from the high-house fools."

Eric looked away from her. He looked at the wicker walls with the crumbling wisps of moss poking out of the mud chinking. He looked at the roof. Beams and trimmed poles supported thatch and shadows. He looked at the flickering fire on its flat, brown stone.

She was right. He did not want her to be, because that meant Heart was also right. Worse, it meant he had to go back and stand in front of Father again, and tell him…tell him what? He wouldn't care about ten years of heresy and impossibility, as long as Eric could tell him how to drive the Vitae into submission. If Eric could tell him that, anything would be forgiven.

The problem was, that was the one thing Eric could not tell him. That meant that Father'd try to exact a price, for Eric's daring to abandon his family, for daring to question the designs of the Seablade House. Father and Mother both would demand that Eric show he was of use, and they were experts at putting people to use.

He did not miss the fact that they hadn't just sent out Heart to die. They'd sent Mind as well, because to send her husband without her would have looked strange. It might have endangered whatever plan they were birthing.

Ten years gone and it wasn't enough. Eric folded his arms against a chill that was entirely inside him. He tried to think of another reason why this was impossible, but he couldn't.

"The Servant sees this deed," he said to the fire. "It cannot be denied."

"Thank you," said Jay. Aria just nodded in silent approval.

"You've some sense in you yet," said Heart.