Erin Hoffman - Sword of Fire and Sea

In the morning, Ariadel didn't rise with the sun as she had every day that Vidarian had known her-brief though that time might be. Vidarian rose quietly, trying not to wake her, and found his way to the nearby river for the first morning wash he'd had in some time that hadn't involved snow. The water was cold, but restored him to full wakefulness, along with awareness of a number of stretched and sore muscles.

Ruby had risen before him, and crouched beside a fire she'd made by the river, tending a kettle. She was scrutinizing the metal pot so intently that she jumped when Vidarian laid a hand on her shoulder.

A flash of irritation followed her embarrassment at having been surprised, and she answered the question in his eyes hotly. “The temperature has to be precise,” she said.

“Your exclusive kava?” he said. “Better not let any tyros such as myself near it.”

“It's really no fault of mine that you have a peasant's palate,” she huffed.

“I'm just glad to see you're feeling better,” he replied. Sincerity was one of the few ways to defuse her ire.

Ruby eyed him, but stretched the arm closest to her injury, showing a greater range of movement than she'd had a few days ago. His comment had the desired effect: it mollified her enough to share the kava. He coaxed a few fat fish out of the river with water magic and cooked them with fire while she brewed the bark-be damned if this whole Tesseract business wasn't going to have some silver lining-and they made a very decent camp breakfast of it.

When Ariadel didn't rise by the time the gryphons returned from their morning hunt-nearly too fat to fly, Altair accused the other two; they'd taken two medium-sized deer-Vidarian started to worry, and went to rouse her.

The kitten, which had ridden for most of the journey in its more portable spider form, slept curled across her neck, as if huddled there for warmth. But when Vidarian moved to touch Ariadel's shoulder, he was taken aback by the worried intelligence in the creature's very awake and alert eyes. It knows , the Starhunter said softly. She'd been silent since the wolf attack, and seemed strangely thoughtful now. My creatures know things.

Ariadel's face and hands were both pale, and Vidarian rejected his immediate fear, but it refused to subside entirely. He'd seen this kind of pallor before, in his childhood….

It's what's inside her , the Starhunter whispered, warring against itself. Wind meets hammer!

Vidarian's stomach dropped. “No…” he whispered. But his new senses showed her accusation to be true. If he closed his eyes, her dominant fire nature rose up before him-but beneath it, in her blood, twined the energies of her parents: implacable earth and volatile wind, now turned against each other. He realized, with an echo of the terrible fear that had haunted his childhood, how the visiting priestess had known with a single look the nature of the disease that took his brothers.

Ask her , the Starhunter insisted, with a callous titter, if she has any brothers or sisters.

But he knew the answer.

Ask!

He took her hands and massaged them in his own, willing warmth back into her frighteningly cold fingers. “Ariadel,” he said, and she made a soft noise, her face contorting. Her pallor and reflexive grimace threw him back twenty years-his mother, a dried husk from grief, standing at the bedside of Relarion, his oldest brother. He was ten years old…. “Ariadel,” he forced himself to urge again, hoarse. “Do you have…” his voice rasped and he swallowed. “…brothers or sisters?”

“No,” she said, confusion wrinkling her brow. She cleared her throat, but it was a weak sound. “I-my parents had two children, before I was born. They-didn't survive.”

“They got sick,” he said quietly.

Her chin tipped down once in the shadow of a nod. “Blood plague,” she whispered.

Ruby's indrawn breath behind them lifted his head. She stood, her arms wrapped around herself, a handful of emotions warring on her face. He knew that expression well; the Rulorats had parted from their Sea Kingdom brethren to support the Alorean Emperor seven generations ago, but seventy years ago Vidarian's great-grandfather had further parted from sea custom by marrying a fire woman. The rigid Sea Kingdom rites weren't always so practical, but the stricture against interelemental marriage centered around a single purpose: avoiding the specter of blood plague.

The disease came on suddenly and usually took children, but cases had been documented in adults as old as thirty years of age. When Vidarian had turned thirty, three years ago, and survived, a peace had come over his mother. On her deathbed two years ago she said that she could die happy, knowing she wouldn't lose him as she had his brothers.

Ariadel was twenty-eight.

Jealous, jealous elements , the Starhunter whispered. How they fight when I'm not around… .

A cold chill penetrated the heat of Vidarian's grief. “What are you saying?” he said softly, ignoring the confused looks that Ariadel and Ruby turned on him.

You know what I'm saying , she laughed coldly. Set me free, and she lives .

Vidarian lifted his voice. “When was the first case of blood plague recorded?”

“It's ancient,” Ruby said, her tone dismissing the question. “Two thousand years.”

Has it been that long? the voice mused. Man, time flies .

“Two thousand years ago,” Vidarian said, willing strength from his hands into Ariadel's as he tightened his grasp, “they shut the Starhunter behind the gate.”

After wrapping Ariadel in every blanket they could find, and convincing Thalnarra to use a small amount of fire magic in a persistent spell to keep her warm, Ruby and Vidarian loaded the flying craft in silence. On the far side of the river was the start of a grassy plain, and Ruby, no longer hiding her facility with water magic, walked across the surface of the river to collect fodder for the horses from the other side. Arikaree complimented her on her technique, but her only reply was a flush that could have been pleasure or anger, and seemed probably both.

Vidarian wasn't convinced that the sightwolves wouldn't find some way to break into the old barn, but they could only fortify it minimally with the available materials and hope for the best. The horses and verali, for their part, seemed content and relieved to be housed and not traveling. By early afternoon all was prepared, and they were taking to the air.

The gryphons lifted with a will after their respite through the mountains, and Ariadel occupied Ruby's previous place at the bow. It seemed odd that they had never flown the craft without one of them being incapacitated, and an ill omen for a ship named Destiny. Vidarian's mother had been a superstitious keeper of sea adages, and in spite of his rational inclinations otherwise, at such times it was as if a small voice inside him whispered fear, caution, just-you-wait.

Ruby came to stand next to him at the stern, taking an interest in the ingenious galley hardware as he had on their first journey. Now that she had let go of her stubbornness regarding the gryphons (she even seemed to be developing a hesitant kinship with Arikaree), she was discovering the wonder of the altitudes.

“It's a bit like being at sea,” she observed, looking down over the clouds. “You can almost imagine it's fog over the water.”

Vidarian blinked, shaking off the malaise of superstition-a construct, he knew, to distract him from the fast-approaching choice he would make, and how Ariadel's fate tied into it. “I suppose it is,” he said, following her gaze. The clouds were thin here and whipped by beneath them, catching on the craft and splitting around it. A moment later, the sky opened up beneath them, clear, and their breath caught simultaneously. At the involuntary leap in his heart, the storm sapphires rumbled from the pouch at his side, answered immediately by a growl from the sun rubies. He closed his eyes, stretching control around them-an act that was becoming increasingly difficult the longer they stayed in his possession. Exhaustion, mental and emotional, tugged at him, and the stones seemed to realize his weakness and surge up in response.