Excerpt: Hiro's Quest

"Hiro...?"

Hiro shifted, less than half aware and reaching. Fingertips brushed rough stone, and he frowned, sleep-mazed. The whisper came again.

"Hiro!"

Tossing, Hiro mumbled and sank back towards the depths. The whisper returned, insistent.

"Hiro Takai, blast your red head! Answer me!"

"Ume?" Hiro's eyes sprang open to stare at a pattern of silver light. Moonlight, he realized. On a wall. Shining through a screen behind him.

"Hiro?"

"Ume!" He ought to know that whisper. Hiro sat up and cursed as his head spun, but he unlatched the screen and a moment later Ume eeled over the sill and landed on his lap and hugged him.

"Thorns and havoc, I thought I'd never find you! Why didn't you answer me?"

"I...did." Hiro blinked as slowly his mind collected and all the things wrong began to stand out. He was not in his bed, and the loose sleepshirt he wore was not his. Ume looked dirty and harried, and that should not be in the place he'd finally recognized as the Healing villa.

"Hiro, I've been looking for you since the ritual, and I know I've gone past that window at least three times!"

Ritual. The...Kindling. Something-- "Something went wrong."

"You noticed," Ume growled, and shook her head. "Thorns, here it comes. I get this--" She stopped talking, and her chin lifted. She straightened, sliding into a formal kneeling position at the foot of the bed. Then she opened her mouth, but it wasn't--quite--her voice that came from it.

"Kunihiro Takai," she said with a timbre that tugged at Hiro's memory, "my humblest apologies, to you and to Ume. I have failed."

"Eshan!" Eshan had--coerced Ume? Why? How? They said it couldn't be done! "Eshan?"

The speech went on as if he hadn't spoken. "--to make certain you received this message. I have failed you, but still I would save you if I can. I beg of you, do not let the Keepers push you to your Kindling. If ever you have trusted me, heed me now--do not let this happen."

If? When had Hiro ever questioned Eshan, though clearly he should have?