Heart Legacy

by Robin D. Owens

  Lori walked around the room, did a few exercises, and asked a question that had often come to mind but she’d never spoken aloud. “How many personalities do you have?”

  “Hmmm,” the HouseHeart hummed with a vibration that went clear to Lori’s bones and resonated in her marrow. “Four, dear.”

  Easy, keep the questions easy like casual conversation. “I like yours better than my MotherSire’s that the main Residence uses.”

  The HouseHeart chuckled. “What you call your MotherSire’s persona is actually from the T’Yew two generations before him. His FatherSire’s.”

  “Oh, um, about change. Is it possible for the Residence’s main character to change?”

  “If the whole entity wishes, the Residence and the HouseHeart and the HeartStones who control the personas, it can be done relatively simply.” Now the voice took on layers, became a multivoice, and Lori heard a definite tinge of the Residence she knew all too well.

  “And otherwise?” she asked.

  “With the request and Flaired insistence of the Family, or the head of the household.” The HouseHeart’s tone held warning. Lori knew what that meant—she’d have to challenge the Residence, an entity built three and a half centuries ago.

  She’d lived eighteen years.

  She wasn’t sure of their respective Flair, but she thought that one chandelier dropped on her would finish her off. And she didn’t know if the Residence would do that. More likely, she’d be fitted with DepressFlair bracelets and stuck in a storage chamber and go mad. Lori thought either Vi or Zus would love to be D’Yew or T’Yew instead of her.

  Her lip curled. They had no self-control. The Residence had drilled into her that a FirstFamily GrandLady must be in charge of her emotions, and Lori had learned. The spoilt twins hadn’t.

  And, truly, with regard to replacing the main Residence’s persona, how would Lori feel if that happened to her? She shuddered. Would she remain herself? No, it wasn’t right to insist that someone else change to meet her needs; better to change herself. Even though she believed change to be good, a Residence that had lived so long probably couldn’t change easily, certainly not as easily as she. Perhaps it had fossilized.

  “Do you know if any other Residences have changed personas?”

  A throbbing silence. “I believe some are flexible enough to do so when a new head of household is installed, especially if the gender of that head changes.” Another pause. “We haven’t been in contact with the other Residences, the FirstFamily circle of Residences since before you were born.”

  “Oh. That’s sad.” Lori paused herself. “Not to have friends the same as you.”

  “We are unique and we have our Family.” Again with the multivoice. “That is sufficient,” it intoned, and then the HouseHeart said in its female voice, “D’Yew, you must eat.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I recommend a high-protein meal.” The HouseHeart tinkled one of the four wind chimes in the chamber, and Lori turned toward that area and the no-time there. The outer door had opened, and when she approached, the inner door slid aside and the scent of steak wrapped in porcine strips and creamy orange taters made her salivate.

  “Thank you, HouseHeart.” Lori translocated the hot plate to a tray with legs, took it, flatware, and a softleaf to sit near the firepit.

  “My, pleasure, dear.”

  As soon as Lori picked up her fork, ravenous hunger struck and she shoveled in the food with little savoring. She finished quickly, cleansed her plate and utensils, went to her favorite stack of huge pillows, and leaned back on them. All of her felt better, stronger, though her leg ached a bit. Despite the Flair the HouseHeart and the Residence and Cuspid had given her, only Cuspid had a minor Healing gift. She’d Heal faster, but it would still be her own body working on the injury, sapping her strength. So she’d have to take it easy for a few days.

  She shouldn’t have even considered embarking on her trip, though if her animals were endangered she’d leave if she had to flop sideways over one of them to ride and sneak away.

  Then she remembered Baccat, and that she hadn’t checked on him. Closing her eyes, she visualized the thin but steely thread between them. He slept, and she sensed his well-being and sighed with relief.

  Very quietly, the HouseHeart said, “We Residences do have standards and rules.”

  Lori blinked; she’d been sliding into sleep and hadn’t noticed how many minutes had passed. “Yes?” she prompted, equally softly.

  “Your FamCat should be allowed in here, with you.” A click like that of a tongue. “But the primary Residence character does not care for animals—in any way—not even those with some sentience.

  “And . . .”

  “And,” Lori asked.

  “You should have been proclaimed as D’Yew as soon as you finished your Second Passage last summer.” A sigh of air and tinkle of chimes. “Like humans, Residences may decide not to follow the rules and standards.”

  Surprise flicked through Lori. Residences had rules, and Yew Residence might not be following them! Her mind boggled. Lady and Lord forfend if she didn’t follow any of the Residence’s or the Family’s rules. Nonchalantly, she said, “Ah, I hear you, HouseHeart. Surely a situation like mine has come up before in our history when someone lost his or her parents too young.”

  The fire flamed and crackled in response to the HouseHeart’s surge of Flair. The HouseHeart said, “Yes. Such circumstances have occurred twice before.”

  Nineteen

  What happened before when a person too young to take the title inherited?” Lori asked.

  Murmuring, the HouseHeart said, “One individual was confirmed as the FirstFamily GrandLady after her Second Passage at seventeen.”

  “And the other heir?” Lori asked.

  Another flare of fire shot up orange from the pit. “Once the regent was dilatory in handing over the management of the estate. That was a difficult time of turmoil in the Residence as the Family took sides and fought internally.” The HouseHeart’s voice quavered, then turned into a whisper. “For over three years there was constant strife. Finally outsiders, the others in the FirstFamily Council, named him and recognized him as T’Yew. Outsiders messing in our business. A great disgrace for us all. Not ever to be tolerated again. And one of the reasons we don’t trust others; they usurped our personal authority.”

  Lori’s spine stiffened as she sat up straight, feeling the sting to her Family pride herself, even flushing with embarrassment at the visualization of the loss of privacy and honor to the name she carried. No, it was not well done to go outside the Family for anything, even if she’d contemplated such. Her reaction of gut revulsion would be mirrored by every one of her Family members.

  Infighting. She’d wanted to avoid that and she had. Mostly because she believed she’d lose in any battle with anyone else. Now she set her lifted chin. She might be leaving, but she wouldn’t be tearing the Family apart—just letting them decide who would be a better head of the household than she. Since, despite all that she’d done, they didn’t believe she was old enough, acceptable enough to be GrandLady, inasmuch as they hadn’t scheduled a ceremony to recognize her.

  Then the light dimmed as if the HouseHeart sighed. “Situations and events linger in our memory and we make decisions based on the past instead of looking forward to the future. We, as a full Residential being, are like that. You are our hope, D’Yew, young enough to disregard the very heavy weight of past mistakes and make decisions on your view of the future. Always remember that.”

  Lori gulped and nodded but didn’t answer aloud. She was abandoning her Family and the Residence. It didn’t matter that she deeply felt—and thought—that they’d abandoned her first, and when she’d tried to make those decisions that the HouseHeart just referred to, she’d been overruled. She still was selfishly leaving the Family and the Residence to their own decisions based on the past, or whatever.

  She arranged the large pillows into a nest, settled into them, and close
d her eyes. When she did, she became aware of all the aches in her body, and especially her leg, which now felt fragile.

  Guilt followed Lori into dreams. She thrashed until the gray bleakness faded . . . and transmuted to warmth and tenderness, and not from her animals.

  No, this time she felt the heat of a man, a lover in bed with her, his hands on her, as she’d imagined.

  As she wanted, and soon.

  As she needed now! She awoke with desire churning inside her.

  * * *

  Draeg checked on his bond with Loridana midmorning and found her sleeping again, still in the HouseHeart. Continuing to worry about threats to her, and with her injury the night before as an excuse, Draeg made sure the animals could spare him for a while and walked up to the Residence.

  He planned on speaking with the house, trying to gauge the personality of the structure himself instead of relying on comments from Baccat and Loridana.

  As soon as he reached a point where someone could see him from the roof walk or the windows, he hunched his shoulders and modified his stride to a slower walk that a common guard who’d spent a lot of time mounted would use. The path transformed from a small beaten-earth trail to wide stone set in smooth ground that would be surrounded by a centuries-old lush grassyard in the summer. The area became groomed to a near perfection that itched at him.

  He’d considered which door to head for and decided on the side door nearest to the stables, though at other times he’d gone to the back door near the kitchen, the one at which a low-status person would present himself. When he reached the entrance, he took off a battered soft hat he’d worn and screwed up his face so the incipient lines on it would groove a bit and added anxiety to his expression.

  Shifting from foot to foot, he noted the two scrystones on either side of the door embrasure. He lifted the iron knocker and let it fall, waited for a couple of minutes. No one opened the polished wooden door. Hand on the iron latch, he pressed the tongue of it and pushed the door inward, then followed it to stand in a small mudroom set with the same gray stone as the building.

  “Uh, hmm,” he said, then cleared his throat and ducked his head as if addressing a person of great status, keeping an eye on a faceted clear crystal inset in the ceiling. “Ah, FirstFamily GrandLord T’Yew Residence?” he mumbled.

  “I hear you,” it replied in haughty tones.

  “Uh, hmm, uh, I come ta check on the wo—the girlie who fell last night, see how she’s a-doin’, whether her leg is Healed and when she might—”

  “GrandLady D’Yew will come to the stables when she is completely well and after her duties to me and her Family are fulfilled. Begone.”

  “Well—”

  “You let in cold air! Impossible creature.” The door handle beneath his fingers gave him a jolt of electricity, and Draeg yanked his hand from it, jumped, and swore. Then the door swung shut, hard, sweeping him with it, and slammed, sending him flying a meter and landing on his butt, falling to his back, his head hitting hard ground. He lay gasping for a good minute, began to instinctively teleport home and summon the Blackthorn Family Healer, and recalled himself in time.

  FAMMAN! Corax screeched in his mind, and Draeg thought he might also have done so aloud, but he couldn’t hear him with his ears. Of course his ears buzzed with shock and pain and the tough rush of his own breathing.

  Meet me at the big yew between the Residence and the stables, Draeg instructed.

  Yes, FamMan. Don’t like you hurt.

  I don’t, either. Allowing himself awkward movements—he wasn’t in The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon now—he rolled over, head down, rocked to hands and knees and then to his feet, to stagger back down the path to the stables. From the heat on the back of his neck, and a wariness that suffused his whole body, he believed that some of the Family members in the Residence watched him limp away.

  What happened? Corax’s tone was as dark as his feathers.

  The Residence hurt me.

  Bad house. Draeg sensed his FamBird snicking his beak.

  Yeah. When the trees masked him from the Residence, he leaned against the yew and shuddered in and out a few breaths, gingerly stretched, and heard a couple of tendons twang and joints crack as he settled his body. His vision seemed fine though his head throbbed—but his gritted teeth and anger at the Residence didn’t help that headache.

  Corax hopped from a low branch to Draeg’s shoulder, and he flinched. “Sorry,” he said.

  The bird tugged at a hank of his hair. Sorry, too.

  Stiffness from the fall seeped into his muscles, and he knew he had to move. Though it hurt, once again he checked on each of the animals.

  “Let me hold you while I teleport to T’Blackthorn Residence.” He reached and took the bird from his shoulder to cradle Corax against his chest. The Fam fluttered a little, then settled.

  We go?

  “Yeah, my head doesn’t feel quite right. Going now, and not counting down.” On a sigh, he teleported home to his bedroom. Once there, he sent out a mental call for their Healer, opened his arms to free Corax, then took a couple of steps to fall facedown on the bedsponge, and that hurt.

  Trapped! Trapped inside! Thin window, FamMan!

  Without opening his eyes or turning his head toward the long window that looked out on the first-story roof terrace, Draeg said the Word to thin the window to air and heard a whoosh as his Fam exited the room. A minute later, feathers tickled his nose along with the pungent dust smell of bird.

  Thanks, FamMan. Good to know I can get in and out and in and out and in—

  “Welcome,” Draeg mumbled.

  Since Draeg’s adoptive father and distant cuz had been the last of the colonist’s direct line, the Blackthorns didn’t have a huge Family who worked in the Residence. The current SecondLevel Healer had contracted with them for a few years. The guy arrived at Draeg’s second-floor suite quickly enough, knocked, and entered when Draeg yelled at him to come in.

  After a brief and nearly sickening examination, punctuated by mental comments and beak clicks by Corax, along with admiring compliments about the FamBird by the Healer, the man went to work on the crack in Draeg’s skull and his bruised butt and back. Then the guy left with an admonition to be more careful and a last remark that he’d thought Draeg had quit his looking-for-trouble-and-finding-it ways.

  Draeg had grunted in answer, then just continued to lie facedown on his bedsponge—he’d forgotten how wonderful a good bedsponge felt.

  Corax flew in and out of the room and Draeg learned the sound of his Fam’s flight. Vaguely, Draeg kept the mental and emotional links he had with the Yew animals open. All was well, so he could spare a little time for questions.

  Projecting his voice, he said, “T’Blackthorn Residence, I have some questions about Residences.”

  “Because you are working and staying at D’Yew Residence,” the deep male voice of T’Blackthorn Residence stated.

  “That’s right.” Draeg rolled over and stuffed a couple of fat pillows behind his head. Even though he hadn’t been hurt for long, he welcomed the smooth movement of muscle, bone, and sinew gratefully.

  Corax glided through the window and perched on the wooden headboard of Draeg’s bed. Good thing it was battered from tussles with his siblings already.

  He cleared his throat. “My injuries were due to sustaining an electrical shock from my fingers on the iron door latch, and then the door flung me back and away as it slammed shut.”

  Bad house! Corax yelled.

  “What!” The remaining closed window in his bedroom rattled, and some of the tension in Draeg’s shoulders eased that his home sounded as angry as Draeg had felt at the unexpected and uncalled-for violence.

  “I’d knocked and opened the door, stepped in, but kept my hand on the latch.” He still didn’t know whether that was a mistake. Odds were, the Residence could have hurt him worse if he’d closed the door behind him and stayed inside.

  “If D’Yew Residence still remained connec
ted to our circle, we would have sanctioned him,” T’Blackthorn Residence stated in a flintlike tone. A pause. “But that entity withdrew from our company.” Another few heartbeats of silence—human heartbeats; Draeg wondered how the Residences ticked away the time, marking the passing of minutes, or years. Finally, T’Blackthorn Residence said heavily, “It is not good for those of us who are centuries old to be isolated. We depend on the contact with other like beings for support, as well as our Families.”

  “I understand,” Draeg said quietly. “People in your Families come and go.”

  “Mine die,” T’Blackthorn Residence said bleakly. “Four times I’ve seen my Blackthorns succumb to an illness that other Families have survived. Four times the Blackthorns have been reduced to a single member.”

  “I’m sorry,” Draeg said.

  Corax made a sympathetic noise.

  The Residence continued, “And Straif grieved hard and went away, leaving me. It was good that I had others of my ilk to communicate with.”

  “Good.”

  Good! Corax echoed.

  “Thank you, FamBird. I am pleased to see that Draeg has finally found his Fam.”

  The house heard me! Corax sounded thrilled.

  “Indeed,” the Residence said.

  Preening, Corax straightened a feather and said, My FamMan waited for me. I am best for him.

  “Indeed,” the Residence agreed. “And it is good that you three brothers of the Betony-Blackthorn bloodline have been adopted into the Blackthorn Family. Through the marriages over the years with more Commoner people, your ancestry has strengthened the original strain and made it sturdier.”

  Draeg finally found the courage to ask the Residence a question he’d thought about since he’d been a child. “Then you’re all right with the title and the fortune and . . . and yourself passing to us? Or to one of Straif’s and Mitchella’s adopted children?” His breath hitched. “Or, I should say, we will be passing to you, because you are the constant of the Blackthorn Family.”