It's direct. If you never have children it'd be a bloodline of just you, unless a parent or grandparent also awakened in which case anyone directly down from them would be contributing to the same pool. But it's usually only actions taken after becoming a practitioner that count very much, so even if everyone awakened you wouldn't necessarily start out doomed.

More doomed. Sorry.

She giggles. Got it. Can you use cold spirits to hide your body heat, so you can fly out there?

Maybe. It'd depend on which elementals I happen to find, but that's definitely a doable thing.

Heat's the only problem, they wouldn't otherwise be able to see me until I land or watch me leave after? I wouldn't be able to, but relying on that would be the same mistake twice.

Heat's the only thing we can see in the dark. You might want to hike in from a few miles out, but no one's going to be watching for something with no heat flying across the ocean.

Good. I'll try, then.

Catching a new ice elemental might be a bit of a wait, even here. And I really should use the heat elemental to help in the binding, since I'll need to take it back anyway to fly without freezing solid. Is it in use for anything important yet?

No, I can definitely get it back. Let me go tell everyone about your strange Mannish religion.

Thanks. I guess if you've never met humans before they won't have any reason not to buy it.

But if they do believe it and notice that miracles happen when asked for? Oh well, they'll have heard exactly one intelligible "prayer" and that one didn't end up with magic behind it. The rest can just be in English.

We haven't. That's honestly what I thought it might be, so - She turns around. Later.

Amber resets the bait. One advantage of being here, whatever turns up will probably be useful for disguising heat. This time it gets a more detailed diagram drawn ahead of time.

She heads back to camp and explains about the stranger and her strange religion. "Men," she concludes, and everyone nods gravely.

Father, none of that's true, but there's magic at work such that more people knowing it is a problem. How do you want to proceed?

There's nothing much to do at the moment but wait, so she starts back toward the camp for lack of anywhere better to be. After setting another spirit attractant with the other medium-size water elemental a short distance away from the first.

I want to know it, he says instantly. 

So she explains.

Collecting the sole source of reasonable heat actually sounds incredibly tempting. Fortunately, it's important for reasons.

They'll probably be up to date on explanations by the time she returns. Humans are slow.

She brings the fabric with the heat elementals back. I told my King, everyone else got the story we agreed on. He's not going to do anything that hurts your reputation, don't worry.

Thanks. I was a bit worried you'd take advantage of the fact that there's nothing coming down on your head if you don't go out of your way to keep my secret.

You offered to help us, and gave us the heat thing even though you can make use of it.

I could always replace that, eventually. The only reason it's attached to this thing in particular is so I could point and say "I have no idea how to replace that" without lying. And you were the ones about to cross the ocean on ice.

If this were my world, I'd expect someone or other to take advantage of the situation.

She giggles. I think we're all decent people. To oversimplify a bit, a little while ago there was a way across the Ice but you had to be a dishonest, amoral asshole to take it, so everyone who was, did.

Ah. Nice and self-selecting.

...I am more and more looking forward to passing on an angry message and letting them worry about how.

They'll have a lot to worry about once they realize we're alive.

I thought you said they expected you to turn back, not die. Or do you mean alive and relevant?

Yes. Alive and if they want to change that they no longer get to do so passively.

It'd be a lot better if even that weren't an option. Since it sounds like they'll already be fighting a war and you will have just come from a humanly impossible journey, if they pick swords it doesn't sound likely to end well.

I really don't think they will. There's a difference between selfish enough to strand people in an impossible position and forget about them, and ruthless enough to go out and murder them as they walk by, and I knew them well enough to know they'd do this so I'm pretty sure I'm right they won't do that.

I believe you, it's just an awful lot to stake.