Incarnate (4 page)

“Ana!”

Ropes of shadow forced Sam to dodge and duck. The clearing reeked of ash. The sylph attacked Sam again, trapping him against a tree.

My hands closed around the egg; I could barely feel it through the numbing cold. It was slick, almost too slippery to grip, but I gave the device a final twist and flipped up the lid just as the sylph lunged for Sam with a dissonant shriek.

I thrust the egg into the burning shadow, and smoke streaked into the brass when I dropped it. Heat raced through me, and my entire world grew too hot to live in. I felt like a legendary phoenix must, consumed in its own fires so it could be reborn.

But I wasn’t a phoenix.

Just a nosoul with blackened hands.

Across the sylph egg stood a young man who looked my age, but wasn’t. He might have said my name again. I couldn’t hear through the rushing in my ears as I ran to the nearest snowdrift and shoved my hands inside.

I would not cry. Would not.

A moment later, Sam knelt in front of me. “Hey.”

“Go away.” I clenched my jaw, trying not to look at the pitying expression he wore. He knew about the sylph burns, surely. He knew how they’d spread and engulf me, and soon I’d be dead. Probably forever. At least I was near a graveyard.

“Let me see your hands.” He spoke softly, as if that would change my mind. “Please.”

“No.” I scooted away and pressed my hands into a new patch of snow. They burned no matter how much snow I packed onto them. If I pulled them out, they’d be black and flaking, like charcoal. The singe on my cheek echoed the sensation. “Leave me alone.”

“Let me help you.”

He wasn’t going to listen. He didn’t care what I wanted. “No! Just go away. I don’t need you. I wish you’d never found me.” I was hot and cold and so tired of everything hurting. For someone who’d died a hundred times, he had a poor grasp of the situation. “In the last two days I’ve been given a bad compass by my own mother so I’d go the wrong way, attacked by sylph
twice
, burned, and nearly drowned in a freezing lake. You should have left me there. Everyone would have been happier to forget about me.” I collapsed over myself and wept. “I hate you. I hate everyone.”

Finally, he left.

AFTER I’D CRIED myself out, hooves thumped the ground behind me, then stopped. Sam scooped me into his arms. Snow fell in clumps. I tried to hold on to it, but gripping hurt too much. When I dug my elbow into his chest, he just shifted me around and carried me through the cemetery’s iron gate. “Go away.” My throat hurt from cold and crying.

“No.” He swept snow off a stone bench and set me down, then sat next to me. “You should have come in here when I told you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged my legs to my chest, buried my face in my sleeves. The alternating hot and cold in my hands made drowning in the lake seem like a leisurely summer swim. “You don’t listen, do you? Go away.”

“Piffle.” Icy hands closed around my cheeks as he turned my face to his. Couldn’t make me meet his eyes, though; I kept my gaze down. “
You
don’t listen,” he said.

Why wouldn’t he just leave? I was going to burn up, anyway, with fire creeping up my arms to consume me. My eyes ached with fresh tears. I hated crying.

“But if you’d listened,” he murmured, “I’d be dead.”

I looked up, and he looked earnest. Gentle features twisted into concern when I just sat there, hands shaking. Maybe they’d shake off.

“Thank you for saving me.” He said it like he meant it, like I’d actually done something good and worthwhile. But now I was going to die a slow and fiery death. That didn’t seem to bother him.

“You’d have come back.” My brain and mouth weren’t connected. This wasn’t the time to be mean. I should apologize for screaming at him. “I mean I’m glad you’re okay.”

One corner of his mouth twitched up, and he wiped his thumbs under my eyes, avoiding the burn on my cheek. “Your hands must really hurt. Will you let me help?”

“That’s not why I’m crying.” Ugh. I’d meant to blame that on the snow. “I’m just mad at all this. Sylph. Li. You.”

“Why me?” He released my face and reached inside a bag on his lap. Bandages, ointments, painkillers: it would have been nice if I’d seen those before. “As far as I know, I’ve only tried to keep you out of trouble.”

“Exactly.” I let my heels slip off the bench so I could sit normally; Sam held my shoulder in case I lost my balance, but I didn’t, so I shot him a glare.

My hands were crimson and blistered, as if I’d held them in fire. Perhaps I’d avoided permanent muscle damage, because all my nerves dutifully sent panicked pain signals, but it didn’t matter. The charred flesh and powdering bones of a large sylph burn would come eventually.

“It’s your fault I’m going to die.” I imagined the burns crawling up my wrists and arms until they consumed me.

“You’ll die eventually, but not for a good long time, as long as you’ll stop racing into danger every day.”

I was
dying
and he had the nerve to mock me? I struggled to choose between angry replies, but all I managed was, “Li said sylph burns won’t heal. They’ll get worse.”

Lines formed around Sam’s frown as he removed a packet from his bag and ripped it open. “She lied.”

“Oh.” Of course she lied. She always did. Visions of my demise vanished. “So my hands?”

“Will heal to make more mischief. Now let’s see them.” He turned his palms up as if to hold my burned flesh, but didn’t actually touch me. My hands did look gross, all red and blistering. “Shoving them in snow probably wasn’t the best idea.”

The radiating pain kept me from caring about his chastisement. I gritted my teeth to cage any sounds when he laid a piece of gauze over what was left of my skin. Something so delicate shouldn’t hurt me so much, and I just wanted the pain to stop. Dizziness surrounded me, a black haze over my eyes and ears.

An eternity later, Sam’s deep voice brought me back. “We’re done.”

I came to with tears freezing on my face, my hands wrapped in layers of gauze. Pain shot through my forearms. Even the pressure of bandages was too much.

“You were brave. We’re done.” He tugged my hood over my ears and smoothed my hair underneath. Chill tinged his nose and cheeks red as he fished a handful of pills from the medical kit. “These are for the pain. I don’t have anything strong enough to do more than dent it, but it’ll be better than nothing.”

Five white pills rested on his palm, then went into my mouth one by one. He held a canteen to my lips and I drank.

“My cabin is on the other side of the cemetery. Can you walk?” Everything went back into his bag, and he hooked the strap over his shoulder. “The walls have iron in them, so no sylph will be able to get in.” He spoke gently. “Range is dynamic. It wasn’t always as big as it is now, and the boundaries can change season to season. This area hasn’t always been safe from sylph, but I thought—” Deep brown eyes met mine. “I thought it was okay now. I’m sorry.”

No point in apologizing for something he couldn’t help. I lurched up and lost my balance. He caught my elbow.

A dozen cobblestone paths twisted through the vast graveyard, leading to mausoleums with scrolled iron gates, limestone statues gazing at scattered headstones, and metal-framed stone benches. As the day warmed, snow melted off solemn statue faces like tears.

I could imagine what this place looked like in spring or summer, with vivid flowers or vines spilling from huge stone goblets, ivy climbing the walls and grave markers, or autumn leaves carpeting the paths. There was a melancholy beauty here, an old and exhausted silence. A few of the statues played instruments — a woman with a flute, a man with a harp — as if the sculptor had caught them between notes. A stone elk grazed on the far end, while a pair of chipmunks stayed trapped in a position of ever-tumbling together. The quiet was uncanny.

“What is all this?” I asked as we passed an iron trellis with tendrils of metal shaped into flowers and leaves. Frost glistened. “Who’s buried here?”

Sam inclined his head. “I am.”

I couldn’t interpret his tone, but I’d feel sad if these graves were mine.

Raven-topped obelisks guarded the center of the cemetery, a slab of snow-covered stone with gold veins running through. Writing had been carved into the limestone, but ice and snow obscured the words. Sam led me around it.

“What’s this one?”

“My first grave. The original materials were falling apart, as they do after a few thousand years. I didn’t want to dig myself up, but I didn’t want to lose track of it.”

So everyone was responsible for their own cemeteries. “Why honor old flesh if you’re coming back?” Focusing on anything but the pain helped, though every several steps, a dizzy spell forced me to pause.

“It’s not so much honoring old flesh as acknowledging past lives, achievements. It’s a way of remembering. After you live so long, it’s easy to forget what happened when. Not everyone does as much with their cemeteries, and plenty do more. I don’t know everyone’s reasoning behind keeping one, only mine.”

For a moment, I wondered what Li did with her former bodies. Probably left them where they fell. But I didn’t have to think about her anymore.

“Are you afraid of forgetting your achievements?” I searched the frozen yard for a sign of what they might be, but I could only see death. “Can you tell me about them?”

“I keep journals. Most people do, and then give them to the Councilhouse library for archivists to copy and file. You can read them if you like.” He guided me to another path that went all the way to the back gate, black metal on white and green and brown.

The promised cabin stood in the shelter of fir trees. It was smaller than Purple Rose Cottage, but there were curtained windows and a chimney. It looked cozy. “You like sleeping by your corpses?”

His chuckle misted on the air. “It’s a long trip from Heart every morning, just to work on a statue.”

“So you made all these?”

“Most of them.” He pushed open the gate and let me through. “Last night was the final night of my journey here from Heart. I like getting work done in the winter. It’s quiet. Peaceful.”

“Sorry to disrupt your plans.” The bandages around my hands weighed a thousand pounds.

He just shrugged. “There’s plenty of time for that later. It’s not every day I get to know someone new.” He turned away, but not before I saw him wince. At least he knew he said stupid things. “Let’s go inside.”

“What about Shaggy?”

“He’ll be waiting by the stall in the back. I’ll get him settled.” Sam pushed a key into the lock and opened the door.

While he took care of Shaggy, I explored the cabin. As expected, it was small and dusty, though what I first mistook for cracks in the wood panels were actually etched animals of Range: osprey, deer, eagle, bison, fox, pronghorn, and dozens of others.

It was an open room with a kitchen area to one side and a sleeping area on the other, all heated — presumably — by a wood-burning stove near the middle. Only a small washroom had been sectioned off. In spite of the rustic appearance, the kitchen held modern conveniences like a coffeepot and sink, cupboards and a pantry, neither of which I could open without help.

Before I had a chance to feel too sorry for myself, I turned toward the front of the cabin and found the bookcases carved right into the wall. Hundreds of leather-bound volumes rested in the dim alcoves. I had no idea what stories or information they held. It didn’t matter. I wanted to absorb anything they had to say.

No. My hands. I couldn’t even imagine holding a book without pain flaring up my forearms.

THERE WAS NO telling how long I stood in the center of the cabin, staring at the books I couldn’t touch, surrounded by cold and dust and someone else’s life. And his deaths right outside the door. As long as I didn’t move, as long as I didn’t think about anything but the point right in front of me — the spine of a red book — I didn’t hurt.

“Ana.”

My vision untunneled and the room snapped back into focus. So did the blaze in my hands and wrists. A groan rumbled through me.

Sam stood before me, concern dark on his face. “Come on. You’re still in shock.” He guided me to a chair by the now-lit stove and removed my boots and coat, taking extra care where the sleeves brushed my hands. “What can I do for you?”

I just wanted to stop hurting. Staring at the books had been better. I turned back to them, willing myself to get lost in my own numbness. The pain was too intense, more than I could possibly endure.

He crossed my field of vision, pausing in front of the bookcase. “You like to read.”

Had I said that? Had he guessed? Either way, I didn’t move from the chair. Eventually I
would
make it back into the nothing-state of no pain.

Sam chose a book and carried it to me, like I’d be able to do something with it. But he sat on the arm of the chair, next to me, and opened to the first page. “So I guess you know the fifteen years are all named after events or accomplishments that happened in the first few generations, before we’d created a formal calendar?”

I didn’t move.

“Year of Drought, obviously there was a terrible drought. Followed by the Year of Hunger, when everyone starved to death the next year.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yes? You know all this?”

I still didn’t move. We were in the 331st Year of Hunger now. Maybe they’d rename it the Year of Freezing, Then Burning, And Mostly Running for Your Life. After me, of course.

“My second favorite story is the Year of Dreams, when we began trying to understand the hot mud pits and everyone started hallucinating from inhaling the fumes around one of them.” He flipped through the pages of the book, steady-handed, sure of himself. I tried not to be envious of his lack of burns. “Let’s see. Year of Dance.” He turned a few more pages. “Year of Dreams.” His voice pitched lower as he read aloud. “‘We set out on an expedition to make sure the geothermal features around Heart weren’t immediately dangerous. Of course, we were quite surprised at what we discovered….’”

He continued to read for another hour, changing his voice to match the mood of the passage. He was good at this, and I’d never been read to before. The way he spoke drew me in until finally I relaxed.

The pain eased.

I hovered in the misty place between waking and sleeping, half dreaming of a deep humming. Then the fire in my hands returned, and when I groaned and opened my eyes, the only sound was the scratch of pen on paper.

“Did I wake you?” Sam looked up from scribbling in a book.

Yes. “No.” It didn’t matter. My hands wouldn’t stop hurting long enough for me to rest well.

I was lying on the bed, though I didn’t remember moving. Had he carried me? He’d definitely pulled the blankets over me. My burns hurt too much to grasp the thick wool.

There was a terrifying thought. What happened when I had to use the washroom? I steeled myself and considered my hands; the left one wasn’t quite as bad. I could suffer a little pain to salvage any remaining dignity.

Reassured, I glanced at Sam again, who’d gone back to writing in his book. “What are you doing?”

His pen hesitated over the paper, like I’d made him lose his place.

I shouldn’t have asked. I knew better, but my hands—

“Writing notes.” He blew on the ink, closed the book, and set everything aside. “Would you like to read more?”

“Only if you want.” When he looked away, I tried to sit up. But every time I used my elbows to push myself, they jabbed onto the blanket. I kept pinning myself to the bed. Refusing to let a stupid blanket win, I kicked to move it downward. With it out of my way, I pushed again with my elbows. I’d miscalculated and the same problem — the blanket — threw me back down.

I slapped the bed to keep my balance—

An inferno surged through my arm and I screamed, clutching my hand against my chest.

Sam was at my side in an instant, arms encircling me.

Trapped. I yelled and fought to escape, but he wouldn’t let go. Unable to use my hands to push, I tried to bite him. Mouthful of wool. An ugly sob escaped.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, shaking like he could be anywhere near as upset about this as me. “I’m sorry.”

This wasn’t trapping me. It was… hugging? I’d seen Li embrace her friends during the rare visit. No one hugged me, of course. Apparently no one had told Sam.

When he finished hugging me, he checked my palm for new damage. I’d been lucky. “Take these.” He retrieved a handful of pills from a small table and offered water to wash them down. “Tell me if you need anything else.”

I swallowed the pills. “Okay.”

He met my eyes, seemed to search me. “You have to tell me. Don’t make me guess.”

I lowered my gaze first. “Okay.”

He didn’t believe me. It was the same expression Li used when she didn’t think I’d actually cleaned the cavies’ cages, or turned the compost pile. But he hadn’t asked me to do chores, just wanted me to tell him if I needed anything.

Okay. If I
needed
anything, I would tell him.

“Do you want to read more?” he asked after a few moments of sitting unnervingly close.

I nodded.

He sighed and freed me from the blankets. “This is already going to be a difficult recovery for you, but it doesn’t have to be terrible. Tell me things you want, too.”

Like that would ever happen.

Over the next few days, Sam told stories until his voice grew hoarse. He reminisced about learning stone carving, textile arts, glassblowing, carpentry, and metalworking. He’d spent lifetimes farming and raising livestock, learning everything he could.

He told me all about the geysers and hot springs around Heart, the desert lands southwest of Range, and the ocean beyond that. I couldn’t even fathom the ocean.

I liked listening to him, and he’d stopped asking me to tell him if there was anything I needed. At least, I thought I was safe until he closed the book he’d been reading from and said, “I can’t talk anymore.”

He
did
sound rougher, but I tried not to feel guilty, since I’d never actually asked him to talk until he lost his voice.

“Will—” I swallowed and tried again. “Will you turn the pages so I can read to myself?” The weight of his regard settled like fog. “Please,” I whispered.

“No.”

My heart sank. I shouldn’t have asked.

“Not until you tell me something about yourself.”

No one wanted to hear what the nosoul had to say. All his stories had been so interesting, filled with people and events I couldn’t have dreamt of. I had nothing that would compare. “I can’t.”

“You can.” He studied me, like if he looked hard enough he’d find all the things I wasn’t telling him. But I didn’t have anything. “What makes you happy? What do you like?”

Why did he care? At least he didn’t expect me to tell him about a grand adventure. And if I told him something I liked, he’d turn the pages so I could read more. A fair trade.

“Music makes me happy.” More than happy. More than I could ever explain to him. “I found a player in the cottage library and figured out how to turn it on. There it was, Dossam’s Phoenix Symphony.” Easily, I could recall the way my stomach had dropped when the first notes played, and then I’d felt — swollen. Full. Like something inside me had finally awakened. “I love him, his music.”

No, that wasn’t right. A nosoul couldn’t love.

I lurched to my feet and stumbled across the room, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Li would find me. She’d
know
what I’d said. She’d hit me and yell about how a nosoul couldn’t love. I’d been stupid, careless with my words because the thought of music had relaxed me. I had to be careful. No more slips.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean love.”

Footsteps approached, making my heart thud against my ribs as I braced for the strike that never came.

“Ana.” Sam stood within arm’s reach but didn’t touch me. Probably afraid I’d break down if he did. “Do you really feel that way? That you aren’t allowed certain emotions?”

I couldn’t look at him.

“You’re not a nosoul. You’re allowed to feel however you feel.”

So he kept saying, and I wanted to believe him, but…

“I think we should talk about this.”

My throat hurt from holding back tears. “I don’t want to.” His good intentions just made it more confusing.

He touched the small of my back. I jumped, but he was so gentle. “Someone without a soul wouldn’t have risked her life to save mine, especially since — as you said — I’d just come back.”

I stepped away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.” He hazarded a smile. “At least I learned something about you.”

Flinching, I tried not to count the number of things he’d just learned: I claimed to feel emotions I couldn’t, I jumped and ran even when no one was chasing me….

“You like music.” He smiled warmly. “I have my SED here. It can play music. I’m happy to let you borrow it, if you ask.”

If I asked?

My confusion must have been evident, because he brushed a strand of hair from my eyes and said, “Say the words. Ask.”

My hands and heart ached. I wanted to run outside and hide, never have to worry about this again. When to ask. When not to ask. Whether Li would appear and punish me for thinking I was allowed any sort of happiness. There was just
too much
, and it felt like drowning, like burning. But running away wouldn’t help.

Sam had offered to take me to Heart, spent the last few days speaking his voice raw, and he would let me listen to music — if only I asked. Surely that wasn’t too much to give him, a few words.

I swallowed knots in my throat. “Sam, may I please listen to music?”

“Of course. I’ll find it for you.” Tension ran from his shoulders, like he’d actually been worried I wouldn’t ask. Like he cared.

Maybe he did.

Music pressed into my ears, filling me completely. A piano, a flute, and low strings I couldn’t identify.

I’d never heard the song before, and I wanted to explain to Sam how much I appreciated it — how much of a
gift
this was — but I couldn’t find the words. Instead, when he sat on the chair, I sat on the arm like he had the day he’d started reading to me.

With a mysterious smile, he pulled the SED from the harness at my waist and flicked on a screen. A dozen musicians sat in a half-moon, playing instruments I’d seen drawings of, but never the real thing. The stage projected their sound to a darkened audience, and to my earpieces.

Phoenix Symphony, my favorite. That must have been Dossam conducting from the piano. The books in the cottage library never had his — sometimes her — picture. Even this was difficult to see. The screen was small, and the image blurry. But I liked the way he caressed the piano keys and directed the other twenty members of the orchestra, as though physically drawing the music from them. Without him, there’d be only silence.

Mesmerizing.

“Li’s didn’t have video. I think Cris must have left it behind. Was it just old?”

Sam nodded. “Li probably had a newer one she didn’t let you see. Everyone uses Stef’s new design now.”

I scowled at the piece of machinery, which probably fit perfectly in Sam’s palm, but mine was too small. Not that I could pick it up right now. “Stef from your stories?”

“The same. He loves this kind of thing, but for a long time, no one used any of the technology he developed. Too annoying to carry around. Eventually he decided to put everything — image capturing, playback, voice communication, a billion other things — into one device.”

“Clever.”

“Tell him you think so, and you’ll have made a friend for eternity.” Sam grinned. “Better yet, tell him you like the name.”

“SED? Why?”

“It stands for Stef’s Everything Device.” He paused while the music swelled against my ears, and while I smiled. “Now the Council makes sure everyone has a SED so they can be reached during emergencies. Stef may be a
little
proud of that.”

“Deservedly so, because now I get music.” I closed my eyes during a flute solo, wishing I could wrap the silvery sound around me, like armor. When the rest of the musicians started to play again, I twisted to face Sam, so maybe he could see in my eyes how much this meant to me. “
Thank
you.”

“I still want to know more about you.”

That again. Watching the musicians on the screen, I considered whether there was anything worthy of telling. But maybe he didn’t care about worthy. Maybe, for some unfathomable reason, he just wanted to know anything. “Once, I found a jar of honey in the cupboard. I took a spoon and ate half of it. Li had never let me try any before.” And she’d withheld meals for two days after.

“So you like sweet things. Did you ever get any more?”

“No, she hid it better after that. Up high.” I stilled, realizing I’d just admitted to stealing from Li. “But don’t worry. I was younger then and wasn’t thinking. I wouldn’t just take anything from you.”

What I really meant was, please don’t send me away.

“Besides,” I added, turning my bandaged hands palm up, “I can’t take anything without asking.”

“Your hands will recover soon.” He gave a sly half smile. “And in my house, you can have all the honey you want. I’m friends with the beekeeper.”

“I’m going to Purple Rose Cottage,” he said, our second week in the cabin. “We’re low on painkillers and gauze.”

“No!” I stood so quickly the SED dropped, cutting off the music. “Don’t go there.”

Sam knelt in front of me, retrieving the device. “Either I get supplies, or your hands go back to hurting all the time.”

“Don’t go. She’ll know I’m with you and do something awful. Neither of us will be safe.” Adrenaline flooded me, making me shake. “I’m willing to suffer the pain. Just don’t go.”