Incarnate

by Jodi Meadows

Page 5

  Author: Jodi Meadows

  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.

  Chapter 4

  Fire

  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.

  Chapter 5

  Honey

  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. ”