Incarnate n-1

by Jodi Meadows

  Meuric gave a long sigh. “Remind me why you’re scraped up.”

  “Li attacked us on the way home.” My whole body trembled. I needed to run, needed to get free. I had to find Sam and ask why he’d been researching Li and Menehem, and why he hadn’t told me.

  “Someone attacked you, clearly, but it wasn’t me.” She shook her head, as though I should be ashamed for thinking badly of her. “What is that, Meuric? This one isn’t a diary.” She plucked a book from the middle of the stack, not fast enough to keep those on top of it from falling. A dozen books thumped on the floor.

  “Oh, that’s worrying.” Meuric squinted as Li turned pages. “There were more books in there. Hang on.” He went back into Sam’s room while Li kept flipping through whatever had caught her attention.

  I squatted by the pile of books, my knife jabbing a bruise on my stomach when I moved. I suffered the pain; if I drew attention to the weapon, Li would take it away.

  Mostly, there were diaries on the floor. Several were marked with Li’s name, but most were Menehem’s. His were thick, with bits of paper sticking out of them as though he’d tried to fit more information in at the last minute. From my angle, I couldn’t see what Li held, but her face was cold and rigid.

  Not much scared her, not that I’d ever seen, but she didn’t react well to threats of humiliation, which I clearly remembered from Soul Night thirteen years ago. I’d been too young to leave behind, and she’d wanted to go to the celebration being held near Purple Rose Cottage while the main one went on in Heart. I’d tagged along while she explained that some of her friends had come down because they knew she couldn’t make it to Heart, not with me in tow. When some of them had teased her about the nosoul, her face had gotten like that: cold and rigid.

  This wasn’t the same, not exactly, but whatever she felt, she tried to hide it. I imagined it was fear.

  Then she noticed my stare, and she sneered. “Get off the floor. None of those are your business.”

  “The Council said I could look at anything I wanted.”

  “The Council said a lot of things because Sam convinced a few persuasive voices to let you roam free through the library. Sam isn’t here anymore, and I’m going to be more strict about your education. Now stand up.”

  I did as she ordered. When we left, I would escape. Go to Sarit’s. She’d hide me. But she’d also be the first person Li would suspect. Maybe Armande would help.

  Meuric came out of the bedroom with another stack of books, which he placed on the floor. “I found these too. This is very upsetting.”

  Li’s expression shifted again as she crossed her arms, tucking the book against her side. “I can’t imagine what he wanted with all this. So much about sylph.”

  I shuddered. Neither were looking at me, at least.

  “Not only sylph.” Meuric picked through the books. “This one is on dragons. Sam hates dragons.”

  No matter Sam’s real reason for taking these books, the Council would find a way to make this look bad.

  “I wonder how long he’s been doing this,” Li mused. “He’s got a lot on Menehem here, and you remember what Menehem was researching?”

  “Sylph,” Meuric muttered. “Ana, weren’t you attacked by sylph on the edges of Range? Twice?”

  They didn’t wait for me to nod.

  “Menehem was experimenting on sylph, trying to find out if he could control them with some kind of chemical.” Li glanced at Meuric. “He was close to discovering the right mix of hormones, if I recall. Do you think Sam—”

  “Sam wouldn’t.” I couldn’t stop the tremors inside me, the way my heart raced and ached. It had to have been Li. Sam couldn’t have known about the experiments until after we met, because he didn’t associate with Li or Menehem. Right? “Li knew about Menehem’s research. I bet she figured out how to control the sylph and send them after me.”

  Li looked at me like I was the stupidest person she’d ever met.

  “Sam just happened to be in the area both times you were attacked?” Meuric shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ana, I know you wanted to trust him, but this is all very incriminating. You may have to realize that, while his feelings for you might be real, they aren’t healthy or safe.”

  “Not feelings,” Li said. “Obsession. What he’s done is unacceptable, beyond what anyone would do to someone they claim to have feelings for. He followed her into the woods, coerced the sylph into chasing her, and rescued her so she’d trust him. He’s been doing variations of the same thing ever since.”

  “No, he wouldn’t—”

  “Now, Li, that’s quite an accusation. You’re assuming a lot about what Sam can do, and some things may be coincidence.” Meuric almost sounded reasonable, but his words were clipped. If they hadn’t planned all this ahead of time, he already believed her. “I do find the timing eerie, though, considering the dragon attack on the market, and”—he glanced at me—“other things.”

  “What other things?” I asked. “Me?”

  He actually did look worried for a second. “If you’ve read as much history as you claim, you know what inevitably follows these small attacks.”

  Big attacks. It hadn’t happened in a long time, but dragons always returned. They hated Heart. Hated humans.

  He didn’t give me a chance to respond. He snapped photos of everything on the floor, the bruises and scrapes on my face and arms, and then announced we were finished. He didn’t care how much I pleaded.

  Li held fast to my wrist as we marched downstairs and outside. I barely had time to put on shoes, let alone get any of my things.

  The moon had fallen below the wall by now, leaving only dull starlight to illuminate the yard. I searched for a place to hide, but as soon as I looked interested in my surroundings, Li’s grip tightened.

  “Don’t even think about it.” She squinted as lights darted across the lawn and reflected off the cold stone of the house. Wheels ground over cobblestones and stopped.

  Corin exited the vehicle and motioned all of us in. “Sam’s in with the others. None of them are happy about it.”

  “No,” said Meuric, “I imagine they’re not.”

  “I don’t want to go with Li.” It was futile to keep protesting, but the minute I stopped was the minute I started thinking about all the things Sam had been keeping from me. He’d left the house after I went to bed so often, and was always so secretive about whatever he was working on… “Please, Corin. Sam said you weren’t bad.”

  He herded me into the backseat of the vehicle, everyone blocking my way so I couldn’t escape. Li slid in on one side of me, and Meuric on the other. Trapped.

  We drove down the walkway and through the twisting cobblestone streets of Heart, away from Sam’s house. Aside from when I’d been an infant, this was my first time riding in a vehicle, and I couldn’t even enjoy it. I was a prisoner, as surely as Sam had been. We all knew I’d have run if they’d tried to make me walk to Li’s house.

  “I know you’re worried, Ana.” Li’s voice was heavier in the confined space. “I realize I neglected your education before. I’m going to do a better job this time.”

  Whatever Meuric had offered her — I was sure he was responsible for this — she must have really wanted it. “Sam and I had it covered.”

  She kept talking as though I hadn’t spoken, listing all the plans she’d made for my life. When we drove by the Councilhouse, eerily lit with remnants of the masquerade and the glow from the temple, I caught a light go out near the base of the building, in an otherwise dark corner I’d never been. The prison?

  Li would never let me out of her sight now, but I was certain that was where they were keeping Sam.

  Chapter 25

  Trapped

  LIFE TUNNELED ON my new focus: guarding myself from Li.

  There was no music in her house; she’d removed all recordings in preparation for my arrival, insisting such nonsense would only distract me.

  Every morning, she woke me before dawn, rushed me through
breakfast, and had me running laps around the house by the time the sun crested the city wall. Fifteen the first day, and twenty when I got through fifteen without trouble. A few more laps left me winded to her satisfaction, but after a week, she decided I should run thirty. Only my loathing kept me thrusting foot before foot when I couldn’t see straight anymore. The sulfuric reek from a fumarole on the other side of the wall didn’t help.

  After I caught my breath, I worked on strengthening exercises until lunch. As far as I could tell, she just liked to watch me struggle. I’d never thought of myself as weak or out of shape, but after meeting Sam and his friends, it had become apparent I was smaller than average. I’d never be as tall as Li or as muscular as Orrin — not in this lifetime — so there was no point in making me strain.

  She explained about working at the guard stations and showed me the equipment, but I wasn’t allowed to touch anything. She taught me nothing about weapons or how to defend myself.

  Maybe she was afraid I’d use my training against her, but I was more concerned about the attack Meuric had hinted about. If a hundred dragons descended on Heart, I didn’t want to be the only one without a laser.

  Sam’s knife stayed under my pillow where Li wouldn’t find it.

  After lunch, I got to study fascinating subjects like plows, irrigation systems, and the first efforts to install sewers beneath Heart, made even more challenging by the caldera and geothermal everything around the city. Most days, I fell asleep across my books, and woke to Li’s smirk and declaration that I’d never be a productive member of society.

  I was not permitted to continue the training Sam had scheduled for me, let alone visit Sarit or Whit. I didn’t dare ask about Orrin or Stef, and mentioning Sam earned me a sharp slap on the wrist. Apparently that didn’t count as harming me, because when Meuric was present, he didn’t care.

  “Can I see Sine?” I tried one evening. “She’s on the Council. Hardly a corrupting influence.”

  “Keep your sarcasm quiet.” Li finished her soup and slid the bowl aside. “You’re not fit for company until you can hold a conversation that doesn’t revolve around what you want.”

  Not counting Sam and his friends? I wanted music and dancing, to translate little dots and bars into something unimaginably gorgeous and real. I wanted to know why I’d been born, to understand this mistake that gave me someone else’s life. I wanted to know if I’d be reborn after this life, allowed to continue everything I wanted to begin.

  “I hate you,” I whispered.

  Li slammed her palms on the table, making spoons and bowls clatter as she stood. Her glare darkened. “Whatever you think you feel? It’s not real. You’re a nosoul. You don’t feel. You barely exist. In a hundred years, no one will remember you were ever alive.”

  “You’re wrong.” I knew I shouldn’t have spoken, but my muscles shook with the strain from a fortnight of physical exhaustion and emotional torture. “People will remember. Sam made sure of it.”

  The rage cooled from her eyes. “Is that so?” Dread cut me deep as she crossed the kitchen and reached into a drawer. “Paper is so temporary, don’t you think? Many of our oldest records have been copied dozens of times, simply because the pages don’t last. Like someone else I know.”

  I kept my eyes on the bundle of pages she carried. “What is that?”

  “The other problem with paper is if you spill something on it, or burn it, whatever you kept on there is lost.” She dropped the pages on the table; they spread out and settled without order. Even so, I knew what they were. Music. Bars and notes and tiny doodles in the margins. AI-4, AI-10: they were pages of a longer piece.

  My hand was as heavy as a brick as I reached for the title page and turned it toward me. “Ana Incarnate,” it read, no fancy flourishes or underlines with it, just a tiny butterfly in the corner.

  It was the waltz Sam had written for me. My song.

  “Don’t hurt it,” I whispered.

  “Paper is so temporary,” she repeated, looking pointedly at the fireplace.

  “No!” I threw myself across the table and scooped up pages, but Li was faster.

  She ripped the pages from my hands and tossed them at the fire. Paper fluttered, some into the flame, and some drifted to the ashy hearth.

  I lunged across the room and rescued as many sheets as I could, but fire singed my hands. No matter how many I saved from the flames, Li balled up more pages and threw them in, laughing.

  When she was bored, she wiped her hands on her pants and headed for the door. “Go to bed. You have a long day tomorrow.”

  I patted out the last of the embers with a dish towel and struggled to put the pages in order. My hands stung as I sifted through the delicate sheets. Some were salvageable; others were burned so badly they hadn’t been worth rescuing, as black blotted out the bars of music.

  Those pages went in back. Maybe Sam would know how to save them. Determined to see him try, I eased the pages of my song into a stiff notebook for safekeeping.

  Forget Li. Forget the Council. If this was life in Heart, I would give up my quest. I’d rather never know where I came from than let Li destroy everything that mattered to me.

  I went upstairs to get my knife.

  There wasn’t much to pack. My song fit inside my backpack, along with a few other necessities. For the last two weeks I’d been too scared to escape. There were guards — Li made sure I saw them every morning — and I’d been afraid of what would happen if they caught me. Now I was more afraid of what would happen if I didn’t try.

  I waited until the sun dipped behind the wall, casting the city in hazy indigo. Within minutes, it would be full night.

  Dressed in the darkest clothes I could find, I tied and tucked my hair into a cap and picked the lock on the window. Stef had taught me, saying I shouldn’t be the only one in Range who didn’t know how; Sam had called her a miscreant.

  Clouds covered the sky, threatening some kind of unfortunate weather. In the inky-dark yard, I found only fir trees and bushes, a small garden. Normal things. Most people had what they needed to be self-sufficient between market days, even Li.

  Bored-sounding voices came from the north side of the house. No footsteps or swishing brush accompanied them, so they were standing still. Chances were they faced my window, hidden at an angle so I wouldn’t be able to see them unless I leaned out. And then they’d see me.

  I hurled an old shoe outside. It landed inside a thick copse of conifers. Two pair of footfalls followed, and I hauled myself out of the window, turned to catch my toes on a ledge, and reached for a bare cottonwood branch. I hung two stories up as the footsteps came toward the house again.

  Frantically, I swung myself into the tree, which obliged me with silence. I stayed huddled on the thick branch until the guards were settled. When they went around to the house — discussing whether or not I’d tried to escape, or just wanted to tease them — I scrambled down the tree and into the brush on the far side of the yard.

  When everything was quiet, only a breeze and night birds singing lullabies, I crept around to the walkway. As much as I wanted to run, I made myself stop and listen every few steps.

  Past the walkway and onto North Avenue, I sneaked through the city, keeping to shadows. When I had to cross intersections, I held my breath and sprinted, hyperalert for sounds other than that of my shoes on cobblestones. Sleet pattered to the ground. I was almost grateful for the noise to blot out my footfalls, but it blotted anyone else’s, too.

  The city seemed bigger for every step I took, and the temple farther away. I ran down North Avenue and stopped short at the market field. So much empty space. I imagined a shadow of me streaking across the field and my stupid black clothes pressed against the white buildings.

  Great.

  Sleet tapped harder on the city, glistening under the iridescent light. If I didn’t move, I’d turn into an ice statue right here.

  I searched the gray-lit area and listened as long as I dared. I still had to get ar
ound the Councilhouse, not to mention find some kind of entrance into the building, and a way to get Sam out. Just because I could pick the lock on my window didn’t mean I knew anything about the soul-scanners used in the more secure parts of the city.

  “No more stalling,” I whispered, and pushed myself across the market field. Too loud. My shoes slapped the cobblestones. My breath hissed and whitened the cold air. I held the straps of my backpack to keep it from bouncing, but that didn’t stop the contents from jostling. Forget someone seeing my stupid black clothes against the building; they’d hear me coming first.

  After an eternity, I slipped on wet stone and landed against the Councilhouse wall, bounced off, and crumpled to the street as breath whooshed from my chest. I coughed and gasped into my sleeves, waiting for my vision to clear before I tried sneaking around the building.

  Black clothes. White building. Sam would have anticipated this. Anyone would have. Anyone but me. I hated being new.

  Once again confident in my ability to breathe, I searched the field. Sleet glittered on the cobblestones, making the road slick. But the weather came from the north, so as soon as I was on the south side of the Councilhouse, I’d be out of the worst of it. I hoped.

  I started around, keeping low, but the building was twice the length of the market field; it would take forever if I insisted on creeping. I made a run for it. Cobblestones slid under my boots, but I didn’t stop. Up one side of the half-moon stairs, behind the columns that guarded the doors, and down the other side of the stairs. The market field stayed clear.

  Meuric’s house loomed on the corner of the southwest quarter. Lights burned upstairs, but no silhouettes stood in windows, waiting to catch me misbehaving. Li and the guards wouldn’t check on me until morning. By then, I’d be out of the city.

  Thunder rumbled in the north. Worse storms were on the way.

  I slipped around to the south side of the building and brushed ice off my clothes and backpack. Shivering, I checked Meuric’s house one more time — nothing — and crept around in search of the window I’d seen before.