Asunder (Incarnate) (24 page)

“I’m the only one who can.”

“No.” I scrambled to my feet, heart collapsing in on itself. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself.”

“I’m sorry, Ana.” He stood, too, with ten times more grace. “It has to be me. The world still needs Stef.”

“The world still needs
you
.” I was yelling at a rock, because he just shook his head. “Society would have never understood farming without you. Greenhouses. Fields. Orchards. That’s because of you.”

“That was thousands of years ago.” He touched my arm, but I batted him away. “Now I grow roses. A noble endeavor, but not necessary for survival.”

“What?” Stef peered between us. “What are you talking about? Why don’t you want him to open a door?”

“Because without
the
key, there’s only one way to make a door,” I said.

She shook her head, looking weary. “Please remember I’ve been kidnapped and starved.”

“Cris”—I pointed and growled his name—“thinks he’s going to do whatever Janan did: get rid of his body; become part of the temple.”

“
What
?” Stef was on her feet in an instant, shrieking at Cris.

“If you do it, you’ll be as bad as him. You’ll have to consume souls to survive, and someone will have to be the Hallow, and how will both you and Janan fit in the walls? I’m sure he won’t be happy about sharing his space with you.”

Stef stood inches from Cris, yelling as loud as she could while he stayed silent, waiting. “Why do you think this is going to work? For all you know, you’ll just stick a knife in your chest and die.”

“Even if it does work,” I said, “in five thousand years everyone will have to stop you and they’ll feel bad because you’re otherwise nice.”

Stef and I both stopped to breathe at the same time, and Cris cut in.

“First of all, I don’t have followers like Janan did.” He motioned around the room at our skeletal audience. “If I’m not reincarnating anyone, I won’t get souls. These skeletons are bound in chains. They’re bound to
him
.”

“What if it changes?” My throat hurt from yelling, and my head throbbed with anger and betrayal. “What if suddenly you’re supposed to switch souls?”

“I wouldn’t do it.” He sounded so calm and certain, like he
didn’t think it would be a temptation. “Ana, I promise. Knowing what I do, knowing you, I understand what we sacrificed so long ago.” He touched my hand, softly enough that I could barely feel his fingers tremble. “I’m so sorry, Ana. We don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I can try to put things right.”

“How is that?” I wanted to hate him and his stupid plan, but now that I wasn’t yelling, my body felt limp and heavy.

“I will become part of the walls, like Janan, then open a door.”

“No.” I crossed my arms. “This is a crazy plan. You don’t even know if it will work.”

“Wouldn’t you need a Hallow?” Stef asked. “I’m not chaining myself up like those two.” She pointed at Deborl, and one of Meuric’s toe bones I’d missed.

“There’s no need for a Hallow.” He smiled at her, all grim determination. “Janan needed one to help bind his followers and guard the key, but I won’t. No souls. No sacrifices.”

“You’re talking about sacrificing yourself.” My words squeaked out. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

“For you.” He took my hand, his five thousand years evaporating. He looked young and scared, just like I felt, and his hand sweated over mine. “You haven’t had a hundred lifetimes, and even this one has just begun. There’s so much you still have to experience. No matter what happens with all this”—he gestured around the temple—“I need to give you a chance.”

A million things happened inside me at once, most prominently my heart squeezing up to my throat, and my stomach flip-flopping. Grateful and sick and filled up with misery.

“Cris, no.” I didn’t want to die, though, or be trapped forever. I wanted to live, to have experiences. I wanted to see the world with my single short life. But Cris…

“Think of it as a gift, if it helps. One you can’t turn down.”

Stef stood nearby, eyes round as if she’d begun to accept what he was going to do.

“Janan is too strong. You can’t beat him,” I whispered, half saying the words because I knew I should. “He’s had five thousand years to gain power. You will be new and weak. He won’t let you stay in the walls.” He needed to see how futile his plan was.

“I only need a few moments to open a door for you.” He cupped my cheek with his free hand.

“What happens if he kills you? Will you be reincarnated?”

“For a newsoul’s sake,” Cris said, “I hope not.”

But I didn’t want him to be gone forever. Where would he go? What would he do?

“Ana, you have to live. You have to get out of here, stop Janan from destroying Heart, and live this life. Do everything you can. Don’t waste it. Promise me.”

“We’ll find another way.” Why couldn’t he see?

“When? How? There’s nothing here but skeletons.” His
eyes were glassy, and he blinked several times as though trying not to cry.

“Please don’t.” I looked to Stef for help, but she just watched us with a hard expression, like ice.

Just as I turned to him again, Cris leaned forward and kissed me. Not long, and not desperate. I barely had a chance to register the way his lips tasted like tears before he drew back, looking as surprised as I felt.

“I thought you were in love with Sam.” That wasn’t what I wanted to say, but it saved me from having to think too hard about the simultaneous thrill and fear and stress of what had just happened. I still didn’t understand why
Sam
wanted to kiss me, let alone anyone else.

“I will always be in love with Dossam.” He focused inward, somewhen-else. He didn’t mean my Sam, but a Sam from lifetimes ago. “And I love you,” he whispered, coming back to the present. “Not like Sam does, not nearly. But that’s why you have to live. I couldn’t bear to let anything happen to you when you’ve just begun, and I couldn’t bear Sam’s pain if he lost you.”

My breath was too heavy, crushing me from the inside. I couldn’t let him do this, but I wanted to escape. I wanted to live and be loved and
not die
. Pieces of me were becoming resigned to it, even welcoming his fate because it meant I might be free.

Stef was still ice. No hope of strength from her.

Cris squeezed my hand. I’d forgotten he hadn’t let go. “You’re going to live,” he said. “You’re going to make it out of the temple, and then you’re going to use everything you’ve learned to stop Janan. Save the newsouls.”

I hated myself as I nodded, and warmth trickled down my cheeks. He was crying, too, but I didn’t know what to say to other people who cried. Instead I just hugged him. His wiry body tensed before his arms went around me, too.

If I spoke, I would be undone. Everything in me would spill out. So I squeezed him until he pried himself loose and said, “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I hope you can forgive me.”

Because I still couldn’t speak, I pressed my fingers to my lips and nodded, and hoped he knew that I understood. He was afraid.

“Be ready to run,” he said, “because I have no idea how long it will take, or how long it will last. If I have time, once you’re free, I’ll try—I don’t know. Maybe I can save the souls he’s trapped here.”

Was that even possible? Maybe it was to the boy who’d ride across Range to save his roses from frost.

“You don’t have to,” Stef whispered. “I could.”

“The world has more need for a scientist and engineer than a gardener, especially right now.” He hugged her as well, and kissed her cheeks. “Please don’t kill each other after I’m gone.”

Gone.

He was going to do it now? Shouldn’t he wait?

My legs were numb, my arms useless. My voice had long since abandoned me. I wanted to tell him to stop, to reconsider, but it would only delay the inevitable. He’d already decided, and I selfishly wanted to go home.

Without regard for my silent urging him to wait, Cris climbed onto the table next to Janan, found the knife, and lay down.

I wished I had something strong or brave to say, something that might give him a breath of reassurance. But I had nothing to offer. I was useless.

Stef stood next to me, put her arm around my waist. Crying, I leaned my head on her shoulder and watched Cris settle on the stone and position the knife above his heart. He was really going to do it. There had to be another way, and I was crying instead of figuring it out.

“Please, Cris.” The temple smothered my words.
Please don’t. Please wait. Please come back
.

He turned his head to look at us, managed a grim smile, and closed his eyes. Silver and gold flashed in red light as the knife pierced.

He died.

I SCREAMED.

Fingers dug into my arms, through my sleeves, and Stef yelled my name over and over. I strained against her, reaching for Cris on the table. His eyes were dull and glassy; his knuckles were white around the knife hilt.

No matter how I struggled, Stef was stronger. I rushed toward Cris, but Stef yanked me back and shoved me to the floor, pinning me. “Stop it!” she yelled.

But I wasn’t flailing anymore. I was too busy watching a white light bleed into the table.

The light expanded, flooding around the table legs that stretched over the pit. It was so bright I had to squint as the glow encompassed Cris’s body.

Tears leaked down my face, from despair and shock and light. All the air swept inward, wind rattling bones and snatching at our clothes; I caught my scarf as it tried to flee my neck. Deborl’s skeleton skidded on the floor toward the pit, as though all the air were being sucked down. It strained against the shackles.

The glow flared so bright I had to close my eyes. I wanted to close my ears as the wind howled around table legs.

Beneath me, the floor moved, slick against my clothes.

No, I was moving on the floor, both Stef and me. Shrieking wind pulled us, even as Stef scrambled to help me off my back. Wind-deaf and light-blind, we had to feel our way as the pull grew stronger, like gravity was shifting.

My heart hammered with a surge of adrenaline.

“We have to find something to hold on to!” I couldn’t tell if she heard me over the rush and keen, but I reached—her arm reached with mine—and felt along the floor, trying to dig my toes in.

“No!” Janan’s voice filled the room, thunder and waterfall-crashing.

I fought the wind’s pulling, the way air thinned, and I lost track of Stef. Twice, I felt her bump against me, but I focused on
not sliding
as red light pulsed beyond my eyelids, and white light burned and moved. Even with my eyes closed, I saw silhouettes of my hands splayed on the floor, desperate for traction.

And then Cris’s voice: “Ana. Stef.
Go
.”

I couldn’t help but sob. He’d done it. Done something. “Cris!” My voice was lost under Janan’s rage and the wind still sucking toward the pit. Bones clacked, and silver chains rattled and clanked.

Janan roared words I didn’t know, had never heard. His voice was pressure on my skin, hot as a sylph turned solid.

“Ana, now!” Cris again, like sparks catching and burning. “Please.”

It was his desperation that made me open my eyes. A gray archway waited ahead of me, just a few paces away, and mostly in the floor so I wouldn’t even have to stand. He’d done it. Freedom. His plan had worked.

Jaw clenched, gasping at thin air, I clawed toward the misty portal and hooked my fingers on the bottom lip. I just had to pull myself up and tumble out. Quickly, too, because the outline wavered, shot with streaks of black and white. Changing its destination.

If I didn’t hurry, Janan would seize control.

“Go, Ana!” Cris again, choked and smothered. Lights and air pulsed all around the chamber as the two battled within the temple walls.

Stef. I couldn’t find her.

Digging my fingers into the stone—what would happen if the archway vanished altogether?—I adjusted myself to get a better look around the room. I shouted her name, but she
wouldn’t hear me over the stampede of Janan’s rage.

The table. If I squinted right, I could make out arms looped around the near table leg, and Stef straining to keep herself from being sucked the rest of the way in.

She had bumped against me before. Nudging me away from the pit?

Her attempt at heroism had almost gotten her killed, too.

I had a scarf, but even if I had been strong enough to hold on to the archway with one hand and pull her up with the other, it wasn’t long enough.

There was no asking Cris for help. The shrieking and wind grew worse, and Cris cried out in pain. I had no idea what Janan could do when they were mostly without substance, but the wailing sounded like stars dying.

I pulled myself far enough to the arch and braced my elbow inside it, then lifted my leg as high as I could. My heel caught the edge. Terrified every motion would make me slip, I tied one end of the scarf around my ankle, making sure the knot was secure.

Leg down again, the scarf whipped in the wind, close to Stef but not close enough. I couldn’t see her face in the searing light, but her arms didn’t move from around the table leg.

Chest muscles aching with the strain of holding on, I switched to my hands again, so now instead of my upper body at the archway, only my head peeked in.

Stef—I hoped Stef—tugged on the scarf, but the weight
wasn’t enough to make me believe she’d taken a good hold. It wasn’t constant pulling.

Sam would never forgive me if I got this far and didn’t save her. I took three breaths as deep as I could, wind stinging my throat and eyes, and lowered myself farther so my arms stretched before me. Only my fingers stayed in the archway as the sucking wind grew stronger.

Red flashed like bloody lightning, and the cacophony grew worse. But then there was steady tugging on the scarf as Stef grabbed hold and began climbing.

“Please let the knot hold,” I whispered.

The scarf yanked on my foot, and Stef was more weight for me to keep up. My hands were numb as I struggled to hold on, struggled to keep my foot flexed so the scarf wouldn’t slip off. My muscles shook.

A hand closed around my ankle, and another on my calf. My own scream was lost in the din as I begged my arms to pull us up again. If I could just get my elbows over the edge, I would be able to fall through the hole.

Stef used me like a rope, climbing as I worked to bend my arms. The wind pulled and pushed, and lights flared. I focused on breathing, focused on the archway stretched above me. Freedom. If only Stef’s arms weren’t wrapped around my waist.

She must have been pushing with her feet, because a nudge gave me the weightlessness and strength to move my
left shoulder over the lip and hang on with my elbow. Now I pushed instead of pulled, but fire still ripped through my arms and chest as I gained enough strength to move my upper half over the archway.

Stef reached for the edge with one arm. Her other around me slipped.

“Just a little farther,” I urged. The wind stole my voice.

Chasms of concentration lined her face. She clenched her jaw tighter, reached again, and caught hold enough to pull herself up next to me.

The archway had been gray when Cris opened it, but now it was midnight dark. Relief for my eyes, but I was pretty sure that meant Cris wasn’t in control anymore, and no matter how much I shouted his name, the archway didn’t change.

Stef leaned toward me, shouted by my ear. “Why aren’t we leaving?”

My tortured voice wasn’t even as loud as hers, but I tried. “Gray means outside. Black or white means inside.”

She looked ready to cry, but nodded and hauled herself higher on the archway. One foot on the left edge, one on the right. She positioned herself over it like a spider waiting to pounce.

I understood. The second the portal turned to gray, we were going through. I hastened to follow her example, screaming to Cris as loud as I could that we were ready.

But when it did flicker and the black became smooth gray, I wasn’t prepared. My foot had slipped and I was trying to push myself up with just one leg. All my muscles felt shredded, though, too worn to move.

Stef grabbed my wrist and dragged me through the gray archway just as it began to change.

Silence.

Real silence, not the temple unsilence where not even my ears would ring.

And air, windy and cold, but it didn’t try to pull me places. It was thick enough to breathe.

Frigid skin pressed against mine, and I opened my eyes to see Sine above me. Her mouth moved as though she spoke, but I couldn’t hear, so I just blinked and breathed and waited for my muscles to melt. For now, at least, they were too cold to hurt. I reveled in the ability to lie flat on my back and not be
moving
.

“Ana.” Sine sounded far away. “You have to get up.”

I turned my head to find Stef staring up at Councilor Frase. She looked the way I felt. Dull. Not really here.

The market field cobblestones had never been so beautiful.

“Ana!” Sine’s shout brought me back to myself. “Get up before I find someone to carry you.”

That didn’t sound like a bad idea at the moment, but as I
regained control over my body, I remembered market day, Deborl’s speech, Meuric dying in front of everyone, and the resulting mob.

I sat up so quickly Sine almost didn’t dodge fast enough. “Where is Sam?” I tried to make my eyes focus on her again, but I’d moved too fast, and dizziness swarmed inside my head.

“Hospital.” She stood and offered a hand. I climbed up by myself when I saw Stef finding her way to a more vertical position, too. “With everything that happened the other day, he received a few serious injuries, but he’ll live. He just woke up an hour ago.”

I wanted to feel numb, not vainly try to patch the cracked dam of emotions. Sam. Cris. Janan. Soon I was going to break.

Just not in front of anyone. Please.

“What day is it?”

“You’ve been missing for two days.”

It felt like a month. Maybe Cris had managed one last favor, letting us out as close to the time we went in as possible.

The dam inside me strained. I should have stopped Cris. I’d as good as killed him.

“Where’s Deborl? I’m going to electrocute him and then set him on fire—” Stef gasped as she leaned on Frase’s shoulder, hiding her face.

“Deborl and his friends are in prison.”

“Prison?” I could hardly imagine good news anymore. “What about Wend? He was there, too.” Though Deborl had shot him….

Sine combed her fingers through my tangles. “Wend is dead.” Lines creased her face as she frowned, and a tear dropped from crevice to crevice. “None of them will trouble newsouls again, though it’s only fair to tell you that they were not ignored.”

“I need Sam.” I needed to tell him everything that had happened.

“Of course. Corin, please fetch Dossam.” She signaled to someone behind me—Corin, presumably—and footsteps retreated. “Where is Cris? They said he was with you.”

I gazed at the temple, cold and white and not quite as evil if Cris was still in there. Sam had said Cris had never done anything terrible to anyone. Even after learning they’d all sacrificed newsouls for reincarnation, I still believed that. He’d sacrificed himself for us now.

But I couldn’t answer Sine’s question.

I was going to break.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, holding myself together with nothing but threads, but eventually a familiar shadow fell next to mine.

My muscles felt like liquid as I lifted my hand just enough that Sam’s closed around it, and then his arm closed around the rest of me.

The dam broke and everything spilled out. Sam hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe, or maybe the sobs choked me. He touched my hair and face, kissed me. His affection was featherlight, as though he was afraid of crushing me.

I cried into his shirt even though there were other people here. Stef, Sine, Frase. People I didn’t know. I wanted to hide, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk. Even now, Sam mostly held me up.

Sam, who, five thousand years ago, had taken immortality knowing the price. How could I ever look at him the same way?

But I couldn’t bear to pull away from him. Maybe I wouldn’t tell him; it would be hard enough for both of us to deal with the fleetingness of my existence.

I would just die.

Where would I go? What would I do?

So lost in myself, and in Sam’s arms, I almost didn’t notice the commotion around the curve of the temple.

“What’s going on?” I swallowed more tears.

“Sylph. Don’t worry. They’ll capture it and set it free outside Range.” He started to adjust his hold on me, but I straightened and pulled away. “What is it?” Concern lined his face.

“I just had a horrible thought.” I wanted to be wrong, but my mind worked no matter how I tried to ignore it. “Help me get there before they put it in an egg.”

He looked uncertain, but kept me upright as I limped toward the crowd gathered around a panicked sylph. The tall shadow hummed and sang, caught in the circle of people with brass eggs. It could have burned any of them, but it stayed in the center and shifted as though trying to decide what to do.

Then it saw me.

I gathered my strength and gave Sam’s hand a squeeze. “Let me through.” My voice cracked, and I had to say it again, but the team with sylph eggs backed off. Maybe they remembered Deborl’s claims that I could control sylph.

I stepped through the line of people, Sam close behind, and Stef after him. The column of smoke and shadow grew still and its songs silent. It looked at all of us and slumped, somewhere between relief and exhaustion.

It was too human.

“We shouldn’t have let him do it, Stef.” I lifted my hand toward the black smoke. People hissed, but when my fingers passed through, there was only uncomfortable warmth. The sylph hummed, calmer.

I raised my other palm toward the midnight curls, but it shivered away from me as heat grew, like it had lost control.

“Oh.” Stef sounded like she wanted to be sick. “Cris?”

The sylph twitched—acknowledgment—and a tendril of shadow blossomed like a black rose, then fell to my feet.

I clutched my chest, my heart caged inside. We’d let him sacrifice himself for us, and now he was cursed—

Cursed.

Sylph were cursed.

Cris had said there’d been no sylph in the beginning. I still didn’t know how they’d been cursed, but I knew what Cris had done.

“Oh, Cris.”

The shadow rose vanished, and the sylph floated between a pair of guards—who stepped aside to let him pass. He flowed like ink down East Avenue, and Sine muttered into her SED. “There’s a sylph going through the Eastern Arch. Open the gates wide and let him be.”