Asunder (Incarnate) (6 page)

“Good.” She was quiet as we headed toward the Councilhouse, where the hospital waited. “Don’t worry about that other thing.”

Ah, the thing that might be embarrassing to talk about. I bit my lip, half wishing she’d been more clear about it, half relieved she hadn’t. “Okay.”

“It’ll happen when you’re ready. Just…He loves you, Ana. If he said it, he means it. And I love you too. I’m still really glad you’re here.”

“Why?” I whispered, hardly able to believe she’d said it, too. How easy she made it sound, just freely giving love.

Sarit stopped and regarded me with a wry smile. “Just accept it, Ana. You can’t stop your friends from loving you. You can’t stop Sam from feeling the way he does. You know I admire that you question things, but this—this doesn’t have to be one of them.”

Gratitude kindled inside of me, almost choking my words. “Thank you,” I said, and we hurried after Sam and Stef.

THE COUNCILHOUSE WAS an immense building with a wide half-moon staircase spreading out from the front. A huge landing waited at the top, just ahead of a series of double doors; sometimes the landing was used as a stage for outdoor concerts and dances, or just announcements. Though since Templedark, there hadn’t been much call for celebration.

We climbed the stairs—two at a time for those with longer legs—and stepped around columns and crumbling statues. The human-made parts of the Councilhouse were old and falling apart, worse after Templedark. Nothing had been the same since Templedark.

Sam held the door open for us, and we headed toward the hospital wing. Now that we were almost there, it took all my
effort not to skip. “I’m excited to see a rebirth. Do you think she’ll let me touch the baby?”

“Probably.” Sam fell into step with Stef, behind Sarit and me.

“Good,” I said. “That was your last chance to tell me if asking would be rude.”

Stef lowered her voice, intentionally just loud enough for me to hear. “Next she’ll be wanting one of her own.”

One of my own?

A baby?

“Right.” I glanced over my shoulder to find Sam looking fascinated by the wall, and Stef wearing a smirk. “Because what I really need is to be responsible for someone. Because I’d be really good at giving a baby everything it needs, thanks to the great example I got from Li.” I choked out the last words. I had no idea if I ever wanted to have a baby, but it certainly wasn’t
next
on my list of things to do.

Darkness flashed through Sam’s eyes, but he didn’t say anything.

“The Council is approving a lot of couples right now. I bet you’d be approved, too.” Stef acted oblivious to my response, or Sam’s discomfort. “We can check the genealogies later to make sure they’d say yes. It’s embarrassing when they say no.”

The Council had to be careful of accidental inbreeding and unfavorable genes being passed along, and no one
wanted to be responsible for future generations suffering poor eyesight or genetic disorders. The practice made me uncomfortable, but to everyone else, it was a way of taking care of their bodies.

She went on. “I think—”

Sam interrupted her, voice deep and dark. “Let it go, Stef.”

“Fine. I was just being interested in your lives.”

Sam gave a long sigh; that was what the end of his patience sounded like, which I knew from experience. “Passive aggression doesn’t suit you,” he said. “If you want to talk about this, then we should. But later.”

“Later,” Stef whispered, tone all pity, and I could almost feel her glare on the back of my head. “I guess I do have that in my favor.”

I probably hadn’t been meant to hear the last part. My face burned with shame and grief at my own inevitable demise. We didn’t know
for sure
, of course, whether I’d be reincarnated after this life, but it didn’t seem likely.

Next to me, Sarit’s expression was twisted with discomfort.

“Here we are.” I spoke mostly to pretend like I hadn’t heard Stef’s comment, though everyone probably knew better.

The birthing center was a warm, open section of the hospital wing, with silk walls pinned in place by metal shelves. We hurried past the lit Soul Tellers’ office, toward the rebirth room with its cheery decorations and array of
medical equipment—just in case. They’d stopped using most of it a century ago.

As we entered the crowded room, buzzing conversation paused and people glanced up to see who’d arrived. Lidea was propped up on the bed with her eyes closed, surrounded by a team of birthing assistants.

“Shouldn’t be long now,” Stef said, folding her coat. “You can put your belongings on a shelf, Ana. Looks like we’ll have to stand, though. All the chairs are taken.”

“Why are there so many people here?” I placed my coat and umbrella next to her things. “There’s got to be at least four dozen. Are they all going to watch her have a baby?”

“Yep.” Stef flashed a smile, almost like an apology for her insensitivity earlier.

I’d have to remember this kind of thing attracted crowds, because in the unlikely event I
did
ever have a baby, someone would be in charge of shutting the door.

Sam took my hand and guided Sarit, Stef, and me through the crowd of people chatting, speculating on who’d come back.

“Look,” someone muttered, “the nosoul is here.”

Shock spiraled though me, shame not far behind. I wasn’t a nosoul. I
wasn’t
.

Few people used the word “nosoul” anymore, so what had changed? Perhaps it was this birth: Lidea had gotten pregnant
after
Templedark, and everyone was nervous.

Still, I kept my face down as I walked, as though I could hide from the words.

“She’ll curse Lidea,” and “She’s already cursed everyone. Her and Menehem. They planned Templedark,” and “Dossam with her. He’s no better.”

Sam’s hand tightened painfully around mine, but neither of us acknowledged the speakers. As much as I wanted to defend myself, this wasn’t the time. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. The last thing Lidea needed was for my presence to start a fight.

“Often,” Sam said, as though we hadn’t heard a bunch of people talking about me, “we can predict who’ll be born, since there aren’t a lot of possibilities. Maybe two or three. Their best friends usually attend the birthing to welcome them back.”

We found a spot by the back wall, and I said, “A lot of people lost their friends.”

Sam kept his voice soft as he turned his attention to the bed and birthing assistants gathered around. “Yeah.”

Wend, Lidea’s partner, stood beside her, petting her hair and whispering encouragement. Nearby, someone said she was pushing now, so it wouldn’t be much longer.

I stood on my toes, but from our corner, I couldn’t see more than Wend’s head. There were too many people in front of us, half of them standing. I tugged Sam’s sleeve. “I can’t see.”

Sam eyed the rows of people, and my nice view of their shoulders. “Go to the front.” He nudged me. “I’ll wait here.”

I hesitated—some of these people hated me—but I refused to let them stop me from seeing my friend. I squeezed Sam’s hand, then maneuvered through the crowd before I missed anything else. Right in time to see Micah, one of the birthing assistants, adjust the sheet over Lidea’s legs and—Ew. It was really going to come out of her.

Sarit sidled up next to me. “Thought you could use some company.” Protection, she meant, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“Wow.” I tried not to gape as Lidea groaned at another contraction. “That can’t feel good.”

Someone glared at me, and Sarit giggled.

Lidea grunted and—around a white-smocked birth assistant—I saw her face, lined with concentration. Her eyes were closed as if there was nothing else in the world. Just her and the baby.

True, most people weren’t
watching
, but she made a lot of weird noises I’d have been embarrassed about. No one seemed to care, though.

It wasn’t long before a last push brought the baby and its cry. Everyone cheered and called out, “Welcome back!” while Micah gave the baby to Lidea, who was flushed and sweaty, but grinned happily. Wend unbundled a small blanket and laid it across both of them.

“He’s healthy!” Micah’s shout made everyone cheer again. She put a dark green cap, embroidered with tiny ospreys and elk, on his head.

Sarit leaned toward me and muttered, “It’s a running joke that there are only five or six newborn caps in existence. Everyone just passes them back and forth.”

I giggled. “It does look suspiciously familiar.”

After a few minutes, the cheering quieted and a pair of Soul Tellers stepped forward. Sarit and I ducked away, back to Sam and Stef.

“That was
amazing
,” I whispered, pressing my spine against Sam’s chest, relaxing when his arms circled my waist. “And kind of gross. It must have hurt.”

“I’m sure she’d be happy to share, if you asked her.”

I couldn’t decide whether he was making a joke or not. Why would anyone want to talk about childbirth?

Maybe I’d see if the library had a book on it, instead.

Aside from Lidea’s cooing to the baby until he calmed, the room grew silent as Emil, one of the Soul Tellers, approached the bed with a small device. It was a soul-scanner, like those used around the city to restrict access to armories and other secret places.

“Baby soul-scanners?” I asked.

Stef nodded. “They’re new for the Soul Tellers, only fifty or so years old. Before that, Soul Tellers did blood tests, which were less reliable. They measured chemicals they
believed the soul produced.”

I hmmed. Sam had once mentioned that certain tests hadn’t been reliable, and people would be called the wrong name until they were old enough to complain about it.

“Soul-scanners have been around much longer, of course,” Stef went on, “but they work by measuring vibrations of the soul inside the body. Newborns tend to have erratic and excited souls. It took a lot of work to get around that.”

“Huh.” Maybe they’d thought the scanner was broken when I was born, if the technology was that new. Maybe they’d tried three or four times, and with different scanners, just to make sure.

“Hold his hand still,” said Emil. “We should know in just a few minutes.” They pressed the baby’s palm against the scanner face and then tucked the blanket tighter. Being born must have been terribly shocking, and cold, but he stayed quiet, tucked against Lidea’s chest.

Everyone in the room stared at Emil, all anticipation and hope that this baby was
their
best friend who’d been lost the night of Templedark. The number of possibilities was staggering, but worse, underneath rode a current of fear: glances at me, muttered prayers to Janan, and objects clutched to their chest.

The last must have been things belonging to whomever they hoped would return. A box, a key, a silk fan.

Emil lowered the device and gazed around, eyes settling
briefly on me. I tensed as another wave of anxiety passed through the silent room. “Is something wrong with him?” The words barely formed in my mouth, and Sam squeezed me, as if to caution.

“Who is he?”

Lidea’s expression twisted with worry. “Please just tell me.”

Emil faced her, his tone sober. “He’s a newsoul.”

I WASN’T ALONE.

I wasn’t the only one.

I wanted to be sick.

All eyes fell on me, and the first ones I saw were angry and accusing. Sam’s arms grew tight around me, ready to protect me from the inevitable storm. “Ana…”

Sam followed my gaze to the large man on the other side of the room, slowly standing, his glare locked on me. The man was enormous, with shoulders so wide he made Sam look small. Close-cropped brown hair made him look bald, and a few days’ worth of stubble darkened his face. His name was Merton; I’d seen him leading anti-newsoul speeches and complaints to the Council.

Anti-Ana speeches, because there was only me.

Until now.

“This is your fault.” He seemed bigger for all the rage building up beneath his words. As though anger were contagious, the room began to boil with it. “Meuric was right. Li was right. This one was only the beginning of replacements. Now Lidea has borne another.”

On the bed, Lidea stared at the infant in her arms, like she wasn’t sure what to do now. Tears trickled down her sweat-streaked face.

“Nosouls will replace everyone,” someone in the back shouted. Panic pitched his voice high, and then it was lost under the wave of suspicion-filled mutters.

“We’re being invaded!” Merton shouted.

A small cry of agreement went up, hesitant at first, gaining voices swiftly.

“When sylph infest the city,” Merton roared, “what do we do? Capture them and send them beyond Range.”

People nodded emphatically. A few cheered.

“When centaurs hunt in our forests,” Merton went on, “we drive them out with gas that erodes the bonds holding together their two aspects.”

My stomach dropped, but Merton held everyone’s rapt attention. He looked just as eager to say what they were all waiting to hear.

“Now we need to learn to defend ourselves against this new threat.”

He thought of us as monsters. This baby who’d barely drawn breath, and me. Several people thundered agreement. With Merton as the conductor, the shouts and rage crescendoed.

The baby wailed, and Lidea held him close, but she wept too. My friends yelled in my defense, and the birthing assistants ordered people to leave the room. No one obeyed. People kept shouting and pointing, pressing closer to me as the scowls and glares deepened. They practically burned.

Their heat filled me, leaving no room for disbelief or shock. How could I be shocked when some of these people had treated me with nothing but hatred?

But as the shouting grew and the baby screamed, my own anger replaced my fear. Like a geyser, pressure built inside of me, boiling with the heat of the cacophony all around—like the power of the Range caldera. I was ready to erupt.

“Stop!” I wrested myself from Sam’s grip and climbed onto a chair. “Enough!”

They all stared—birthing assistants, observers, and Soul Tellers—and I imagined geyser steam wafting through the room, stunning them into silence. Only the baby cried, and then Lidea put him on her breast.

Silence.

Oops. Everyone was looking at me.

On the bed, Lidea cradled the baby to her. Sweat dripped down her temples, and her skin flushed bronze. The room smelled of salt and copper and other things I couldn’t identify.

I focused on the geyser feeling, how furious I’d been about everyone scaring the baby, threatening to kill him as if he were some kind of monster.

They would
not
hurt him. I wouldn’t let them.

“I was led to believe that you were all rational people who knew how to behave around an infant.” My voice shook. So much for being strong like a geyser. “If you want to yell, do it outside. This isn’t the place.”

No one moved; I wasn’t sure this was better than the yelling.

“If not for the baby, please show a little consideration for Lidea. Or don’t you care about her anymore?”

That shamed a few people into slinking out of the room. I stayed on my chair as they passed.

“Anyone else?” I mimicked an angry expression Li had always used to force me to confess when I’d been listening to music. It seemed to work, though I felt more like a chipmunk addressing a room full of wolves. “We’re here to celebrate a birth. If you can’t do that simply because he’s a newsoul, you’re welcome to leave.”

More people left. More than before. A few had the decency
to look ashamed. I didn’t bother hiding my disgust for any of them.

Across the room, Merton stood there with his arms crossed, his face crimson and contorted with rage. He stalked toward me.

Everyone watched, and Sam eased toward my chair, but when Merton reached me, he just glowered and walked around me—to the door.

I tried not to let my relief show. If he’d attacked me, there’d have been little my friends could have done. Merton was huge. And strong.

But he was gone for now. I focused on breathing, and trying not to crumple under the stares of birthing assistants, observers, and friends. Most of the hostile people had gone ahead of Merton, so why did my heart speed up
now
? Surely I should have been able to say something coherent in front of people who didn’t completely hate me.

“I believe the tradition is to welcome newborns.” Welcome them back, anyway. But this one hadn’t been here before. He was like me. Newsoul. “I’ll go first.” I ached for him, this unnamed child facing an existence like mine. At least he wouldn’t be the only one.

Sam offered a hand to help me off the chair, and I accepted. The last thing I needed was to fall on my face.

As I approached Lidea’s bed, I imagined what the scene must have been like when Li gave birth to me, and the Soul
Tellers announced I wasn’t anyone. There’d probably been fewer people in the room. And all of Ciana’s friends would have been there.

Ciana, whom I’d replaced.

I doubted anyone had welcomed me to the world.

I stopped by Lidea’s bed. Someone had pulled sheets all around her and wiped sweat off her face, though her skin remained flushed with heat and anger and the labor of birth. Black hair hung in tendrils over her shoulders; the baby’s hand reached upward at nothing, losing his fingers in the tangles.

Sam stood next to me, and everyone else queued behind him. Except Wend, Lidea’s partner; he didn’t leave her side.

I searched for the right words, but what did you say to someone who’d had a newsoul? Apologizing seemed wrong, because this wasn’t bad, and I’d had nothing to do with it. The only thing that made me sorry was knowing how much everyone already hated him.

“Thank you.” Lidea’s smile was strained. “For making them stop. For making them leave.”

“I couldn’t let them continue.” What if they’d hurt him? He was tiny, all splotchy red and brown skin, and his face scrunched up with the stress of being born.

She lowered her eyes. “The idea of having a newsoul—it was terrifying. And”—her voice caught with the confession—“humiliating. But holding him now, I’m glad he’s here. I love him completely.”

My throat tightened from choking back tears. “He’s lucky to have you.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he’s happy. I’ll keep him safe.”

So would I. “I’d like to welcome him. Will you name him?”

“I thought about naming him after you, in honor of your standing up for him.” Her eyes were only for the baby. She didn’t see the way my mouth fell open. “But that would be confusing, and I don’t want to start a trend of all newsouls being Ana.”

I hoped not. Li had told me they’d chosen my name because it was part of Ciana’s name, symbolizing the life I’d taken from her. The name also meant “alone” and “empty.”

“It was a generous thought, but not necessary.” And I didn’t deserve that kind of honor.

Lidea caressed his round cheeks, small nose. “It did give me another idea.” Sweeter anticipation filled the room. “Anid is close.”

My heart felt swollen as I reached, glanced at Lidea for permission, and then touched Anid’s tiny hand. He didn’t seem to notice. “Hi, Anid. Welcome to the world.” My voice trembled as I whispered, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

We were in this together now. Neither of us were alone. Asunder.

He looked toward me with wide, dark blue eyes. He was beautiful, and I wasn’t ready to move on, but people waited
behind me, so I touched Lidea’s hand, then Wend’s, and gave Sam a turn. As the line moved, I watched how everyone else was with the baby, trying to memorize the faces of those who’d stayed. Were they friendly, or just polite?

After everyone but the birthing assistants had left, I offered Anid my finger again. His fist closed around it immediately.

“Don’t let anyone call you a nosoul again,” I whispered to him. “If they do, tell me and I’ll take care of it for you.”

Lidea looked amused. “Are you corrupting him already?”

“Just a little.” I smiled so she’d know I wasn’t serious.

“I’m worried,” Lidea confessed. “After earlier, all that yelling.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears shimmered across her lashes. “What if they really try to hurt him?”

Wend appeared by her side, hand on her shoulder. “Nothing will happen to him.” When Lidea twisted toward him, he leaned over to hug her.

Sam touched my elbow and murmured, “Ready to go?” I nodded, and we said our good-byes, fetched our belongings, and headed for the exit.

It was raining again when we went outside, and fully dark now. Only the temple glowed, shedding watery light across the market field. Without conversation, we headed back to the southwest quarter of the city where all our homes were located. Sarit and Stef broke off onto their streets, close to ours.

Inside and dried off, I said, “Sam,” before realizing I’d spoken.

He paused on his way to the piano, one hand drifting over my hip as he faced me. With his face in shadow, Sam’s eyes were even darker, more mysterious, and heavier with the weight of centuries. Millennia.

“Once, you called me a butterfly, because my existence seems so fleeting to everyone else in Heart.”

A line formed between his eyes. “Ana—”

“I know you didn’t mean it to hurt me, and I know you’ve apologized a thousand times.” I swallowed nerves caught in my throat. “That doesn’t make my existence less potentially ephemeral. I could die and never be reincarnated.”

“Please don’t say that,” he whispered.

“You, Stef, Sarit, others—you’ve made the Year of Hunger bearable. I didn’t think I could have friends until you proved me wrong.” I reached up for his shoulders, let my hands slide along the backs of his arms. “But the beginning of my life was terrible, and half the people still treat me like I’m responsible for Templedark and every other horrible thing that’s ever happened.”

He looked downward, like I blamed him for others’ actions. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. None of it’s your fault. I just meant to say, I don’t want Anid to grow up like I did.”

“Lidea and Wend will care for him. So will we.”

I nodded. “But it’s not enough. You saw what happened in there. People were anxious to welcome back a friend, and then it was
terrible
. Within minutes, people were talking about killing him. If that’s any indication of the rest of the city’s reaction to his birth, when other newsouls start coming, there won’t be anywhere safe. Not in the city. I need to make it safe. Somehow.”

“Ana.” Sam stepped so close I had to drop my head back to meet his eyes, and the way he said my name—it was same reverence people used in their prayers to Janan. My insides knotted up as he touched my jaw and kissed me. Softly, gently, aching with restraint. “Anything you need from me, just ask. I promise, we’ll give these newsouls the chance you never had.”

Hearing it in those words made everything so clear. Sam understood me better than I understood myself, and he’d known what I needed all along.