Infinite (Incarnate)

by Jodi Meadows

  The dragon growled again, and a word crackled in the back of my head.

  I nodded. “Last year, you did break it. The tower cracked.” I couldn’t ignore the tower looming to my left. From here, I could see where trees were overcoming the stone, not as quickly and devastatingly as they had in the jungle Cris once told me about. Nevertheless, the structure would eventually topple.

  I resisted the urge to look at my sylph and think about which one might have been imprisoned here five thousand years ago.

  And the reason why.

  They were on my side now, and they yearned for redemption.

  I returned my attention to the dragon. “You may be asking yourself what was different about last year. Why you were able to affect the tower after trying unsuccessfully so long.” Maybe saying their efforts had been futile before wasn’t the best idea, but the dragon didn’t react. “The answer is a type of poison. You see, there’s a man who made himself part of the tower. He’s been controlling it for the last five thousand years, along with the rest of the city. . . .”

  The dragon yawned, its breath reeking of acid and dead bear.

  Oh. Okay. I glanced at Cris for help, but he and the other sylph were distracted. I checked the forest but saw nothing unusual. Just lots of snow and trees and brilliant blue sky. Everything shimmered in the noon light. My stomach tightened, reminding me I’d had nothing but a skinny pigeon in what seemed like forever.

  Acid Breath rumbled again, vibrating the wall so hard I staggered. The other two dragons peered at me, their eyes slitted as though they wanted to doze.

  “Anyway.” My voice came out high and panicky as the dragon shifted its head, so a long fang stood out right in front of me, bone white against shimmering gold scales. “It seems to me you’re not much of a fan of the tower.” Though they didn’t seem to mind the one in their domain. “And I thought I’d let you know that I have the same poison that was used last year, and I’m going to use the poison again on the spring equinox.”

  The dragon lifted its head.

  Ah. At last.

  I bit my cheeks to avoid smiling while I put together the next words. “Because that night, the man living inside the walls is going to ascend. He wants to be immortal. He’s going to break free of the walls that have caged him for five thousand years. Already it’s beginning. The earth is shifting.”

  The dragon lowered its head.

  “You should.” I stepped forward, sylph fanning around me. “Because when it happens, the earth will crack open and fire will spit out. There’s an enormous volcano under the city, powerful enough to make the surrounding lands boil. You’re far away from the volcano, but not that far. Not far enough. Ash will rain all over your hunting grounds, smothering the plants and animals. This frozen land will be even colder and deadlier.”

  Acid Breath angled his face at me so that one of his eyes was an arm’s length away, and the ringing in my ears intensified.

  “I—I don’t hate you.” Though I certainly hated whatever dragons had killed Sam in previous generations. And maybe some of the dragons from Templedark, but several of those were dead. “I came because I thought you would like another chance to destroy the temple.” And how did one bring up a mysterious weapon?

  Acid Breath settled back onto the wall, jaw propped on one forefoot.

  This couldn’t be it. I couldn’t have come all this way, actually succeeded in speaking to dragons, only to be turned down.

  An idea sparked in my mind. “What happens when Janan begins hunting dragons?”

  Acid Breath rumbled, as did the others.

  I nodded. “When Janan ascends, he’s going to be immortal. Maybe unkillable. He stole a phoenix’s magic and made himself like this. But before, five thousand years ago, he was the leader of a group of people—the people who live in the city right now. And considering how many times they’ve been killed by dragons, I’m sure Janan will want some kind of revenge.”

  It could happen. Maybe.

 

  “Are you sure?” Everything inside me twisted, numb from what I was about to say. In spite of what they’d done, I didn’t want to hurt my sylph. It was the same as with Sam and all my other friends. They’d made a decision or followed orders, yes, but that was five thousand years ago. It hadn’t been just another lifetime, it had been another world. They’d all changed. Their decisions from then didn’t affect my love for them now. “Because five thousand years ago, Janan and his warriors trapped a phoenix.”

  The sylph shivered and whined.

 

  “They can.” I made my voice hard. “They can and they have been. You may think Janan won’t or can’t come after you, but if humans had menaced dragons for the last five thousand years, wouldn’t you want revenge?”

  Acid Breath lifted his head and looked at the others, and the ringing in my ears intensified. I couldn’t understand what they said to one another, but there was definitely something going on. Wings tensed. Words crackled around the edges of my thoughts, but the dialogue—what I could hear of it—didn’t seem complete. There was something in the way they moved that added to the conversation—something I couldn’t quite understand.

  But the fragments I could hear—they were interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Finally, the lead dragon turned back to me and settled on the wall.

  “What?” I needed to ask them about the weapon the temple books had mentioned, and whether they could use it to fight Janan. But they were interested in a song?

  The dragon growled, its anger rippling across the forest.

  “Play my flute?” My words came out like squeaks as I lifted my flute, making the sylph stir with anticipation.

  -Will the dragons help?- Cris asked me.

 

  I stepped backward and held my flute to my chin.

  The others began with a low hum that rolled across me, through me. I shifted my shoulders to readjust my backpack, still weighing me down, then played a few scales and arpeggios to warm up. The dragons grew still, watchful.

  I had a few pieces memorized, having played them enough for my muscles to remember the melodies, so I let my fingers rest over the keys for only a moment before I decided on the music I’d played during the market day demonstration, right before I’d been captured and locked inside the temple. It was the music I’d written like a diary, keeping it to myself for months until I finally had the courage to show it to Sam.

  The music started out slowly, melancholy. Sylph pooled their songs around it, matching the longing I played, the need for the unknown. Everything around me faded as the music took over, the sylph warmed me, and I pushed my heart into it. Gasping with a kiss. Awe at a fire-sky sunset. The amazing and humbling feeling of receiving love. My flute’s sound soared across the valley, sweet and silver and filled with life.

  Playing with sylph was nothing like playing with Sam. Both sylph and Sam understood music in a way I could only dream of, but where Sam played with immeasurable skill and deliberateness, sylph were free and wild. When they sang, they danced, and they burned with passion and joy.

  Sound swirled through us, making my heart pound with fear and loneliness and exhaustion when I reached the
section I’d written after learning of newsouls’ fate. And then hope and desire when Sam took me home and revealed the parlor filled with roses, just because he’d wanted to see me smile.

  As we pushed toward the end, I opened my eyes to find the dragons all looking . . . peaceful. Oddly happy, if one could assign a facial expression to dragons.

  And as my gaze swept over the valley, I caught motion on the cliff where I’d stood yesterday. Three human-shaped figures and a dozen sylph, the latter of which echoed my music.

  I dropped my flute to my side, banging it on my thigh. They hadn’t left. They were still here. Sam was here.

  And the dragons.

  As the sylph finished singing, confused about why I’d stopped, I faced Acid Breath.

 

  I unzipped my coat enough to slide my flute into its case, still strapped diagonally across my chest. “Are you going to destroy the tower? Will you use your weapon to fight Janan?” Now that I’d seen the others across the valley, I itched to return to them, to tell them what I’d done. I also wanted to somehow put myself between the dragons and Sam, but they’d see around me. Over me. Maybe I could lure them away, or . . . I had no clue. “Tell me you’re going to destroy the tower on the spring equinox, and I’ll play all you like.”

 

  One of the other dragons lifted its head and looked toward the cliff, and buzzing in the back of my thoughts indicated they were discussing what had caught my attention. They knew why I’d stopped.

  Sam.

  I didn’t think I was supposed to hear it, but one dragon murmured to another,

  That was meant for me, and with one graceful motion, Acid Breath dug his talons into the white stone as he crouched for flight. His wings spread wide, their wind almost knocking me off the wall.

  “No!” I raced for him, as though I could stop a dragon. He was ready to fly off and leave me, ready to kill Sam while I was stranded here, helpless to do anything about it. I threw my arms around his foreleg just as he lifted into the air, sylph shrieking behind me.

  We were flying.

  Icy wind stung my face, poured down my throat. I gasped and clung to the dragon’s leg as he lifted it and growled. His scales were cool and slick, almost slick enough to drop me. I wrapped my legs around his ankle—what I supposed would be his ankle—and tried not to think about hurtling through the sky. On a dragon.

  The one with the song.

  What song?

  Acid Breath dragged his foot, skimming treetops, which whipped and caught at me. Pine needles smacked my legs and arms, slithering into my sleeves and coat collar. My hands ached from the cold and holding on, but as his wings cracked against the air again and I looked up, I found the cliff rushing at me.

  The dragon hurled me to the ground, and the line of sylph that had formed around Sam, Stef, and Whit. I wrapped myself around my flute case as I rolled across rocks and dead grass. Sylph swarmed to surround me, and three pair of hands dragged me to my feet.

  I didn’t have time to thank them. I shucked off my backpack and pushed through the sylph.

  “Stop!” I craned my neck as the trio of dragons pulled back as though to spit acid. “If you hurt them, I won’t play for you anymore.”

  The dragons huffed, and an acrid stink washed over the ledge. They were standing in the forest below, heads held high enough to peer at us.

 

 

 

 

  “Ana—”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Sam and held out a hand for him to stay where he was behind the sylph. “Just stay,” I said.

  The dragons’ words came like smoke around the edges of my consciousness. Fragments I was only peripherally aware of.

  I hardly recognized my own wind-torn voice anymore as I faced the dragons. “And maybe you don’t care whether I play for you ever again. I don’t care if I ever play for you again, honestly. But know this: if you hurt them, I will hunt you.”

 

  “Not lies. I told you that Janan had warriors who hunted and captured a phoenix. Those warriors became sylph. They are with me now, my army and my armor, and I’m sure they remember how to capture something that doesn’t want to be captured. If you hurt my friends, we will come for you and every other dragon in existence.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The dragons’ ringing intensified, filling my head like a swarm of bees. I staggered and caught myself on a boulder, raw hands scraping on stone. Voices called my name and sylph closed around me, but I pulled myself up and glared at the dragons and summoned what was left of my voice.

  “I. Will not. Give up.”

  Acid Breath blew a long stream of rancid air over the ledge, rustling trees and making sylph moan. Blue targeting lights flared, but I held up a hand again.

  “Don’t.” I couldn’t look behind me—I didn’t have the energy—but the lights turned off. I focused on the dragons again. “Do you understand me?”

  Acid Breath glanced beyond me as more heat pressed around. The sylph I’d left at the wall had arrived. Just a dozen sylph had fought them off before. Twice that number . . .

  They weren’t afraid of the sylph, though. They were afraid of something else. The phoenix song. The one with the song.

 

  I nodded, carefully, so my thoughts wouldn’t swim. “And will you destroy the tower on Soul Night? The spring equinox? Will you use your weapon?”

 

  Before I could respond, Acid Breath and the others pushed off the earth and into the sky. Trees cracked and fell under their power, and the cliff shuddered. Dragon thunder ripped, and I watched their receding forms as exhaustion and darkness overtook me.

  But this time when I fell, there were hands to catch me.

  20

  CONNECTION

  CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED IN sharp fragments, like shards of glass and light. Warm water on my face and neck. Sips of thin soup. The scent of ozone. Voices that seemed as though they came from the other end of the earth.

  A dark figure with his knees to his chest, face buried in his arms, shoulders hunched and heaving.

  When awareness settled and stayed, I found myself wrapped inside my sleeping bag, wearing clean clothes and listening to a piano in one ear. My SED lay just outside my bedding, the wire of one earpiece twisting its way to me. The second earpiece played music at nothing.

  “It’s crooked.” My voice rasped as though I’d been screaming. Maybe it was just waking-up raspiness. “The music. It’s crooked.”

  A quiet din I hadn’t been aware of until now suddenly stopped, and someone gave a long, relieved sigh. Sam. “You did that. You said one earpiece was for you, one was for us, and when I suggested using the SED speakers for everyone, you said you didn’t have time to argue.”

  “Oh.” That did sound like me, but I didn’t remember the discussion. I pulled the earpiece out, silencing the piano sonata, and pushed myself onto my elbow. My whole body was stiff and aching.

  Whit and Stef were sitting on their sleeping bags, paused from tapping at their SEDs while they looked at me. A pot of soup sat near the open tent flap, steaming with a sylph coiled around it. Slanted light fell through the opening, making the gloom of the rest of the tent darker and deeper.

  “Look who’s finally awake,” Whit said. �
�When I said you should get some rest, I didn’t mean this much.”

  I made a face that might have been a smile.

  Sam sat just beyond my SED, in the dark, so close I hadn’t yet focused my eyes the right way to see him. But now I noted the folded paper in his hands, the slumped posture, the way he’d been right beside me when I awakened.

  I sat up the rest of the way, ignoring the twinges of pain in my back and shoulders. “Sam.” His name came out in a breath, sorrow and hope and longing all tangled up in three letters.

  “Hey.” His voice was soft, rough, and for a moment we looked at each other and there was nothing else in the world.

  Light rippled in the corner of my eye as the others got up and left the tent. Even the sylph vanished, leaving Sam and me alone.

  He swallowed hard and leaned toward me. “Ana, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

  I rubbed sleep from my eyes and shimmied out of my sleeping bag. “Maybe start by telling me how long I was”—not unconscious, even if that was the truth—“asleep.”

  “Three days.”

  Three days. Time we didn’t have to waste.

  I pushed hair off my face, shifting questions in my mind. Who’d washed and dressed me? Were we still at the same camp? I couldn’t tell without peeking outside, and the light hurt my eyes. “Have the dragons returned?”

  What had they said? The one with the song? The phoenix song.

  Sam shuddered. “No. They haven’t come back.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know where to go from there. I’d done the impossible. I’d spoken with dragons. I’d survived. I’d kept the dragons from attacking my friends because I was a very frightening tiny person with little regard for her own life.

  A high, hysterical giggle slipped out. My voice sounded thin and weak in the shadows of the tent, but I couldn’t stop it. After everything, I could do nothing but laugh to release the knot of tension in my chest.