Asunder (Incarnate)

by Jodi Meadows

  “Do you know what these mean?”

  “Of course.”

  “You must tell me everything. No leaving out details. If I think you’re lying, I won’t give you this water.”

  “Very well.” Meuric coughed, flecks of blood and mucus spattering across the floor. “The second symbol means rising or higher. Ascending. You may sometimes read it as Janan, though it isn’t his name, simply a reference to him. The third symbol means city, or Heart—but only Heart in the way the other means Janan.”

  “How do you tell which it means?”

  For someone in his condition, he did an admirable job of looking at me like I was an idiot. “Context. Of course.”

  “Oh, of course,” I muttered, scribbling notes to myself. “What about the first symbol? The ‘less than’ mark.”

  “It is but a modifier, changing the meanings of the words around it.” He gave examples of how the symbol might affect others.

  I showed him several more symbols and he answered readily, the whole time grinning as if he believed I would regret all this questioning. But I continued on, and he told me how and why different meanings might be assigned to different marks. Then, too soon, I couldn’t remember any others well enough to ask about them. If only I’d found the stack of books again when I came in.

  “Okay, you can have the water now.” I put my notebook away and retrieved the bottle.

  “Yes! Give it.” Meuric lifted his arm, which drooped in unnatural places. When I handed him the bottle, it fell from his grasp and rolled across the floor. As it bounced against the far wall and settled, he just stared, desolate and unable to go after it.

  Pity gnawed at me, and I fetched it for him. “Do anything I even think might be an attack, and I’ll shove this in your other eye. Got it?”

  Meuric nodded, as I removed the top and held the bottle in front of him. All he had to do was lean forward, but I didn’t think he could. He should have been dead. Bone shards should have pierced all his organs and he shouldn’t be breathing, let alone talking.

  Whatever Janan had done to Meuric, it wasn’t a favor.

  I tilted the bottle over him until water trickled into his mouth. He drank, sputtered, coughed, and I backed far away. I didn’t trust all those sudden movements.

  “Answer a few more questions and I’ll give you the rest.” Unless he started coughing on me again. Maybe I could leave the bottle next to him and call it the end of our agreement. But he couldn’t drink it on his own. I hated that I felt obligated to make sure he got what he’d bargained for.

  “You want to know how to stop Janan. There is no way to stop him, least of all for you. You are nothing to Janan. Insignificant.” He kept staring at the bottle, even as water dribbled down his chin.

  “I’m not insignificant to you. I have the water.” I shook the bottle again. All this protest. All this insistence on my insignificance. Meuric was afraid of me, of what I might do, because I was the only one against Janan who could remember everything others were supposed to forget. Because I was new. Different. Asunder.

  Maybe special.

  I steeled my voice. “Now tell me how to stop him.”

  “Nothing can stop him. Already the world quivers with anticipation.” He glared up with his good eye, and the bad one gaped wider. “Why are you even here? You should have been like these screams, these crying souls never born.”

  Terror flurried inside of me, and I whispered, “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t supposed to be born. You keep interfering and because of you, more oldsouls have been taken from Janan forever. More newsouls escape.” Meuric cackled, rough and bubbling. “But it doesn’t matter. You came too late to have any effect on him. He won’t notice the loss of your tiny spark.”

  “But the others?” My tongue might have been paper as I asked, “Will he notice the darksouls, and the newsouls born in their place?”

  Meuric settled into the position I’d first seen him in, obscured by ratty cloth and blood. “He may notice, but it’s too late to stop him. Your trials are for naught. You’ve secured a few short years for yourself, and a few short breaths for others. But the death you’ll soon experience will surely be a hundred times worse than your original fate.”

  My boots hissed on stone as I backed toward the stairs. “And what was my original fate?” I asked, thinking of the weeper and what it had called Janan. The Devourer.

  When he grinned, a cracked and bloodied tooth dropped from its socket. “The same fate of all newsouls, caught to allow an oldsoul to be reborn. The same fate of all the newsouls you hear right now with their little screams and lives never lived.

  “They’re being eaten.”

  17

  KEY

  THE WATER BOTTLE dropped to the floor, spilling open, and Meuric howled with laughter.

  I threw myself up the spiral stairs, around in circles higher and higher. My thighs burned and my head throbbed, but I ignored my own pain. It was nothing. Janan was replacing souls, letting the old live and keeping the new for himself. The weeper, the non-voice that had comforted me in the blackness, was being consumed.

  As I climbed, the sobbing and wailing grew louder, and I imagined the souls were calling me back, though whether to save them or die with them, I wasn’t sure.

  Up the stairs, I emerged into a spherical room. I didn’t stop running, and the entire chamber rolled under my feet as though I were trapped inside a giant ball.

  Remembering how the upside-down pit had sucked Meuric upward, I stopped while the hole was still on the side of the room, then fumbled for the door device with my pulse thundering in my ears. I pressed the combination that had opened a path to freedom before. Gray misted on the white stone, and I ran into scorching daylight.

  Even as the door vanished, Meuric’s words pursued me: they’re being eaten.

  All the weeping, all the whispered cries for help. Newsouls.

  Light rained around me and the temple pressed against my back, echoing my pounding heartbeat. All I could see were the cobblestones under my boots and my shaking hands as I thrust the key into my pocket. I blinked to clear my vision, but it didn’t help.

  I gasped at air, gulping the scent of sweat and burned coffee and sulfur from an erupting geyser beyond the wall. Steam wafted across the agricultural quarter, through the orchards and fields. Two more geysers erupted in the north and east, their loud gush and whoosh audible even over the market field din. Water sprayed high, reaching over the immense city wall.

  Hands closed over my shoulders and yanked me close, and I screamed.

  A man I’d never seen before shoved me and slammed me against the temple. Lightning snapped through my vision and thoughts, and I cried out as the stranger pinned me to the wall. I couldn’t get away. The temple thrummed against my spine, and the back of my head ached where it had hit. The stranger dug into my pocket and seized the temple key.

  “This,” he growled, “doesn’t belong to you.” He grabbed the front of my coat, jerked me around so I hit the wall again, and then he was gone.

  My head pounded as I struggled to find my feet, to go after him, but I staggered a few steps and hit the ground. Stone scraped my palms and fingertips, all gritty and cold. I stared up at the real world, such a shock after an eternity of solitude.

  At least two dozen people milled around the market field. Some gaped at me. I hadn’t seen them before, hadn’t thought to be mindful when I emerged from the temple. There wasn’t supposed to be a door. Had they seen the man attack me? Had they noticed my appearance?

  Had anyone heard the souls crying? The temple loomed behind me, immense and infinitely horrible. Maybe it wasn’t a heart, but a stomach.

  I tried to track the man who’d attacked me, but my eyes were bleary with pain and grief. His large form stopped by a smaller one—Deborl?—and moved on. I lost him.

  I’d lost the key. I’d lost my biggest advantage.

  I collapsed over my knees and sobbed.

  “Ana!” Sam fell
beside me, wrapped his arms around me. “Where have you been? What happened?”

  “Someone took the key.”

  “Your key? Who?”

  “I don’t know.” I buried my face in Sam’s shirt and let tears fall. My eyes were heavy with the weight of them, like I could cry seas.

  “Ana,” he murmured. “Oh, Ana. You’re safe now.”

  I didn’t have the breath to tell him I wasn’t worried about myself. It was the others. It should have been me, too, except Menehem’s experiment had gone wrong. His meddling.

  Trying to swallow my sobs so we wouldn’t draw a crowd, I burrowed deeper into Sam’s embrace. I inhaled the scent of sunshine on his skin, shampoo in his hair, and coffee on his breath as he squeezed me tighter.

  “I was so afraid for you, but you’re here now. You’re safe. You’re safe.” He whispered comforting nonsense while he peeled my hair off my wet cheeks and neck. I smelled salty, sweaty, and perhaps I’d carried Meuric’s odors of blood and pee, because Sam dragged his hands over me as though searching for injuries.

  My worst injuries were on the inside.

  A narrow shadow dropped over us. Sam’s weight shifted when he looked up, and his voice rumbled in his chest against my ear. “What?”

  “Just checking to make sure everything was okay.” Councilor Deborl’s voice was strained, as though he were trying to make it deeper than it really was.

  “Thanks, but we’re fine.” Sam stood, drawing me with him. I had just enough time to dry my cheeks, not that it mattered. Dark stains on Sam’s shirt revealed the oceans of my crying.

  “When people scream, it’s rude to leave them in the middle of the market field.” Deborl leveled his glare on me. “Especially when her guardian is the one to frighten her so badly.”

  I edged closer to Sam. “There was someone else. He pushed me and took—”

  Deborl cocked his head. “And took what?”

  Took the key, but I wasn’t supposed to know about the key. No one was supposed to be able to remember it, and what if the stranger hadn’t just paused by Deborl, but given him the key, too? If I accused Deborl of having the key, there’d be questions of how I came to possess it. Questions like what happened to Meuric, and why had I been hiding such an important object?

  I slumped against Sam. “The man shoved me. He was big….” Everyone was big compared to me. “He had brown hair. He walked right by you.”

  “I’ll look for him,” Deborl said, but he didn’t leave.

  “Everything is okay, Deborl.” Sam kept his voice even, and only the way his arm tightened around me belied his tone. “Thank you for checking.”

  Deborl glanced between us, scratching his chin where red lines marked cuts from shaving. “I hope you haven’t been letting her get hurt a lot. After all, the Council trusts you to care for her.” His eyes narrowed when he smiled. “You know, half the population thinks she’s responsible for Templedark, and the other half isn’t convinced that she’s not. And now they’re talking about the incident with the sylph.”

  Sam’s hands curled into fists, and his shoulders pulled back as though he was ready to hit Deborl. “Ana did more to mitigate a slaughter during Templedark than anyone. And where were you that night? Did you turn over and go back to sleep?”

  Their argument had begun drawing curious looks. Cris strode toward us as though on a mission. Most others just stared.

  “Stop,” I said. “Both of you.” I couldn’t imagine how my voice didn’t shake. I locked my knees to stay upright, but it just made me light-headed.

  Deborl smirked.

  “Hello, Cris,” I said as he approached behind Deborl. I was so sore and tired. Maybe someone else could keep Sam and Deborl from coming to blows. Then I could curl up on a nice rock and go to sleep for a year.

  He nodded in greeting, exchanging a questioning look with Sam. Something heavy passed between them, though I couldn’t decipher the flickers of expression.

  “Is this your plan, Sam? Get people to feel sorry for newsouls by parading around a tearful Ana? It won’t work. It’s pathetic.” Deborl sneered. “People will never accept newsouls. Everyone knows you’re blinded by”—he eyed me—“whatever you two do together. Disgusting.”

  Sam’s arm tightened around me. “Don’t you have something important to do?” He glared at Deborl. “Maybe you could find whoever assaulted Ana?”

  The Councilor showed teeth when he smiled. “Little Ana missed her progress report the other day, and you haven’t rescheduled. Some Councilors are wondering if she doesn’t really want to be a member of the community.”

  The other day?

  “I told you, she was sick—”

  Sam had needed to make an excuse for me?

  “You have until the end of this week to report to the Council.” Deborl’s glare didn’t shift away from me. “That’s in two days. Be there no later than tenth hour, or your status as Dossam’s ward will be revoked and you will be exiled from Range.” With that, he marched into the dispersing crowd. A couple people patted him on the back, pleased with the idea that I might be kicked out.

  Armande strode up, coffee in hand. He offered the paper cup to me, and I clutched it to my chest, trying to absorb its warmth.

  “So.” Cris turned to Sam. “I see you found her.”

  “You were looking for me?” He’d known exactly where I was. He’d been ready to go, too. How did I go from being sick to missing? What happened to the original plan of letting everyone assume we were off kissing somewhere?

  “You were missing.” Sam’s fingers curled over the small of my back, as though to draw me close again. “We all went out to look for you that night, and the next. Cris and Armande stayed out late with me every night, but we couldn’t find you.”

  That night? The next night? Every night? How many had there been? I reached back and touched the rose I’d braided into my hair, but it felt the same as it had when I’d put it there: a little brittle, but certainly not that old.

  “We were all worried,” Cris said. “Sarit is a wreck. Someone should call her.”

  My head throbbed so hard I could barely think. I just wanted to sleep, but the temple loomed at my back, a thousand times more frightening than it had ever been. Meuric’s words still haunted me. The souls still haunted me.

  I licked my lips. “How long was I”—not in there, not with Armande and Cris present—“missing?”

  “A week.” Sam’s expression was sober, lines around his mouth and between his eyes. His skin was pallid, his eyes bloodshot and circled with hollowed darkness. “You’ve been missing for a week.”

  My cup slipped from my hands and slammed onto the cobblestones. The lid popped off and coffee splashed over shoes and pant hems, but I couldn’t muster the energy to apologize, let alone back away from the liquid flying everywhere.

  Coffee seeped through the cracks in stones, like rot dribbling from Meuric’s eye—

  Sam caught me when my knees buckled. “It’s all right now. I’ll take you home.”

  18

  CRASH

  I MADE IT as far as South Avenue before my legs refused to work anymore, so Sam carried me. Safe in his arms, I closed my eyes and listened to the melody of voices.

  “Where was she?” Cris asked. “I’d thought you must have found her this morning and you both came to the market field….”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. I couldn’t tell whether he remembered where I’d been. “I wish Deborl had minded his own business.”

  Armande snorted. “You know he can’t. Just as I bake, you play music, and Cris gardens, Deborl must interfere in others’ business. It’s the only thing he’s got going for him.”

  With my face pressed into Sam’s coat, I managed a smile.

  Sam tightened his hold on me. “Someone told Lidea that Ana was missing. She’s been calling every hour, worried Ana had been kidnapped, and they might come after Anid next. She refuses to leave her house, and she had Stef set up all manner of monitoring systems i
n the baby’s room. Not that it matters, because Lidea sleeps next to his crib to guard him.”

  Guilt burrowed in my stomach. A week. It hadn’t felt like a week. My rose…

  I drifted in and out, and it seemed like forever before they carried me up the front steps and through the parlor.

  A cup was pressed against my mouth, and water trickled in. I swallowed hesitantly at first, but as my throat grew used to the motion, I gulped the water down until my stomach hurt.

  Bundled in blankets on the sofa, surely I was safe.

  Sam showed the other two to the door, thanking them. It might have been my state or blurry vision, but while Sam seemed easy with Armande, his posture changed when he faced Cris. Slumped shoulders, weight shifted toward the other boy. Cris stood like his mirror.

  “You didn’t have to do so much,” Sam said. “But I’m grateful. Thank you.”

  “She seems nice.” Cris hesitated. “Well, a bit testy, but I suspect she’s nice underneath all those thorns.”

  “When we first met, she had scars all over her hands. It took me a while to figure out how she’d gotten them.” Sam hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “Or why they looked familiar.”

  Cris held up his hands; I couldn’t see clearly from my place on the sofa, or with the current foggy state of my vision, but I imagined they were both looking at the scars he wore, too. You’d think someone who had been tending roses for hundreds of years might figure out about gloves.

  “I saw the roses at the cottage.” Cris lowered his hands. “She did a good job with them. Maybe I’ll bring a few more by to cheer her up.”

  “She’d like that.” They spoke a moment more, offers of further assistance, and Cris turned to leave. “Hey.” Sam shifted his weight and his tone lightened. “I always thought your roses were blue.”

  Cool fingers touched my cheek. “Ana?”

  “Mmm?” I tilted my head toward the window, where light could burn beyond my eyelids; I didn’t want to wake up in the dark.