Asunder (Incarnate)

by Jodi Meadows

  Pale light shone around him, making highlights and deep shadows around the ridges of his face and neck, down his torso and arms. Hesitating—what if he woke up?—I combed dark strands of hair off his face, then traced the lines of his cheekbones and smile.

  He didn’t react; he must have been exhausted.

  Brave when he wasn’t watching, I pushed onto my elbow to get a better angle, then kissed the same path my fingers had taken. He smelled like laundered sheets and hints of sweat.

  My fingers had wandered down his chest while I wasn’t paying attention. Through the thin shirt, I explored hills and valleys of muscle, relaxed while he slept. I discovered the plains of his stomach and lifted his shirt to the bottom of his ribs, finding smooth skin, warm with sleep. He moaned.

  I froze. “Are you awake?” Barely worthy of being called a whisper.

  Muscles tensed beneath my questing fingers. “I am now.”

  My face might have been on fire as I withdrew, but it was dim enough—I hoped—that he couldn’t tell. “Sorry.”

  He dragged in a shuddering breath and gazed at me for a long moment. “I wasn’t expecting that kind of wake-up.”

  “You didn’t think I’d still be here?” I could have gone back to my room, but he’d been so warm and—

  “No, I’m glad you were here.” He pushed himself up, covers swishing around his legs. His shirt slipped back down, settling askew on his shoulders, and his smile was warm and shy. Boyish. “I like seeing you first thing.”

  “Oh, good.” I doubted it was possible for my face to burn any hotter.

  “Just the way you—” He dragged his fingertips from my shoulder to my wrist, making me shiver. “I didn’t realize we were doing that now.”

  What? Touching? We touched all the time. Or maybe I’d ventured into one of those places I didn’t know about, just wanted to. Well, this time had been different: he’d been sleeping, which might have been a little creepy of me, but I doubted that was it. My hands on his stomach, though…

  My own stomach muscles tightened when I remembered the way he’d caressed me during the masquerade. Tickling. Tingling. Deeper. “Oh.” The word came as a breath. “I think we should. Be doing that now, I mean.” Maybe right now.

  His smile grew slowly, as if he knew my thoughts. I sort of hoped he did. “Did you sleep well?” he asked instead.

  “Yes.” I scooted to the edge and let my legs dangle off. My toes brushed the floor as I gazed around at the bookshelves and old instruments crowding his bedroom. As long as I kept my back to the exterior wall, it was a safe room, all dimness and comforting things. Music. Sam. “Your bed is softer than mine.”

  Sam chuckled and sat beside me. “They’re exactly the same.”

  “They are not. Yours is better.” I didn’t really want to argue, but little bickering neither of us would take seriously—I knew how to deal with that. It was easier than asking him to show me what else we were doing now. I could barely think those words, let alone say them.

  “Very well. It is better.” His mouth grazed my cheek. “When you’re with me.”

  Eventually, my skin would stain red. Permanently. “Do you think it’s still snowing?”

  “Sounds like it. Can’t you hear?”

  I held still, listening as hard as my ears could manage. “It sounds like settling. Breaths drifting and sighing. The quiet groan of trees and roofs as they bear more weight.”

  “Yes.” Covers hissed as he scooted closer and wrapped his arm around my waist. “I love that you hear it, too. That it sounds the same to both of us.”

  I did, too. “I want to learn everything, Sam. All about music, every instrument. I want to compose things I hear in my head at night—things that aren’t yours or anyone else’s—and I want to find a way to mimic the sound of snowfall.”

  His fingers twisted in my sweater, drawing my gaze to meet his wide, dark eyes.

  “Maybe you want to do it alone,” I whispered, “and I understand if you do. But if you’ll accept, I want to help you rebuild everything that was in the parlor.”

  He kissed me, warm and hard enough to make me dizzy, but his arm around my waist stayed; he didn’t let me spin away. “I love you.” It was his voice, but his lips rested against mine so my mouth made the shape of the words.

  “I wish I could tell you that, too.” My heart thudded too quickly. “Whenever you say it, I feel so good and happy. But guilty for keeping the goodness to myself.”

  “That’s not how it works.” He kissed me again, as if the act would force me to accept his way of thinking. “Besides, I can wait.”

  Another benefit of being ancient: immeasurable patience.

  My feelings were deep and overwhelming and confusing, but at the same time the emotion filled me with a sense of belonging. This boy. This soul. We were tied together with something stronger than anything physical. With him, I was not a soul asunder.

  A quiet rumble came from the front of the house, drawing me to my feet. “What’s that?” I grabbed my things from the nightstand and wandered into the hall, to a front-facing window.

  “A plow.” Sam followed. “It’s like the drones we saw on the way back to Heart. There it is.” He held a curtain aside, revealing a vehicle with a large scoop on the front. It heaved up to the steps—shoving a pile of snow to block the door—and turned to clear the other half of the walkway.

  “Okay, so it works here, but what about people like Cris who have about three places you’re allowed to step?”

  “The price of filling your walkway is the plows don’t clear it for you. And they’re not very good about the doors. It’s going to be tough to escape. I might need your help.”

  Because I was so strong. Right. But I caught the way he tried to stop his smile, and I rolled my eyes. “I’m worried about him and Stef.” I could see slivers of her house from this window. Or maybe that was just more snow.

  Sam released the curtain and leaned on the wall, something I still couldn’t make myself do. “Me too.”

  I checked my SED, but she hadn’t replied to my messages. I sent another, and one to Cris, asking again if they were okay. I hated that neither were home during a storm. “Where could they be?”

  “Wish I knew.” The thinking line deepened between his eyes. “After the explosions and what happened downstairs, their absence is especially worrisome.”

  “I think it was Deborl. Merton. Their other friends.”

  Sam frowned. “He’s a Councilor.”

  “So was Meuric, and he tried to lock me in the temple. He got Li and Merton to attack us after the masquerade. Being a Councilor didn’t stop him, and it wouldn’t stop Deborl.”

  Sam gazed at nothing down the hallway. “You think he’d set explosives to kill people who might be pregnant with newsouls? Or break into our house and destroy”—his voice hitched—“my instruments?”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Sam reached for my hand, squeezed my fingers. “All right, so what do we do? If he’s attacking newsouls, we need proof.”

  “Sine is having someone watch them.”

  Sam nodded. “That’s a start. Who knows? Maybe he’ll get himself caught.”

  I rather doubted that, but since I’d definitely get caught and thrown in prison—or worse—if I tried to sneak into Deborl’s house and see if he had my things, Sine’s people would have to do. “You know what still bothers me?”

  “I can’t even count that high.”

  I stood on my toes and messed up his hair, then started down the hall. Just being close to the exterior wall made me squirmy. “If the explosions were coincidence—not a response to the meeting—all right. But how did they know about the books and Menehem’s research?”

  Sam shook his head. “Did you talk to anyone else about it?”

  “No.” I leaned on the balcony rail. “Well, Cris told me he had some ideas about my symbols, but no one else was with us. Sarit, Lidea, and Wend had just walked away.”

  “Cris wouldn’t have done
any of these things.”

  No, he wouldn’t have. “So now they have the key, the books, and the research. They have everything and we don’t have anything.” I slouched, despair building inside me. How could I protect newsouls if I couldn’t even protect a few inanimate objects?

  Sam put his arm around my shoulders. “They don’t have everything.”

  I shivered deeper into his embrace. I wanted to say something nice to him, anything to let him know how much I appreciated him and how glad I was we weren’t fighting anymore. But I didn’t want to sound stupid. There was one way to show him.

  I pressed my palms on the balcony railing, overlooking the ruined parlor. “I’m ready to share something with you.”

  He waited.

  I refused to hesitate. “My notebook isn’t a diary.” I pulled it out and flipped it open to the first page to reveal hand-drawn bars of music, scribbled words in the margins, and doodles everywhere. “Maybe it sort of is, I guess. Just not like the ones everyone else keeps.” I gave Sam the notebook. “I don’t think I’m very good at being like everyone else.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to be.” He sat on the top stair and turned pages, reading the words and music; they were both his language.

  I sat next to him, elbows braced on my knees while I fidgeted and felt naked. Paper fluttered as he turned another page, and another. When he hummed a couple of measures, I cringed, but he kept reading without comment. Then he closed the notebook.

  “It’s not finished,” he said, giving it back.

  “Not yet.” Maybe not ever, but I hadn’t been writing it to finish something. I’d been writing emotions, because I didn’t always have words for what I wanted. But there was always music, and sometimes it seemed like the most powerful thing in the world.

  “Have you played any of it?”

  I held the notebook to my chest, pressing the music against my heart so hard it might leave permanent impressions. “I’ve been too afraid of what it might actually sound like outside my head.”

  Sam stood and offered his hand. “It may be time to find out.”

  Maybe he was right.

  26

  DEMONSTRATION

  DAYS LATER, WE walked to the street and South Avenue, past walls of snow rising as high as my shoulders. Sunlight glittered across the ripples and made the whole city bright. So much light hurt my eyes, but not in the way the temple did. There were still drifts and shadows, dark evergreens against the brilliant snow. White veins shimmered between the cobblestones, and the sky was pale blue, a color almost too impossible to be real.

  It was the perfect day for the monthly market, and everything I had planned.

  The entire market field had been plowed, along with the wide half-moon stairs leading up to the Councilhouse. It was early, so a few sellers were still assembling their tents and tables, spreading their wares for viewing.

  In spite of my coat and mitts and scarf, I shivered as we approached the field, the Councilhouse, the temple pushing into the sky. Cris and Stef were still missing—no one had heard from them—but everyone else had contacted their lists and were prepared to make their speeches this morning. Anticipation and defiance surged through me. Today, my friends and I would show everyone that newsouls were worthwhile. We’d show the Council that some people welcomed newsouls and wanted them to be safe.

  I touched my flute case, a velvet-lined tube with a strap that went across my chest; it was easier to carry than the wooden box the flute had come in.

  “You’ll do fine,” Sam said. The market’s joyful din clattered across the field as we came in sight of the Councilhouse stairs and wide landing that would double as the stage. Sarit, Lorin, and Moriah were already there, winding evergreen boughs around the columns. “I have to help move the piano from the warehouse. Will you be okay up there?”

  “Yep.” I stood on my toes to kiss him, then trotted up the stairs, holding my flute case to my chest to keep it from bouncing.

  Sarit, Lorin, and Moriah all hugged me, and I began adding the blue roses to the evergreens.

  “Sam’s getting the piano?” Sarit asked.

  I nodded and slipped a rose into the strap on my flute case; I wanted one for my hair later. “The piano they keep over there.” I waved my hands toward the industrial quarter with its warehouses and mills. “He already went twice to tune it, but he said he wanted to do one more pass because it’s been so long since anyone has played it. And he’s, you know, Sam. It has to be perfect or it’s not worth playing.”

  “How’s he doing with”—Lorin gave an awkward shrug—“the parlor?”

  I bit my lip and glanced at the market, which grew more crowded by the minute. The only space not filled with colorful tents and stalls was an aisle to the steps, where there was a ramp for the piano. Several people watched our work, and rumors about an impromptu concert trickled through the tents. I tried to find anyone looking especially surprised or upset that I hadn’t given up on my plan, but most people seemed to be looking forward to hearing Sam play. They didn’t know what had happened in his parlor.

  “Sam’s angry, of course,” I said. “Someone destroyed his work. But he could be worse.”

  “But they didn’t get your flute,” Lorin said.

  “Because someone popped out a spring when she was playing with it, and I had to take it upstairs for repair. It wasn’t in the parlor, or they would have.” I tried not to imagine my flute twisted up, keys ripped off and holes gaping like empty eye sockets.

  Lorin gave me a sideways hug. “Sorry about the spring.”

  “Thanks for breaking it.” I turned to Sarit. “And thank you for getting the roses. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

  “You would not have roses.” Sarit’s tone was light, but she glanced northeast, toward Cris’s house, and her expression tensed. “I hope he and Stef are okay. I wish they’d call or send a message.”

  If Stef had been the only one missing, I could have blamed it on her being angry with Sam. Cris, though, wasn’t angry with anyone. As far as I knew.

  Just as we finished decorating the stage and setting up microphones, Sam and some of his friends appeared with the piano. A few people from the market cheered, while others wore expressions somewhere between curiosity and suspicion.

  When Sam had the piano where he wanted it and sat to warm up, I went inside the Councilhouse with Sarit.

  “Are you ready?” she asked as we moved away from the glass doors.

  “No. Yes.” I handed her my flute case so I could take off my coat. No one would take me seriously when all my layers made me look like a bundled-up child. I could shiver for a little while if it meant people paid attention.

  “Oh, pretty!” Sarit laid my coat on the back of a chair and started braiding my hair. “When did you get this dress?”

  I smoothed the gray ripples of wool and synthetic silk that hung to my ankles—concealing a pair of thick tights so my legs wouldn’t freeze. The sleeves hugged my wrists, delicate fingerless mitts covered my hands, and I kept a synthetic silk scarf around my neck. The blue matched the rose Sarit threaded into my braid.

  “It’s one of Sam’s dresses. From before. We had to do a lot of work to make it fit.” A few generations ago, he—she?—had been taller and curvier, and wore a lot of dresses. Maybe when you were a boy most lifetimes, you wore dresses when you got the chance. “But I thought it suited today perfectly.”

  “It looks perfect on you.” Sarit stepped back and admired her work with my braid. “Beautiful. Now warm up, or Sam will frown at both of us. I’ll get your music.”

  I pulled my flute from its case and played through warm-up exercises and scales. Outside, Sam played similar exercises on the piano; the powerful sound rattled the series of double doors.

  By the time I was warmed up, Sarit had finished organizing my music, which was now written on real music paper and given a temporary ending.

  She grabbed the music stand she’d stashed here earlier and nodded toward t
he doors. “Let’s go, dragonfly.”

  I laughed at the attempted endearment, but just as we reached the door, Councilor Sine burst inside.

  “Ana, finally. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She took a deep breath, eyeing my dress and flute with uncertainty. “I haven’t had any luck locating Cris or Stef. I’m sorry, but I’m sure they’re fine.”

  I scowled, far less sure. “Okay. What about Deborl and Merton? And the guy who shoved me?”

  She shifted her weight and shook her head. “I had a few people watch Deborl and Merton, but it sounds like they didn’t do anything more suspicious than shovel snow.”

  I snorted. “I find it suspicious they get up and pee in the morning.”

  Sine cringed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any more help.”

  Maybe she really was. Mostly, I hoped she was ready to listen to what I had to say, and what my friends had to say.

  Sarit went first, taking my stand and music onto the wide landing. She placed it just enough away from the microphone that it wouldn’t screech—I hoped.

  I clutched my flute and went outside, greeted by cold air, the piano’s rich sound, and the fade of conversation around the market as people crowded to look.

  “You can do this,” Sam murmured from the piano bench. This instrument was dark, as though stained with midnight; it was ink against the white stone and evergreens and blue roses.

  My smile felt tight, fake, but as I stood behind the music stand, positioned so I could see both Sam and the crowd gathering below, I reminded myself why I had to do this: for Anid and Ariana, held in their mothers’ arms as they paused by a tent with mittens and scarves; for the others who’d be born soon and needed care and protection; for those who would stay trapped in the temple, consumed.

  I lifted my flute.

  There was a soft click as Sarit turned on the microphones.

  Sam nodded. I breathed. A long, low chord rang from the piano. The sound vibrated through stone and into my legs, and the world grew silent as we began to play.