“It’s just that I—”
“Show it to me, Eli.”
I tell myself the harshness in her voice is calculated, but it still makes my shoulders twitch. I reach up to slowly edge the sheet off the top of the canvas. It falls away, revealing the bruised and broken image of her that I created—that the fugue created. I still don’t want ownership of this lifeless version. Her dead eyes stare at me from the canvas. I tear my gaze away from them, searching for her living ones, just to reassure myself and erase the image from my mind.
The look on Kamali’s face sends tremors racing through my body. She’s shocked into stillness, except for her gaze, which roams the crumpled doll version of herself, lying in the muddy reds and bleeding oranges of the acrylic paint. I can’t help but look at it again. This time I see beyond the haunting look on her face, accusing me of crimes from beyond the grave, to the details I didn’t notice before in my revulsion. Her delicate hands are crooked, like cruel, pain-wrenched versions of the real ones. The blood on her feet is actually in the shape of dance slippers, her legs bent as if frozen just before a leap. With horror, I realize the slippers are the same color as she’s wearing now, in her competition outfit. My gaze drops to her feet, spaced wide apart in that defiant stance she’s had since I told her I would show her the piece. I slowly work my way up her body, taking in her whole painted-flame outfit anew, seeing all the colors I rendered earlier, before I had ever seen this on her, before I ever imagined her as a living flame. Or a dying one.
My gaze reaches her face. There are tears drawing watery lines from the corners of her eyes.
Breath rushes out of me. “Kamali, I’m sorry.” I lurch toward her, wanting to touch her, maybe hug her, somehow erase my guilt by wiping the tears from her face. But I hold myself back, uncertain, doubting she wants me touching her in any way.
She wrenches her wide-eyed gaze from the painting to look at me. I can see her struggle to contain the emotions rippling across her face. A long, slow blink, and the dark press of her eyelashes sends another pulse of tears chasing the rest. When she opens her eyes again, she gestures to the painting, mouth working, shaking her head, like she can’t find the words.
But I can. It’s monstrous. Horrific. How could you?
Finally, she takes a breath and says, “Thank you, Eli.”
It’s so heartfelt, so unexpected, it feels like a slap. I stumble back a half-step. “What?”
Her sigh leaks out slow, laden with emotions I don’t understand. “Thank you for showing me that this…” She gestures to her lifeless body. “This isn’t me.”
She’s smiling through the tears now, and I’m completely confused. I look back to the painting again, but it’s definitely her. Even in death, she has the same full lips, the same liquid brown eyes. I’ve never seen her hair outside the tightly pinned bun she keeps while dancing, but in the painting, it forms a halo of rippled black locks blending into the mud. Maybe I got that wrong? Or rather, the fugue state did? But the rest of her—lean muscles over delicate bones, chocolate colored skin stretched over hollowed cheeks—there’s no mistaking it.
I turn back to her. “I don’t understand.”
Her smile grows brighter. “Thank you for showing me that one day, my body will be… this. Only this. No more. I know that I’m more than just the flesh that I push across the studio every day, but sometimes I forget.” She looks back to the painting. “Sometimes I think that if I can’t dance anymore…”
“That you’ll die?” She told me this before. I’m held rigid in place by her words.
She nods, still looking at her broken body. “I know it’s not true. I might pour my soul into the dance. I might give everything to it. But the dancing body isn’t me. What I have is something so much greater than that.” She frowns and turns her bright eyes back to me. “So much holier than that. You’ve reminded me that I’ll take that thing, that piece of me that animates the dance, along with me when I die. That even when my body can no longer dance, my soul still will.”
“You’re not going to die, Kamali.” I say it like it’s a wish… and it is. It’s a hope that she’ll change her mind and take the ascendance when it’s offered to her. I lower my voice, pressing further than I should dare. “You don’t have to die. You can still take the medal.”
Her laugh is a chirp, so light, it’s like a child’s. “But don’t you see? You’ve taken away all my doubts.” She’s elated. Her face brightens with a glow that suddenly makes me want to paint her again. But I don’t want her to be happy… not about this. Not about dying, like it’s some kind of release. Like it doesn’t matter.
Because it does.
She must see the torment on my face because her smile drops away. She scowls at me, but it’s a fake anger that’s barely masking the glow that still enlivens her eyes.
“But we’re not here to talk about me,” she says with mock severity. “We’re here to make sure you win. And I have to be honest.” She glances at the painting. “If you can do this, if there’s some part of you that can do this, we have to bring it out. You can’t hide that away inside of you.”
I step back from her, a tangle of emotions clawing at me from under my skin. I cross my arms. “It’s not like I’m trying to hide it.”
“You were trying to hide this.” She picks up the canvas, holds it high, like it’s some kind of prize, then walks it over to the easel. “Weren’t you?” She sets it down, next to the blank canvas there.
“That’s different.”
“Paint it again.” It’s a command.
“Kamali, I can’t.”
“Don’t give me that. You can. You did.” The glow has faded, and her serious look is back. “You painted this for a reason.”
I drag myself over to stand next to her as she stares at the work. “The fugue painted this. I have no idea if it has reasons.”
She turns to me, close, trapping me with the intensity of her look. “You have to stop pretending it’s not part of you.”
“But it’s not. I don’t have any control over it.”
“But you want to, right?”
I nod.
“If you’re going to control it, you’ve got to recognize that it’s part of you.” She stares at my chest, like she can somehow peer inside to see the fugue-monster within. “It’s in there, somewhere, waiting for you to tap into it. It’s powerful.” She raises her eyes to mine. “Maybe too powerful. Maybe you’re afraid of it.”
I throw my hands out in exasperation. “I’m trying, Kamali.”
“Try harder.”
“I don’t know how!”
She scoops up the painting again and thrusts it in my face. “Paint me again.”
I turn my head away and drag a hand across it. “I don’t know… I thought we were going with the negative emotion thing. Like, you’re supposed to piss me off and bring it on that way.”
“Am I making you angry now?”
I smile. “Yeah. A little.”
“Wait till you start painting me.”
I look for a smile on her face, but she’s dead serious. “Fine.”
More brusquely than necessary, I stride to the paint cabinet and grab a random set of colors. I don’t know what she’s expecting, but I know there’s no way I can reproduce even a fraction of The Broken Artist. But maybe she’s right—maybe trying will frustrate me enough to tip me into the fugue state.
I set up next to the canvas. Kamali stands behind me, so close I can feel her impatience like a heavy whisper on my neck. I flex my fingers then grab the pencil to sketch. I look back and forth between the finished fugue work and the charcoal ghost I’m reproducing, and I can already tell it’s off. I smudge some of the lines, pretending they don’t matter, that I’ll render it in paint anyway.
“Why did you paint me this way?” Her voice is soft, close, in my ear. It sends a shiver down my neck.
I give up on the outline and reach for tubes of thick brown and blood red. “I told you. I didn’t have any reason for i
t.”
She doesn’t say anything while I mix, but once I’m back at the canvas, she’s whispering in my ear again. “There is a reason. Somewhere buried deep inside. You were drawn to this.”
I don’t want to know the reason. The thought is strong, but I manage to keep it from reaching my lips. The feel of her breath on me, combined with the words she’s dropping into my mind, sends trembles of pleasure and terror dashing through me, like warring angels and demons.
I make a fist to keep my hand from shaking then grab a brush and dip it in the colors. I sweep wide, blocking in a background of browns laced with deadly blacks.
“There’s a lot of death in that picture,” her angel voice says. “A lot of… broken things. What’s broken inside you, Eli?”
Everything. That thought almost slips out. I press my lips together and jab the brush into the palette again. It brings up fresh blood. I blink. The paint becomes simple color again, deep crimson red. I smear a cascade of it on the canvas, blending it into the brown. It looks like a sweep of red hair floating up through the muck, reminding me of Lenora and her Spanish conquistador costume with the wig that felt so real when it brushed my face.
I suck in a breath. So many broken things.
“Why did you paint my dead body, Eli?” she asks.
My held breath feels trapped inside me. “We’re all dead,” I breathe out, not trying to keep the thoughts locked in my head any longer. “Eventually. We’re all going to return to the dust from which we came.” I frown at my own words. These aren’t my words, but ones I’ve heard somewhere else, a long ago time. It feels like they were spoken in an ancient time, before I was born. But that doesn’t make any sense. I dab at the painting, adding red spots like fallen drops. Or perhaps ones rising through the mud.
“But we’re more than dust, aren’t we?” She’s shifted sides, whispering in my left ear, angling for a better view of the work.
I turn my head to the side, catching her next to me. “That’s what you believe. I’m not so sure.”
“You have to know that’s what you’re reaching for, right?” Her face is too close, her words too much. “That soul inside you.”
I turn back to the work, sweeping up more color on my brush and smearing the blood drops into lines of legs, painted and angled. Her legs, a broken flame. “My soul? Maybe it’s something much less than that. What if it’s a repressed thing? What if it’s better if it’s not brought out? Maybe it’s something… not good.”
“Evil doesn’t create, Eli. Evil destroys.”
I think of the ascenders and all the wonders they’ve created. “I’m not so sure about that either.”
“Whatever’s inside you isn’t evil.” Her soft voice is chastising me now. “If you think it’s evil, you’ll keep it at a distance. Deny it. Instead, you have to reach for it. Believe in it. Embrace it.”
I close my eyes, brush hovering over the canvas. I picture the rush of the fugue coming over me, sending me to that calm place where I’m watching a master at work. I reach for it, wanting it, trying to bring it closer, but it’s like a shimmering dream that you can’t quite remember. I reach harder, but the more I do, the more it dissipates into mist.
I open my eyes to find Kamali kneeling between me and the canvas, watching me intently.
“Did you feel it?” she asks, face lit with hope.
I grimace. “No. If I had… well, trust me, you would know.”
She rises up and glances at the faint blue glow of the drama implant on the back of her hand. “I have to go,” she says, like she doesn’t really want to. “It’s almost the dinner hour, and Alexis will kill me if I don’t eat. Then I have more practice tonight.”
I had completely forgotten—her performance is in the morning, and here I am, keeping her from her final practice. She should be focusing on her own competition, not mine, which is pretty much hopeless.
“You’re going to do great tomorrow.”
“I’ll always dance, as long as I have this body, at least.” Her voice is quiet. She looks wistfully at the half-smeared canvas. “But tomorrow will be special. I won’t ever have an audience like that again.” A shy smile graces her face. “Will you be watching?”
“There’s nothing that could tear me from the screen.”
And that’s the truth. Watching Kamali dance is one of the few things not broken about my life. But the idea of her never having an audience again tears at me. She’s not just throwing away immortal life—who knows what the ascenders will do after she embarrasses them. Exile, most likely. She’ll never dance in public again, that much is sure. Not in a legacy city or for an ascender audience. She’ll have to hide her talent in some dissenter camp, if there are some that even believe in dancing. I’ve heard they outlaw it, like it’s some kind of evil thing.
That idea wrenches my stomach. “I’m going to keep trying to talk you into taking that medal, you know. Just so I can keep watching you dance.”
She smiles wide. “I’ll try to stop by after the performance. If they lift the lockdown. Maybe we can paint some more then.”
I try not to show how relieved that makes me. “I’d really appreciate that.”
She glides to the door, and I key her out. I turn back to face my work, but everything has gone stale. Her absence has sucked the living air out of my studio. If I can’t reach the fugue state with her whispering torments into my ear, how can I possibly do it without her?
I return to the canvas, determined to try anyway.
With Marcus banished, and Cyrus checking on my mom and distracting my competition, along with half of Agon preparing for the first day of competition, I was able to work the rest of the night undisturbed.
Not that it helped.
I worked past midnight, digging deep into my psyche and trying to reach a state that would somehow induce the fugue. I ended up with nothing but dozens of discarded paintings, each a mockery of The Broken Artist. In a fit of frustration, I destroyed half of them, stopping only when I realized that wasn’t working either.
When I returned to the apartment, Cyrus was snoring in the other bed, but he’d left a note: Mom okay. With that, I fell into my bed and passed out. After a night of fitful sleep, I’m finally up again, but I can’t return to the studio with Agon in lockdown for the day’s competition.
I distract myself by watching the incredible talent on the screen in my room. Cyrus is watching with me. Drama is up first, then storia. Musica goes first thing in the morning tomorrow, then artems finish up. There’s an actor on the screen now, doing a Shakespearean piece. It’s good, but not great. No competition for Kamali.
I mute it and gesture to Cyrus’s barely touched plate of bacon, fresh fruit, eggs, and some kind of pastry that looks like they flew it straight from Kamali’s hometown of Paris. Food like this would cost more than a week’s worth of chit allowance back in Seattle. I wish I had more appetite for it.
“You going to eat that?” I ask Cyrus.
“Naw. You can have it.” His eyes are intent on the now-silent actor, but I can tell his mind is elsewhere. Not to mention that Cyrus not eating is pretty much a first.
“How’d things go with Katya?” I leave hanging the unspoken question about what happened when Basha came to our room.
His eyes dart to me then back to the screen again. “Katya’s an incredibly deep and soulful person. A fine artist.”
His funk is unsettling, so I try to shake him out of it. “I thought she was hot.”
“That too.” He throws me a smirk. “Not that she apparently knows it. Or maybe cares.”
“Meaning she wanted nothing to do with you.”
He looks offended. “Meaning she didn’t believe me when I said her beauty was rendering me insensibly in love with her.”
I laugh, a quick snort, but it relieves me to hear him back to normal. “You know, I’m not exactly disappointed you couldn’t distract her from her art. There’s enough dirty business swirling around this place.”
“Hey.”
Cyrus’s look goes dark like a sudden storm blew in. “The ascenders are the ones with the dirty hands around here, not the legacies.”
I nod, but can’t pass up the chance to harass him. “Been spending time with Basha-the-revolutionary, have we?”
Cyrus glowers and returns to staring at the screen. Which leaves me speechless for a moment. “You like her,” I say with amazement in my voice.
“She’s cute,” he says, but it’s clipped.
“Cute?” I unfold my arms and drop my feet from where they’re propped on the table, so I can swing around to face him. “The last time you called someone cute was Stacey Glickman in primary. As I recall, she destroyed your heart for all of sixth year.”
He’s back to feigning offense. “She wore braces and couldn’t part her hair straight.”
My grin is a mile wide. “And you wrote her poetry every day. And you holed up in your room all summer playing Recon Terra when she moved to a new complex.” I nod my head sagely. “So… Basha is the new Stacey. Should I be on standby to pick up the pieces of your broken heart?” The grin is starting to hurt my cheeks. But it’s worth it.
He waves me off. “Like you know anything about women.”
I am so not letting this go. “Maybe not, but I know you. So what exactly did you and Basha do yesterday?”
He gives me an irritated look that just amps up my grin. “I was keeping my eyes on the prize. You know, winning?” He flicks a hand to the screen. “After I tossed out shiny pants, I kept Basha distracted, so you and Kamali could have some quality time. I’m assuming you didn’t let that go to waste?”
I sigh, coming back down. “Not a total waste. She helped me see things a little differently.”
That information finally turns him to face me. “And?” he asks, impatient.
“And nothing. She’s convinced I can control the fugue if I just reach deep enough. Embrace it, instead of pushing it away. But I’m not getting anywhere with that. Although… I did show her the painting.”
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 19