Infinite (11 page)

“The towers were empty. They had no doors. Only a special key could affect the stone.” I glanced at Sam, who pulled the temple key from his pocket. It glittered in the faint light of lanterns.

“That’s the key?” Whit asked.

I nodded.

“How did we get it?”

I turned back to my notebook. “Meuric stole it. He was there when Janan and the others attacked the phoenix, and when the phoenixes took everyone away. But he didn’t take part in the attack himself; he hung back in the forest, hidden. When he returned to everyone else, he told them only that Janan and the warriors had been captured and imprisoned by phoenixes—not what they’d done to deserve it. He sent a party to steal the key, and they brought back not only the key, but a pile of books, as well.”

“These?” Whit asked, touching the leather spine of the book nearest him, and I imagined he was wondering if he’d been the one to grab the books. Maybe he and Orrin had decided together to take the books. The beginnings of their library, later locked away for five thousand years.

“Those books,” I confirmed. “Many people were lost in the attempt to steal the key, but when the survivors brought it back to Meuric, they had what they needed to free Janan. They went after him, and found an enormous wall circling a seemingly infinitely high tower.

“But inside the tower, Janan had been learning about the magic leeched from the phoenix, and he realized there was a way to achieve immortality after all. Like Meuric, he didn’t tell everyone the truth about what he and his warriors had done. He said only that he’d learned the secret to immortality, and the phoenixes had grown jealous and locked him away for it.

“He wasn’t going to let the phoenixes stop him from becoming immortal. Now that he understood how it could be achieved, he’d do anything to get it. He would begin with himself, and when that worked, he swore he would do the same for everyone else. In the meantime, he would reincarnate everyone, exchanging their souls with new souls. Everyone would perpetually reincarnate; no one else would be born because he could only reincarnate you.”

Sam jerked his head up and stared at me. Stef shot me a warning look. But before anyone could ask, I pressed on.

“Janan said the key to the phoenixes’ immortality was a death of their own making. After everyone was secured in chains, tied to him forever, he took the knife he’d used to harm the phoenix, still with its golden blood on the blade, and plunged it into his own chest. He shed his mortal form and became part of the tower, which was already half-alive with phoenix magic. And everyone inside the tower was bound to Janan.

“They reappeared outside the prison wall as adults, with no memory of what had just happened. Only Meuric remembered. He was meant to encourage people to worship Janan and prepare for Janan’s return. When they went inside the prison wall again, there were houses everywhere. The prison had been transformed into a city.”

Whit frowned. “But I thought there was a big fight over who would live in the city. . . .”

I nodded. “There might have been. I imagine everything was chaotic and strange then. The book doesn’t go into detail about that.”

“What happened to the others?” Sam asked. “The people Janan took to find the phoenix.”

I glanced at Cris, at the other sylph hovering around the cave with us. Several of them moaned and curled in on themselves.

“No.” Whit shook his head. “That’s not possible. Because Cris—”

“It’s the truth.” I raised an eyebrow at the sylph, and several of them nodded, odd little twitches. “What happened with Cris was unprecedented, but the others were cursed by phoenixes. They repented. They wanted forgiveness. Phoenixes didn’t trust them exactly, but they’d seen what Janan was trying to do. They gave the prisoners a chance at redemption.

“They had every prisoner do as Janan had done. They drove their own weapons into their chests—the weapons still covered in phoenix blood. The prisoners shed their mortal forms, but they had no one bound to them, no physical ties to their towers. They soon emerged as sylph: bodiless souls of shadow and fire.”

“That doesn’t sound like a chance at redemption,” Whit muttered.

“Redemption comes when they stop Janan from ascending.”

“How were they expected to do that?” Stef sounded indignant. “They were just going along with what Janan ordered. It could have been any of us he’d dragged along. Any of us—” Her voice broke, and she balled in on herself. Sam leaned over to hug her, and everyone was quiet for a minute.

“What about Cris?” Whit’s voice was hoarse.

I couldn’t look at the sylph next to me. “He was trapped like this because he performed the same ritual the others had. None of us realized what would happen after.”

Cris murmured a song, as if reminding me his plight wasn’t my fault, but . . . I could have done something. I could have made him wait. I could have insisted.

I should have.

Sam’s tone was all caution. “Earlier, you said Janan talked about exchanging souls. Does that mean we knew?” He faced me, expression torn.

He wasn’t supposed to figure it out.

“Did we
know
, Ana?” Sam’s voice dipped low and dangerous. “How long have you known that we agreed to the exchange? How long have you known we agreed to let newsouls be
eaten
so we could live forever? How long have you been hiding it from me?” There, at the end, the words caught and grief showed through.

I whispered, “Since Stef, Cris, and I were in the temple.”

He turned to Stef, naked betrayal in his posture. “You knew, too?”

She gave a single nod.

Without another word, Sam got up and left.

I STARTED TO go after Sam, but Stef shook her head. “Give him some time.”

My knees hit my sleeping bag and I slumped over the notebook, pages still open and glaring with the truth. He wasn’t supposed to know. Not ever. “How long?”

Stef shrugged and seemed to struggle for words as Whit frowned and looked like he wanted to follow Sam outside.

“I didn’t want anyone to feel guilty.” It was the truth, but my words were hollow, because there was another, stronger truth: I hadn’t wanted to deal with their guilt and grief. Already, the stress of what we had to do was overwhelming. “Besides, I know why you made the decision. I understand.”

Whit scowled up at me. “Why?”

“You were scared.” I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper. “You were in a strange and frightening land, and Janan offered you a way to come back if you died.”

“Many of us were more afraid of Janan than we were the rest of the world,” Stef added quietly. “He’d angered
phoenixes
. He’d done something so huge that phoenixes stepped in to punish him. Whether or not we knew the truth of what happened, we knew it had to be bigger than we were, and that meant Janan was, too. So we agreed because it seemed like he could protect us or destroy us. We made a decision based on fear.”

“And it seemed like newsouls would never even know what they missed.” I tried not to think about the non-voice I’d heard in the temple once, or the weepers: newsouls.

“It doesn’t matter if they didn’t know what they were missing,” Whit said. “We knew. We knew what Janan would do to them. We made that decision.”

Awkward silence filled the cave, and after a while, Whit went out after Sam, a spare coat slung over his arm.

Stef glared at me. “If you’re going to be so bad at keeping secrets, you need to figure out a more delicate way of revealing them.” She turned away and bent over her SED.

Now everyone was angry with me. Stef, because I’d told the others, and Sam and Whit because I hadn’t told them before. I probably deserved to be left alone.

But even as I leaned my forehead on my knees, Cris curled up next to me, a companionable warmth.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and he gave a quiet hum. I hated Sam being mad at me, but what I had to do next would make it worse.

With a tired sigh, I grabbed my SED and shifted to the map, trying to work out time and distances.

After an hour, Sam and Whit returned to the cave. Stef and I both looked up expectantly.

“Ana,” Sam started, but I stood and shook my head.

“You might as well just sit and listen to what I have to say. None of you are going to like it.”

Sam’s dark eyes narrowed, but he leaned against the wall, next to Whit. Stef gave me a wary look, and Cris lingered in the corner, invisible among the shadows.

I begged my voice not to shake. “This is my plan. It’s going to sound rash, but unless any of you have better ideas, it’s the only plan we’ve got.” Dread coiled in my stomach as my friends’ expressions grew more and more skeptical. “We get the dragons to help us.”

Sam turned ash pale. Stef glared like she was ready to kill me, while Whit just looked stricken and like he hoped maybe this was a joke.

If only that were true.

Cris gave a small, disbelieving trill. Everyone’s eyes darted toward him, but no one spoke. They just waited for me to explain myself.

“It sounds horrible, but hear me out. The dragons have—They might have—I read in the books—” The words tumbled from me, tripping and bumping one another. Everything came out in the wrong order.

I stopped, swallowed hard, and tried again.

“For thousands of years, dragons have come down from the north. Every time, they attack the temple. The day they flew in during a market, I remember seeing them come straight for the temple, ignoring everything else, even the people attacking them. I remember wondering, why? Why would they willingly sacrifice themselves to destroy a building?

“Now I think they’re not attacking the building. They’re attacking Janan. I know everyone else feels calm and peaceful when they look at the temple, like they’re safe, but since the first time I saw it, the temple has made me feel awful. Like I need to shrink up. Like something is watching me and doesn’t like me. And I thought that was just because so many people were watching me and not liking me, but then I realized Janan was real. Then I found out that if not for Menehem’s experiment, Janan would have—”

Sam jerked his head up, his gaze so black and anguished I hardly recognized him. He looked a little wild, like he’d give anything to make me stop talking.

“The dragons tried to destroy the temple that day. Then, during Templedark, they brought more and attacked people, too, but lots of dragons still went straight at the temple. While it was dark, they cracked the stone open. They wrapped themselves around the temple, squeezed and clawed, and
broke it
.”

After a moment of awkward humming, Cris said, -That only happened because of Menehem’s poison.-

“I know it sounds like a terrible idea, and maybe it is, but there’s more to my plan.” Why couldn’t I stop talking? But the words kept rushing out, like a waterfall. I looked at Stef and Whit. “I have more of the poison Menehem used. While we were at the lab, I hid the poison so no one would find it. If we can convince the dragons they’ll have a shot at destroying the temple—”

Stef shook her head. “Do you hear yourself? You just said ‘convince the dragons.’ What makes you think that’s possible?”

My throat constricted, making my words come out like squeaks. “The centaurs—”

She shook her head again. “They didn’t understand anything you said. You had two of their children and an army of sylph behind you. They didn’t kill us because nothing can hurt a sylph.”

Cris keened softly.

Stef ignored him. “The centaurs don’t want to be your friends, Ana. If they’d found you without an army of sylph, they would have destroyed you. They would have destroyed all of us if Cris hadn’t arrived. And dragons, Ana.
Dragons.
” She touched Sam’s shoulder, anguish flashing across her face as he jerked away. “How can you ask that of Sam? You know what happens. How can you ask him to die?”

I looked at Sam, all the fire pouring out of me. I knew about the dragons. I knew about the thirty dragon deaths, and the way he’d been after the dragons attacked the market that day. I remembered the terror in his eyes, and the way he’d steadily grown distant and darker.

He had that look again. Fear. Horror.

Resignation.

His voice was deep, soft. “She’s not asking me to do anything she’s not willing to do herself.”

Everyone looked from Sam to me, though Sam continued speaking.

“Ana doesn’t expect to live through this, either. She’s been waiting to die this entire time.”

I stared at my feet.

Sam’s voice turned raw. “She has this one life, and she’s willing to risk it so others might live. We all came along for a greater cause, knowing we might sacrifice our lives. Knowing we won’t be reincarnated if we succeed in stopping Janan’s ascension. After living for five thousand years, suddenly stopping is such a terrifying concept.”

Where did they go? What did they do? Surely the soul lived on.

“But Ana has only had eighteen years.” His voice tightened. “Nineteen.”

Today was my birthday. I’d forgotten.

“No matter what happens, there’s no reincarnation for her. If she’s willing to sacrifice the rest of her life for this, I can, too. She’s not asking for anything outrageous. She’s asking us to atone for what we’ve already done.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. “I’m not trying to force you into going out of guilt—”

Sam shook his head, and for a moment a there was a look in his eyes I couldn’t identify, but it broke my heart. Then he was hard again. Distant again. “You don’t have to use guilt against us. If you’re going north, then we all go. We can’t stay behind, can we? There’s no catching up with the other group. And there’s no surviving on our own.”

So they’d join me not because they loved me or believed I was right, but because there was nowhere else to go. And because they believed they owed newsouls their lives.

They were angry with me. All of them. Even Sam.

Especially Sam.

“So that’s your plan?” Stef said. “Menehem’s poison, dragons, and optimism?”

It sounded so stupid when she said it, but I wouldn’t give in. “The dragons will listen to me.”

“Why?” She scowled. “Because you have sylph friends? Because you’re the newsoul? Surely you realize that nothing else out there—sylph aside—cares what you are. They can’t even tell the difference.”

“I’ll find a way.” I would. I had to.

Stef leveled her gaze on me. “Is that before or after they eat Sam?”

Her words were knives in my heart. “I won’t let anything hurt him.” Though when I met his eyes, I could see it was already too late.

“Even if you find a way to convince them, what next? You’ll just set your poison out, put Janan to sleep, and let the dragons rampage through Heart?” Stef threw up her hands in mock surprise. “Oh, I know why that sounds so familiar. That’s exactly what Menehem did.”

“I’m
not
like Menehem,” I hissed. “I’ll tell the dragons not to hurt people. And we can warn people to stay away from the temple while the dragons—”

“Rip it apart?” She advanced on me. “Do you think that’s going to work? Tear apart the temple, and Janan can’t ascend?”

My eyes stung with tears, but I wouldn’t cry. I
wouldn’t
. “I wasn’t finished.”

“What else?” Whit asked.

“I read something about dragons in the books. Something that might help us.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “The dragons have a weapon.”

The cave went so quiet I could hear the sound of snowfall.

“More than their teeth and talons?” Stef muttered darkly. “More than their acid?”

“Yes.”

Sam closed his eyes.

I tried not to look at him. Or any of them. I tried to focus on the shadows shifting on the wall, but I couldn’t ignore Sam’s wretched expression. “Yes, another weapon. I’m still working on translating the symbols, but it seems like this weapon is something they revere. Something that’s important to them.”

“And you think what?” Stef’s voice was a dagger. “You think they’ll just give you the weapon? Or use it because you ask them to? They’re not part of your army.”

I pressed my mouth into a line.

“And even if they do have a weapon, why haven’t they used it before now?”

“Because they’re trying to use it on Janan inside the temple?” That hadn’t been meant as a question, but my voice defied me and lifted at the end. “Look, maybe I’m wrong about the weapon. And the dragons. But do you have a better plan? Do you have
any
plan? You got us out of Heart and you’ve kept us safe from drones, and I can’t thank you enough for that, but what now, Stef? The rest is up to me.” I glanced at Cris and the other sylph shifting into the natural shadows of the cave, as though trying to avoid notice. “I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know if
anything
will work. I have to try, though.”

No one spoke, though Sam’s betrayed expression, Whit’s obvious confusion, and Stef’s hostility said everything.

My voice was hoarse as I grabbed my coat. “We leave tomorrow.”

This time, I was the one to leave the cave.

I wandered through the twilight forest, sorrow curled up inside my chest. The sadness was lodged so firmly I could hardly breathe, hardly think. Only as light bled from the world did I realize I’d forgotten a flashlight and my SED, and the only ones who might come looking for me were shadows.

The moon hung somewhere above, but it was dark tonight. I could see the outlines of trees, thanks to starlight, but soon I was lost, shivering inside my coat, which suddenly seemed inadequate. Ice crunched under my boots and broke off against my sleeves as I brushed past.

In the dark, shivering and aching with misery, I swept snow off a boulder and slumped onto the stone. My butt froze instantly, but after everything, I was too tired to care. I was too tired to keep picking my way through the dark.

It was my nineteenth birthday.

A year ago today, I’d left Li at Purple Rose Cottage and set out to find my place in the world. Instead, I’d been chased by sylph—sylph that had evidently been trying to befriend me—and jumped into Rangedge Lake, where Sam rescued me. When I closed my eyes and sent my thoughts back in time, I could still feel the ache in my chest and the blackness swarming in my head as consciousness faded.

I could still feel Sam’s arms wrap around me, feel him blow air into me, feel the cold wind on my wet skin as I saw him above me, smiling.

He’d brought me back to life.

And now I would take him to his death.

I bent over my knees and sobbed myself raw, coming back to the present when the shivers got too much. I grew hyperaware of every sound in the woods: a breeze rattling branches and rustling pine needles, birds settling into nests, and a low and melancholy moan.

Sylph.

I licked moisture back into my cold-chapped lips and tried not to let my voice shake too hard. “Cris?” It could have been any of the other sylph, too, but I didn’t know their names, or if they even had names anymore.

Heat flowed around me, making my skin prickle. The sylph hummed quietly beside me. -This way.-

I couldn’t see where we were going. I followed the warmth, frustratingly slow because any time we turned or went around something, I had to test the air. But I was relieved to have been found, and by someone who could thaw me to the core.

Twigs cracked beneath my boots as I followed, and somewhere in the darkness, small animals scurried away. At last, I caught the faint light that looked as though it shone from around a corner. The cave. Usually at night, sylph lined up at the exit, absorbing the light so anyone—or any creatures—wandering past wouldn’t see it.

“Thank you for finding me,” I murmured to the sylph, then headed inside. When I squinted through the dim light, everyone appeared to be sleeping in their bags. No one stirred as I pulled off my snow-dusted coat and boots and shoved them in a corner, but when I searched for my sleeping bag and found it near Sam’s—though not as near as it had been earlier—I caught the whites of his eyes in lantern light when he blinked.