Incarnate

It was also my favorite so far, because it had a quirky melody all the way through, even the serious parts. Like a private joke.

He should have been down by the time I reached the end of the prelude — I managed to hit a note I usually missed — but when I let my mitt-clad hands fall to my knees, he wasn’t there. It was a challenging prelude; my success with it should have lured him downstairs. I’d try one more thing, then go up to drag him to the piano bench.

Music was the only time he seemed normal. Forget what Sine had said about Sam sorting it out on his own. I wanted to help him, so if music was the only thing that made him happy now, I’d try something new.

There was music in my head, melodies that made me shiver into sleep. Not Sam’s, and not anyone else’s. Mine. I hadn’t told anyone about the music stirring inside of me, but it seemed right that Sam should be the first to know.

I’d only ever hummed the tune, and only when I was alone. And when no one was looking, I’d played a mute and invisible piano on my lap, or a table, or my desk in my room.

Here at the real piano, yellowed ivory keys firm beneath my fingertips, there was more pressure for it to sound as perfect as it did in my head.

Low notes came long and round, deep and mysterious. High notes sang like sylph. If I was honest, it was music of my fears. Shadows made of fire, drowning in a lake, and death without reincarnation. Giving those fears up to music — that helped.

“Please let it help Sam,” I whispered beneath an arpeggio. “Please let him like it.”

I played as carefully as I could, focused on each note and the way it resounded across the parlor. Hearing it outside my head made it real. Solid. Was this how Sam felt every time he wrote something new?

The last note fell. Still no Sam.

Maybe he hated it.

I slipped off my fingerless mittens and left them on the bench. Upstairs, the house was quiet. No water gurgling through pipes, no clothes swishing around as if he couldn’t find something he wanted to wear. And when I knocked on his door, no answer. Nor the second or third try. I let myself in.

Sam sat on the floor, staring blankly at the wall, not moving, hardly breathing. Sweat wormed down his face; it must have itched, but he didn’t brush it away.

I rushed inside, thumping my knee on the floor as I knelt in front of him. “Sam.”

Nothing.

“Sam!” I shook his shoulders, said his name again and again, but he seemed trapped somewhere else. Somewhen else, like when the sylph outside his graveyard had made a dragon head.

Dragons. That was his fear.

“Sam, it’s okay.” I cupped my palms over his cheeks, leaned close until the scent of him filled me. “Please. You’re safe.”

He blinked, and his eyes focused on me. Confusion for a moment, then recognition. “Ana,” he rasped. “What happened?”

As if I had any clue. “You were just staring when I came in.” I smoothed hair from his face and whispered, “I thought you were gone.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch, and his expression betrayed emotions I had no names for. “Ana.” My name slipped out like he hadn’t meant to say it.

“You’re safe.” I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to draw out his fears and hide them far away, but it seemed impossible. “Please don’t go away again.”

Sam hugged me, too tight, shaking like he’d run a thousand leagues. When he loosened enough for me to breathe, I sat sideways on his legs. His heart thudded by my ear as I dragged my hand along the cords of muscle in his arm. Tensed, untensed.

We sat like that for a while, his face buried in my hair. I didn’t know how else to reassure him, so I continued petting his arm while the quiet lingered, and he seemed to be collecting his thoughts.

His heartbeat steadied. “I was remembering dragons and all the times—” He sounded like he’d swallowed glass. “I couldn’t stop remembering.”

I spoke softly so as not to shatter the moment of his confession. “All the times?”

“All the times dragons killed me.” The words came thick with dread and grief.

“How many?” I’d assumed it had been only once, which was stupid, and only once would have been enough to give me nightmares forever.

“Thirty.” He glanced toward the window, though I couldn’t see anything but trees and the tip of the city wall. “If you hadn’t saved me last week, it would have been thirty-one.”

Thirty dragon deaths. I believed him, but it was so impossible sounding. I just couldn’t grasp it. “I want to know what happened earlier, but I don’t want to ask.” I couldn’t bear to see him like that again.

He squeezed me. “Most people have triggers, things that send them spiraling into horrible memories. No one goes through any life unscathed. Smell is most subtle, but sound has always done it to me. Never quite like this, though. Sometimes I think you can—”

I could what? If sound was his trigger and I’d been playing the piano, this was my fault. I’d wanted to help him, but had done the exact opposite. “I’m so sorry.” Now I felt like the one who’d swallowed glass. I leaned away, tried to stand up, but his fingers tangled in my hair and he looked wretched.

“Don’t go.” His jaw clenched. “It wasn’t you.”

It didn’t happen all on its own. But when he put his arms around me, like that helped, I let him. This felt nice, the way we curled together. And strange, because I’d wanted to be this close to him — but not like this. Not because he needed someone, and I was handy.

Then he kissed the top of my head — I tensed all over again — and he acted like there was nothing unusual. This whole thing, it was too much. I wished he would just talk to me. I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

“Sam.” His skin warmed beneath mine. “I can listen. I want to listen.”

He turned his hand over to hold mine, silent acknowledgment.

“Please. For both of us.”

“It was your music,” he said at last, and his words became a flood. “But not only that. The attack at the market, the way everyone reacted or didn’t. It’s been so long. Everything happened so quickly, and then your music made me feel like I was reliving all those times at once.

“My first memory is of singing. We’d come to what would be called Range, and everything was perfect. Pure. Hot springs, geysers, mud pits of every color. There were birds — every kind you can imagine — and I remember walking behind a group of people. I was trying to mimic the birds’ whistles.

“The dragons came from the north. They looked like giant flying snakes with short legs, and talons like eagles. Their wings were as wide as their bodies were long. They were beautiful, but we’d already fought our way through shadow creatures that burned, horse people who used human skin as clothing, and giant humanoids who destroyed everything they saw. We were cautious.”

Sylph. Centaurs. Trolls. I’d be cautious after that, too.

“Stef and I watched them coming. The way they moved through the sky was hypnotic, and we’d never seen something so large that could fly. But then one darted toward us, and I was the slowest to run away.” His voice snagged on memory. “There was green slime everywhere around me, and on me. Acid. It burned and itched, and then I saw bone.”

I shuddered. That was the first time a dragon had killed him.

“When I was reborn, it was in Heart. It seemed like the dragons had been guarding it from us, or trying to destroy it.” He still had that faraway expression, like he was seeing five thousand years past. “They attacked in the same way every time, one always straight for the temple as if to rip it from the ground. They were always unsuccessful, but it never stopped them.

“Fifteen more times in my early lives. Acid, teeth, or just getting knocked off a wall.” He sighed. “No one else had luck so terrible. I thought they were after me in particular.”

I twisted and touched his cheek, drawing patterns across his skin. It was dry now, sweat all evaporated.

“I’m old, Ana.” He said it like that would change anything. I already knew this was only one incarnation of the musician I’d always admired. He closed his fingers around my wrist, gently. “I’ve died so