Incarnate

That’s why they hate me.”

Meuric winced. “I’m sorry, Ana. I wish I could answer your questions. I just don’t know. I was as mystified as everyone else when you were born. All I can tell you is that the words on the outside of the temple are true: Janan gave us life. All our lives. Maybe something went wrong when Ciana didn’t come back, but Dossam believes you’re a gift. Surely you can take heart in that.”

Sam. I tried not to think about Sam out there with the dragons and sylph. Better to keep asking questions, no matter how much I wanted to remind Meuric that he was the one who’d taken me from Sam. Take heart in that indeed. “But Janan gave everyone life, and he said I’m a mistake. How can he make mistakes?”

His expression was dark as thunderclouds. No idea what he’d do if I kept pushing, if he could do anything, but I’d have bet Sam’s piano that Meuric knew more about the temple than he was letting on. I just had to find the right questions.

“What are you looking for?” he asked. “To be told you’re a mistake? Would it make a difference if I tell you that you’re not? You already know I believe in Janan, and this is his temple. He is the temple. He doesn’t speak often, but he never lies. If he said you’re a mistake, then you are. I don’t know where you came from, but I know Janan had nothing to do with you. Your answers aren’t in here.”

The words landed like fists. I could only nod. It certainly wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I’d learned long ago I didn’t need to worry anyone would lie just to keep my feelings from getting hurt.

Really, I just wanted to know what had happened. I couldn’t change what I was or wasn’t. I lowered my gaze. “Do you know the way out? I want to find Sam.”

“Yes, we can do that.” His hand brushed his coat pocket, so quickly I wasn’t supposed to see. I feigned interest in my sleeves, in the dark cloth over white skin. “Come with me.”

Too easy. And at some point, he’d given up pretending he knew nothing about the temple. That could only mean that he wanted to lead me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

“Okay.” I straightened my clothes and hitched my backpack, heavy with the books I’d stolen. “Yeah, I’d rather not stay here any longer. You can’t see anything, and nothing is what it looks like.” I strode toward him, stopping just out of arm’s reach. I kept him between the upside-down pit and me.

“Unsettling, isn’t it?”

I hesitated, desperately wishing I was as brave as Sam claimed.

Before I could act, Meuric noticed something about me — maybe posture or accelerated breathing — and said, “It will be easier if you behave.”

“What will?”

“Getting lost in here. You won’t get hungry or thirsty. You’ll never get tired. Janan doesn’t want you, and I won’t kill you, but you cause too many problems in Heart. You ask too many questions. I’d hoped you’d grow out of all that if I gave you back to Li. This wasn’t what I wanted for you.”

“Sam won’t let you—”

“Sam will assume you died. Lots of bodies are never found when dragons or sylph attack. He’ll be sad, but he’ll get over it. Unless he dies, too. And even then it’s unlikely he’d be reborn before Soul Night.”

“What happens then?” Soul Night wasn’t until the spring equinox in the Year of Souls, more than a year away.

He showed teeth when he smiled. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

I didn’t move.

“Birth is never pretty, Ana. It’s painful. Trust me, you will be happier in here.” He gestured around the chamber as though it was the grand concert hall in the Councilhouse; I saw only cold, unforgiving white. “And you’ll live forever. Isn’t that what you want?

“I want to go home. I want people to stop telling me what to do, insisting progress reports are the most important thing in my life, and assuming I have some nefarious plan for newsouls to replace everyone. I don’t. For some reason, I’ve been given a chance at life, and I want to make the most of it.”

Meuric just shook his head. “You honestly don’t know the trouble you have caused.” He stepped closer, his eyes on mine. We were exactly the same height, so neither of us had to look up or down. He still seemed so much bigger than me. “I understand,” he said. “You’re young. Your world revolves around you. Or, like your father, you are simply incapable of considering others. He was always asking questions, too, trying to figure out why people are reincarnated.”

“There’s no crime in curiosity.”

“Your questions make my life difficult.”

“Fortunately, as you said, I’m self-centered enough that I don’t care.” I checked the pit but couldn’t judge the distance; the everywhere-light made depth perception impossible. “I’ve decided not to go with you. I’ll find my own way out.”

“Then you’ll never leave.”

No, I had a pretty good idea of what I needed. Or, at least, where to find it. I tackled Meuric, the weight of my backpack making that more awkward than it needed to be.

He was young and fast enough that he could have darted away, but maybe he’d forgotten. Changing bodies must get confusing. Instead, he dropped to the floor and dragged me with him, his nails gouging my arm through my sleeve. “What are you doing?” He stood and hauled me up; he was strong for his size.

I dove for his pocket and whatever was in there.

With a grunt, he grabbed my shoulders to fling me across the room, but I caught the cloth of his pocket — not its contents — and he fell with me. I elbowed him, trying to find some kind of advantage, but he was stronger and his elbows were pointier.

We wrestled, both of us trying to get his pocket and keep away from the upside-down pit. When we came close to it, he shoved me, but I threw myself aside just before I stumbled beneath the opening.

My shoulder jammed against the floor, shooting pain all down my arm. My foot, which had landed under the pit, hung upward as though gravity had reversed. I pulled it down — it was as heavy as if I were lifting it out of the pit — and scrambled away as Meuric attacked.

He hit my sore shoulder, which sent waves of numbness to my fingers. With my free hand, I drew Sam’s knife and thrust it, not caring where it hit, as long as it hit somewhere.

Flesh squished and popped.

Blood squirted and dribbled from his eye.

His expression flickered to shock, then to a dull nothing as I withdrew my knife and gagged at the metallic odor of blood and salt. I avoided looking at his youthful face as I found a thin, SED-size device in his pocket. It was made of silver. His other pockets were empty, so this had to be what would get me out of here.

Meuric groaned and clutched at his ruined eye. I couldn’t imagine how he was still alive, but the knife wasn’t long; perhaps I hadn’t gone deep enough to puncture his brain. Acid boiling in my stomach, I wiped my blade clean on his coat, then kicked him underneath the pit. It sucked him upward as quickly as though he’d fallen.

My head spun, and I needed to throw up.

I’d killed him.

When he was reborn, he’d spend his life trying to kill me. He might even tell the Council what I’d done. I could show them what I’d found in his pocket, tell them what had happened before he returned, but it was unlikely they’d believe me. I was the nosoul.

Jammed shoulder aching, I hauled myself into a sitting position and studied the device. It gleamed silver in the everywhere-light, and had five pictures engraved in the metal. They were a horizontal line, a vertical line, a square, a circle, and a diamond. None of them looked like a door, and I couldn’t tell if touching one would activate anything or not. They weren’t buttons.

For a moment, I feared I’d made a mistake — hadn’t I? I’d killed him — but this was Meuric. He wouldn’t have come in here unprepared. He’d probably been the one to create the door in the first place, just to get me out of the way. There’d been nothing else in his pockets, so everything necessary to activate this device must be here already.

Or not. What if this was tied to only Meuric’s soul, the same way the scanners in the city could detect which soul was which?