Incarnate

sylph. The egg flew from my hands, and I screamed at the heat on my fingers. I stumbled backward as the sylph loomed over me like burning night.

I was on the ground before I realized, Sam rolling with me — away from the sylph. Our knees and elbows jabbed each other, only somewhat dulled by cloth. I sat up and lifted my red, peeling hands.

Soon I would die.

“Watch out!” Sam shoved me off him as the sylph lunged again, shrieking.

I caught myself, but swayed with pain too sharp to comprehend. Then I jerked back into reality when Sam shouted.

“Get behind the fence!” He scrambled out of the sylph’s way.

Iron. Right. I sprinted toward the graveyard, but Sam was still near a copse of snow-smothered trees. He’d saved me and I couldn’t just let him—

The sylph grew thicker, darker than midnight, and a giant, dragonish head pushed out from one side like it was trying to escape a bubble. It snapped at him, and Sam became expressionless. As if he was somewhere else. Somewhen else, like I’d felt when I saw the lake again last night.

No, I had to help him. My new sylph burns would kill me, anyway.

I searched through the steaming snow and gathered up the sylph egg. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sam return to himself — return to now — and begin pelting the sylph with snowballs. The dragon head disappeared, but his snowballs melted within seconds of passing through the shadow.

“Ana!”

Ropes of shadow forced Sam to dodge and duck. The clearing reeked of ash. The sylph attacked Sam again, trapping him against a tree.

My hands closed around the egg; I could barely feel it through the numbing cold. It was slick, almost too slippery to grip, but I gave the device a final twist and flipped up the lid just as the sylph lunged for Sam with a dissonant shriek.

I thrust the egg into the burning shadow, and smoke streaked into the brass when I dropped it. Heat raced through me, and my entire world grew too hot to live in. I felt like a legendary phoenix must, consumed in its own fires so it could be reborn.

But I wasn’t a phoenix.

Just a nosoul with blackened hands.

Across the sylph egg stood a young man who looked my age, but wasn’t. He might have said my name again. I couldn’t hear through the rushing in my ears as I ran to the nearest snowdrift and shoved my hands inside.

I would not cry. Would not.

A moment later, Sam knelt in front of me. “Hey.”

“Go away.” I clenched my jaw, trying not to look at the pitying expression he wore. He knew about the sylph burns, surely. He knew how they’d spread and engulf me, and soon I’d be dead. Probably forever. At least I was near a graveyard.

“Let me see your hands.” He spoke softly, as if that would change my mind. “Please.”

“No.” I scooted away and pressed my hands into a new patch of snow. They burned no matter how much snow I packed onto them. If I pulled them out, they’d be black and flaking, like charcoal. The singe on my cheek echoed the sensation. “Leave me alone.”

“Let me help you.”

He wasn’t going to listen. He didn’t care what I wanted. “No! Just go away. I don’t need you. I wish you’d never found me.” I was hot and cold and so tired of everything hurting. For someone who’d died a hundred times, he had a poor grasp of the situation. “In the last two days I’ve been given a bad compass by my own mother so I’d go the wrong way, attacked by sylph twice, burned, and nearly drowned in a freezing lake. You should have left me there. Everyone would have been happier to forget about me.” I collapsed over myself and wept. “I hate you. I hate everyone.”

Finally, he left.

Chapter 4 Fire

AFTER I’D CRIED myself out, hooves thumped the ground behind me, then stopped. Sam scooped me into his arms. Snow fell in clumps. I tried to hold on to it, but gripping hurt too much. When I dug my elbow into his chest, he just shifted me around and carried me through the cemetery’s iron gate. “Go away.” My throat hurt from cold and crying.

“No.” He swept snow off a stone bench and set me down, then sat next to me. “You should have come in here when I told you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged my legs to my chest, buried my face in my sleeves. The alternating hot and cold in my hands made drowning in the lake seem like a leisurely summer swim. “You don’t listen, do you? Go away.”

“Piffle.” Icy hands closed around my cheeks as he turned my face to his. Couldn’t make me meet his eyes, though; I kept my gaze down. “You don’t listen,” he said.

Why wouldn’t he just leave? I was going to burn up, anyway, with fire creeping up my arms to consume me. My eyes ached with fresh tears. I hated crying.

“But if you’d listened,” he murmured, “I’d be dead.”

I looked up, and he looked earnest. Gentle features twisted into concern when I just sat there, hands shaking. Maybe they’d shake off.

“Thank you for saving me.” He said it like he meant it, like I’d actually done something good and worthwhile. But now I was going to die a slow and fiery death. That didn’t seem to bother him.

“You’d have come back.” My brain and mouth weren’t connected. This wasn’t the time to be mean. I should apologize for screaming at him. “I mean I’m glad you’re okay.”

One corner of his mouth twitched up, and he wiped his thumbs under my eyes, avoiding the burn on my cheek. “Your hands must really hurt. Will you let me help?”

“That’s not why I’m crying.” Ugh. I’d meant to blame that on the snow. “I’m just mad at all this. Sylph. Li. You.”

“Why me?” He released my face and reached inside a bag on his lap. Bandages, ointments, painkillers: it would have been nice if I’d seen those before. “As far as I know, I’ve only tried to keep you out of trouble.”

“Exactly.” I let my heels slip off the bench so I could sit normally; Sam held my shoulder in case I lost my balance, but I didn’t, so I shot him a glare.

My hands were crimson and blistered, as if I’d held them in fire. Perhaps I’d avoided permanent muscle damage, because all my nerves dutifully sent panicked pain signals, but it didn’t matter. The charred flesh and powdering bones of a large sylph burn would come eventually.

“It’s your fault I’m going to die.” I imagined the burns crawling up my wrists and arms until they consumed me.

“You’ll die eventually, but not for a good long time, as long as you’ll stop racing into danger every day.”

I was dying and he had the nerve to mock me? I struggled to choose between angry replies, but all I managed was, “Li said sylph burns won’t heal. They’ll get worse.”

Lines formed around Sam’s frown as he removed a packet from his bag and ripped it open. “She lied.”

“Oh.” Of course she lied. She always did. Visions of my demise vanished. “So my hands?”

“Will heal to make more mischief. Now let’s see them.” He turned his palms up as if to hold my burned flesh, but didn’t actually touch me. My hands did look gross, all red and blistering. “Shoving them in snow probably wasn’t the best idea.”

The radiating pain kept me from caring about his chastisement. I gritted my teeth to cage any sounds when he laid a piece of gauze over what was left of my skin. Something so delicate shouldn’t hurt me so much, and I just wanted the pain to stop. Dizziness surrounded me, a black haze over my eyes and ears.

An eternity later, Sam’s deep voice brought me back. “We’re done.”