Infinite

12 CHOICE

THERE WEREN’T WORDS, really. It more like a melody, a song with lyrics half-remembered. It was the notion of words, the way music tugged inside me and made ideas bubble up from a deep and forgotten place.

A spiral of shock kept me from responding. Sylph could speak. They loved music. They had language. How, in thousands of years of people running from the sylph, had no one ever noticed the sylph communicated?

Cris shifted, and his song sounded like a question. Like, -Do you understand me?-

“Yes,” I whispered. “I think so.”

Cris wringed himself into tight coils of shadow, then zipped from the cave faster than my eyes could follow.

“Wait.” But he was already gone. Everyone else was fast asleep. I almost left the cave to follow the sylph, but after the roc, the centaurs and troll, and the sylph’s arrival, I wanted to sleep for a week.

The lamps were all low, and Sam had chosen a dark corner to put our sleeping bags, where we were sort of alone.

I peeled off my shoes and coat, then crawled into my sleeping bag, edging closer to Sam, who was passed out, his dark hair fallen over his face. He looked so relaxed, all the lines of stressed erased as he dreamed. And when I caressed his cheek, my fingers pale over his tanned skin, he sighed and pulled into my touch.

With a heavy yawn, I pulled out my SED and took it inside my sleeping bag to hide the glow under the layers of wool and silk. I sent a message to Orrin, letting him know we were all safe here.

Have the sylph we sent arrived?

He was either up very late, or very early, because my SED buzzed with a reply.

Yes. Everyone was afraid, but the sylph just float around the camp perimeter.

They’ll keep you warm, too, if you let them.

That’s probably too much to ask most of us.

A few minutes later, he said he had to go, so I put in my earpieces and listened to music while playing around with maps of the land around Range, wondering what to do next. We couldn’t go back to Menehem’s lab until we had a plan. We wouldn’t have a good plan until we’d learned everything we could from the books—and the sylph.

We had sylph.

We had the poison.

We had four people who wouldn’t give up.

There had to be a way to stop Janan from ascending.

I drifted to sleep, walking dreams of fire from the earth and sky, and shadows flooding the world. I dreamt of birth and death and rebirth, and the overwhelming sorrow of one fleeting life.

My body felt sluggish when I awoke, but the scent of searing meat drew me out of my sleeping bag to find Stef on the other side of the cave, teaching a sylph how to cook.

“All right,” I said, mostly to myself as I ran my fingers through my hair, all wild with sleep. Sam and Whit were gone. “How soon for breakfast?”

“Not much longer.” She adjusted her baking sheet on a rock. There was no fire under it, just a sylph coiled around the metal, which glowed red. “And you mean late lunch. Everyone slept most of the day. The others went outside to catch a few more meals before the snow hits. Would you mind fetching them?”

I dragged on my boots and hauled our lanterns and solar batteries outside to charge while there was still light.

Clouds blanketed the sky and the cold air prickled against my face, but it didn’t look like the storm would be bad. A light snowfall. It would cover our tracks.

Instead of wandering the woods to find Sam and Whit, I sent a SED message and waited by a stream, absorbing what sunlight I could, too. The last couple of days had ruined my sleeping schedule. All this being awake in the middle of the night.

After the others returned and we all ate, I took Sam outside and brought my flute and a lantern. It wasn’t dark yet, but under the forest canopy, the animal paths were dim and difficult to see.

“The cold weather will just make you sharp.” He glanced at the woods. “And the sound may frighten lunch away from our snares.”

“Then let’s go this way.” I led him in the opposite direction he’d come from earlier. “I wanted to ask you something. About the sylph.”

We’d left them in the cave, too. Sam and I were alone. “Okay,” he said.

“I keep imagining I hear words, almost.” I glanced up at him, but he was just staring into the forest as we walked. “Last night, I was talking to Cris, and I could have sworn he said something back. Then he just vanished.”

Sam was quiet for a while, but as we descended a rocky slope, he said, “I thought I must have been imagining it. I knew I was hearing emotions while they sang, but every now and then I thought I heard words. Or—something like words. Something that made me think of words.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly what I heard.” I slipped my mittened hand into his glove, relieved. “Cris said they’re my army.”

“Your army.” His tone was all awe.

“I know. It seems crazy to me, too.”

A sort of reverence filled his words, low and hopeful. “Is it really that strange? The way they follow you, the way they protect you. They’ve been acting like your army since the first time we saw them at the lab. They were guarding you.”

“I want to know why.”

“Me too.” He scanned the bank of a shallow stream and guided me toward a rock, big enough for both of us to sit on. “There’s a lot we need to ask the sylph.”

That was for sure. And not at all a statement I ever thought I’d hear coming from anyone’s mouth. Just a few months ago, we’d been wondering why they kept following me, and whether they were going to burn us up in our sleep. And now Cris was one of them. Now we were relying on the sylph.

“Thank you.” I held my flute case against my chest and waited as Sam swept snow off the rock and sat. I perched next to him and placed my flute across my lap, keeping as close to him as I could without sitting on him.

“For what?” He wrapped his arm around me and set down the lantern, illuminating our boots, water bubbling over pebbles, and pine needles. His leg pressed against mine.

“For understanding about the sylph. And not thinking I was crazy with the centaurs. I know everyone must have some history with them, but these—”

Sam turned and rested his other hand on my knee. His fingers curled around, and I could feel the heat of him even through the layers of cloth between us. “I trust you. You see the world differently from the rest of us, and I want to learn to see the world that way, too. You challenge us, inspire us. You inspire me. We were wrong about sylph. Maybe we were wrong about centaurs.”

I ducked my head, hiding a blush. “Maybe you weren’t wrong about sylph at first. Like you said, they do seem to like me. And their liking me doesn’t change thousands of years of violence between you all.”

He gave a weary chuckle. “You have good instincts. You’re right to question things, even when you’ve heard all our stories. If you hadn’t questioned reincarnation, we’d still be in Heart with no idea why Deborl had taken over the city, or what we were being made to build.”

“We might be happier not knowing.” That sounded like we weren’t happy now. But were we? I was happy with him, but all this getting shot at, dodging explosions, hiding in caves—that certainly didn’t make me happy.

“We’d have problems no matter what, Ana.”

“Oh.” That sounded even worse than what I’d said, but he was probably right. I could cause trouble by just breathing.

“No life is perfect. There’s always something that hurts, but it’s important to appreciate the good things, too.” He kissed my cheek, breathing warmth over me. “If it wasn’t the end of the world, it’d be something else. Maybe not this big or terrible, but there are always events in life that can make you unhappy if you let them.”

“Thinking about the end of the world makes me unhappy. I don’t think that’s just because I’m letting it.”

He laughed. “It makes me unhappy, too. All I’m saying—”

“I get it.” I only sort of got it, but he didn’t need to keep trying. “You make me happy, though.” It seemed vitally important that he know. I tilted my face toward his, all warm shadows in the winter gloom. “No matter what else is going on, you make me happy. And I want to let you make me happy. I’m not always very good at it.” My breath felt heavier, misted the space between us.

Music had always been my comfort, and Sam before I knew him. His compositions, his playing, his singing. But that happiness had been distant. Someone else’s life. I’d imagined a world away from Purple Rose Cottage, but it was the faraway imagining, knowing it would never be my life.

And then it was mine. Sam came, giving me music and happiness of my own. The life I’d always wanted suddenly happened, and trying to fit that with my old life was proving more difficult than I’d anticipated.

I kept expecting to wake up.

Like he understood everything I hadn’t said, Sam kissed me. His mouth was warm and gentle, and his fingers soft against the back of my neck. “I wish I could give you all the time you needed to get used to happiness. Lifetimes, if necessary. I’d wait eternity for you to figure it out.”

We didn’t have eternity. I hoped I didn’t need that long, anyway. I’d feel really stupid.

“You make me happy, too.” He kissed my lips. My nose. My chin. My forehead. “You make me feel—everything.”

My heart beat triple time when he kissed me again. With him, I could be happy forever.

Or at least for the single life I’d been given.

I drew back. “What if Janan actually were going to keep reincarnating people?”

Sam said nothing, but his silence was telling. He didn’t want to die. No one did. Because what happened after? Where did you go when you died forever? What did you do?

“Right before the rededication ceremony last year, you and Stef were talking about choices. You said you were glad you didn’t have to choose between Ciana and me, because how could anyone choose between two people they care about? You told me later that if you had a choice, if what you wanted counted for anything, you’d have chosen me.”

“I still mean that. I will always choose you.”

“I believe you.” I closed my eyes and let him embrace me, trying not to think about what he and the others had decided five thousand years ago, that they’d willingly exchanged newsouls for their immortality.

Five thousand years ago, they’d all chosen themselves.

“Sarit thinks Janan will keep reincarnating oldsouls because he’ll want people to rule over. What’s the point of being powerful and immortal if you’re all alone?”

Sam nodded. “I suppose anything is possible, but like Stef and Cris said: Janan wouldn’t share power.”

“But Meuric was desperate for the key. He said he needed the key to survive.”

“He was also crazy when he said that, wasn’t he? From pain? And being terrified of Janan? He’d been trapped in the temple for months.” Sam didn’t sound sorry for Meuric, but the knowledge of what I’d sentenced the former Speaker to was heavy. “Maybe,” Sam went on, “all he meant was that Janan would kill him if he didn’t have the key, because he’d have failed. Or if he had the key, Janan would heal him. Who knows what he thought would happen?”

I stared at my boots, sorting out thoughts and feelings, and how to ask for help without letting him see how torn my insides really were. “What would you do?” I whispered. “Only a few of us really understand that Janan isn’t going to keep reincarnating people once he ascends. Sarit said everyone else will see my actions as a choice between oldsouls and newsouls.”

“And?”

“What if it were a choice? What would you do?”

Only the burble of water over rocks answered. Sam stared into the dim forest as snow began drifting through the skeletal branches above.

“I’m not testing you,” I said at last. “I’m not looking for a certain answer. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for reincarnation or whether someone gets to live. You’ve lived so long, though. I was hoping you might have some wisdom to share.”

“I know your question wasn’t a test. I was just thinking about it.” He caressed my cheek, and his gloved fingertips came to rest under my chin. Soft wool brushed my skin, almost a kiss, and Sam leaned so close until all I could see were his eyes. His voice was low and rough. “I would choose you. Every time. No matter what.”

My heart thumped, suddenly feeling too big for my ribs to cage it.

“That’s probably a very selfish answer,” he went on, “but it’s the truth. When I consider the potential consequences of any scenario, I ask what would become of you, and could we be together? Any result that doesn’t involve at least one very long life with you isn’t an option for me. I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes, Ana. I’ve loved before, been lonely, ached for what I couldn’t have. I’ve always made sure to fill every lifetime with what I can, because I’ve seen others grow complacent and weary. I’ve seen them move from living to existing. I’ve been tempted down that path myself, because it sometimes looks easier than this constant caring and trying to grow and change and be more than I am.

“I’ve also lived long enough to understand that there are few things more important than being with the people you care about most. And that’s you, Ana. What good is reincarnation if I don’t have you? What good is stopping Janan if I don’t have you? Whatever it took, whatever choice I needed to make to keep us together—that’s what I would choose.”

Before I could find any kind of response, Sam’s mouth was on mine and the world fell away. He kissed me, making the tingle in my stomach brighten into a flutter and pulse. I kissed him with everything in me, and his hands were on my face, pushing back my hood, combing through my hair. He kissed my throat and tugged at the collar of my coat as though to reach my shoulder, too.

I ached for him. I ached for his touches, his kisses, for lifetimes of loving him.

Heat surged through me as Sam laid me back, cradling my head and the small of my back until I was lying on the flat of the rock, hair spilling everywhere. He leaned over me, caressing my face, my sides, my hips, and when our eyes met, there was something raw and bare in them. Yearning. Desire. Was that what he saw in my eyes, too?

A deer crashed through the forest and Sam’s breath heaved, white mist on the air as he glanced around, seeming to remember we were outside. “Five minutes alone and I’m already trying to undress you.” He touched my stomach, shooting sparks through me, and nodded to where my coat hung open around me.

I struggled to catch my breath. “It’s been more like fifteen or twenty minutes.” I shivered, both from his touch and the icy air. “And if it weren’t so cold, and we weren’t outside, I’d encourage this.”

Sam zipped up my coat for me. “I suddenly find myself very bitter about the weather, the fact that we’re stuck out in it if we want to be alone, and this entire situation in general. There are so many other things we could be doing instead.”

I didn’t move from where I was lying on the rock, even though cold radiated through my coat, chilling my back. My body still hummed with his touch, the ache he’d awakened inside me. “Very bitter.” First chance we got, though, I would take it. Somewhere alone, inside, and warm. And minus the rock.

While we watched snow spiral down into the stream, I thought about his words, what he’d said, how any decision for him would come down to whether he could be with the person he loved. With me.

What an amazing feeling.

“Did you bring your flute for the sylph?” he asked, after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah.” I pushed myself up. “I thought they might like it if you played.”

“Me?” He held the flute case gently, reverently.

“You haven’t played for me in weeks. I’m sure you need to practice.”

He chuckled and pulled the flute from the case, making the length of silver seem so small and delicate. He held the flute like a precious thing.

“Is your hand up for it?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Then play for me.” I scooted over to give him elbow room. “Play for the sylph. I haven’t yet found a song they don’t like.”

“Songs have words,” he muttered automatically, his breath hissing over the mouthpiece. He warmed up with a series of long notes, scales, and rhythm exercises, and then he readied to play.

Gurgling water provided percussion, and the susurrus of wind made harmony. Sam gave nature a moment before he started with a low note, a haunting vibrato, and a deep melody that might have been something I’d dreamt.

Whenever the world shifted, his music did, too. A splash downstream lightened the mood, and the tune turned hopeful; a wolf howling eastward brought back the haunting tones. Gusts of wind seemed menacing, the way he played. When I closed my eyes, I wasn’t sure who led the music: Sam or nature. It seemed like he might be conducting all of it, even the breeze and falling snow. And when my throat vibrated with humming countermelody, I was ready to believe Sam had some kind of magic.

I didn’t know the music, though my heart ached with it, and anticipated the next note even though I shouldn’t have known.

Only when unearthly moaning joined in did I startle back into myself. Sam ceased playing, as though he’d reached the end of the melody anyway, like the sylph had arrived just on time, just how he’d intended.

“That was amazing,” I whispered.

Sam said nothing about it, as though he spontaneously composed music with nature all the time.

Heat spread around the area. Snow sizzled as it drifted through sylph, and the creek steamed where a few sylph had to crowd in. Funny, only a minute ago it had been so cold I couldn’t feel my ears.

One sylph floated toward us, eerie in the deepening gloom, and identified himself with a black rose.

Seeing Cris like this made my stomach clench. He was nothing like the tall young man I’d met at Purple Rose Cottage only a few months ago. He’d been all sharp angles and big smiles. He’d built greenhouses to grow roses all year around, cared for squirrels and chipmunks, creatures others would call pests.

He’d saved Stef and me.

He didn’t have eyes to meet, but I turned up my chin and tried anyway. “I understood what you were saying last night.”

All the sylph hummed hopefully.

“We want to hear everything,” Sam said. “Starting with what you told Ana last night. That you’re her army. Why? How?”

I frowned at him. There were more important things to ask the sylph—but maybe not to him.

Their song made me think of winter, cold and running and leaping. Trills and whistles, urging sounds like deceptively pleasant nightmares. The sylph songs smothered the night; not even the creek dared interrupt.

It took some sorting out to understand them. It wasn’t easy, though I was learning.

“One at a time.” My voice seemed harsh after the dulcet sylph songs. “Speak one at a time. I can’t understand all of you at once.”

Cris hmmed and came forward. -I was gone for so long because I was searching for the others.-

At last. Communication. “You brought them all together to be my army?”

He nodded. -When I left Heart, a few sylph found me. They befriended me, and I told them everything I knew. They told me they’d been watching you your entire life. They’ve been waiting for you.-

“Waiting for me to do what?” I stared at my knees. I couldn’t look at Cris and the others. Even now, I sensed them watching me.

-To stop Janan.-