Sam followed my gaze to the large man on the other side of the room, slowly standing, his glare locked on me. The man was enormous, with shoulders so wide he made Sam look small. Close-cropped brown hair made him look bald, and a few days’ worth of stubble darkened his face. His name was Merton; I’d seen him leading anti-newsoul speeches and complaints to the Council.
Anti-Ana speeches, because there was only me.
Until now.
“This is your fault.” He seemed bigger for all the rage building up beneath his words. As though anger were contagious, the room began to boil with it. “Meuric was right. Li was right. This one was only the beginning of replacements. Now Lidea has borne another.”
On the bed, Lidea stared at the infant in her arms, like she wasn’t sure what to do now. Tears trickled down her sweat-streaked face.
“Nosouls will replace everyone,” someone in the back shouted. Panic pitched his voice high, and then it was lost under the wave of suspicion-filled mutters.
“We’re being invaded!” Merton shouted.
A small cry of agreement went up, hesitant at first, gaining voices swiftly.
“When sylph infest the city,” Merton roared, “what do we do? Capture them and send them beyond Range.”
People nodded emphatically. A few cheered.
“When centaurs hunt in our forests,” Merton went on, “we drive them out with gas that erodes the bonds holding together their two aspects.”
My stomach dropped, but Merton held everyone’s rapt attention. He looked just as eager to say what they were all waiting to hear.
“Now we need to learn to defend ourselves against this new threat.”
He thought of us as monsters. This baby who’d barely drawn breath, and me. Several people thundered agreement. With Merton as the conductor, the shouts and rage crescendoed.
The baby wailed, and Lidea held him close, but she wept too. My friends yelled in my defense, and the birthing assistants ordered people to leave the room. No one obeyed. People kept shouting and pointing, pressing closer to me as the scowls and glares deepened. They practically burned.
Their heat filled me, leaving no room for disbelief or shock. How could I be shocked when some of these people had treated me with nothing but hatred?
But as the shouting grew and the baby screamed, my own anger replaced my fear. Like a geyser, pressure built inside of me, boiling with the heat of the cacophony all around—like the power of the Range caldera. I was ready to erupt.
“Stop!” I wrested myself from Sam’s grip and climbed onto a chair. “Enough!”
They all stared—birthing assistants, observers, and Soul Tellers—and I imagined geyser steam wafting through the room, stunning them into silence. Only the baby cried, and then Lidea put him on her breast.
Silence.
Oops. Everyone was looking at me.
On the bed, Lidea cradled the baby to her. Sweat dripped down her temples, and her skin flushed bronze. The room smelled of salt and copper and other things I couldn’t identify.
I focused on the geyser feeling, how furious I’d been about everyone scaring the baby, threatening to kill him as if he were some kind of monster.
They would not hurt him. I wouldn’t let them.
“I was led to believe that you were all rational people who knew how to behave around an infant.” My voice shook. So much for being strong like a geyser. “If you want to yell, do it outside. This isn’t the place.”
No one moved; I wasn’t sure this was better than the yelling.
“If not for the baby, please show a little consideration for Lidea. Or don’t you care about her anymore?”
That shamed a few people into slinking out of the room. I stayed on my chair as they passed.
“Anyone else?” I mimicked an angry expression Li had always used to force me to confess when I’d been listening to music. It seemed to work, though I felt more like a chipmunk addressing a room full of wolves. “We’re here to celebrate a birth. If you can’t do that simply because he’s a newsoul, you’re welcome to leave.”
More people left. More than before. A few had the decency to look ashamed. I didn’t bother hiding my disgust for any of them.
Across the room, Merton stood there with his arms crossed, his face crimson and contorted with rage. He stalked toward me.
Everyone watched, and Sam eased toward my chair, but when Merton reached me, he just glowered and walked around me—to the door.
I tried not to let my relief show. If he’d attacked me, there’d have been little my friends could have done. Merton was huge. And strong.
But he was gone for now. I focused on breathing, and trying not to crumple under the stares of birthing assistants, observers, and friends. Most of the hostile people had gone ahead of Merton, so why did my heart speed up now? Surely I should have been able to say something coherent in front of people who didn’t completely hate me.
“I believe the tradition is to welcome newborns.” Welcome them back, anyway. But this one hadn’t been here before. He was like me. Newsoul. “I’ll go first.” I ached for him, this unnamed child facing an existence like mine. At least he wouldn’t be the only one.
Sam offered a hand to help me off the chair, and I accepted. The last thing I needed was to fall on my face.
As I approached Lidea’s bed, I imagined what the scene must have been like when Li gave birth to me, and the Soul Tellers announced I wasn’t anyone. There’d probably been fewer people in the room. And all of Ciana’s friends would have been there.
Ciana, whom I’d replaced.
I doubted anyone had welcomed me to the world.
I stopped by Lidea’s bed. Someone had pulled sheets all around her and wiped sweat off her face, though her skin remained flushed with heat and anger and the labor of birth. Black hair hung in tendrils over her shoulders; the baby’s hand reached upward at nothing, losing his fingers in the tangles.
Sam stood next to me, and everyone else queued behind him. Except Wend, Lidea’s partner; he didn’t leave her side.
I searched for the right words, but what did you say to someone who’d had a newsoul? Apologizing seemed wrong, because this wasn’t bad, and I’d had nothing to do with it. The only thing that made me sorry was knowing how much everyone already hated him.
“Thank you.” Lidea’s smile was strained. “For making them stop. For making them leave.”
“I couldn’t let them continue.” What if they’d hurt him? He was tiny, all splotchy red and brown skin, and his face scrunched up with the stress of being born.
She lowered her eyes. “The idea of having a newsoul—it was terrifying. And”—her voice caught with the confession—“humiliating. But holding him now, I’m glad he’s here. I love him completely.”
My throat tightened from choking back tears. “He’s lucky to have you.”
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he’s happy. I’ll keep him safe.”
So would I. “I’d like to welcome him. Will you name him?”
“I thought about naming him after you, in honor of your standing up for him.” Her eyes were only for the baby. She didn’t see the way my mouth fell open. “But that would be confusing, and I don’t want to start a trend of all newsouls being Ana.”
I hoped not. Li had told me they’d chosen my name because it was part of Ciana’s name, symbolizing the life I’d taken from her. The name also meant “alone” and “empty.”
“It was a generous thought, but not necessary.” And I didn’t deserve that kind of honor.
Lidea caressed his round cheeks, small nose. “It did give me another idea.” Sweeter anticipation filled the room. “Anid is close.”
My heart felt swollen as I reached, glanced at Lidea for permission, and then touched Anid’s tiny hand. He didn’t seem to notice. “Hi, Anid. Welcome to the world.” My voice trembled as I whispered, “I’m really glad you’re here.”
We were in this together now. Neither of us were alone. Asunder.
He looked toward me with wide, dark blue eyes. He was beautiful, and I wasn’t ready to move on, but people waited behind me, so I touched Lidea’s hand, then Wend’s, and gave Sam a turn. As the line moved, I watched how everyone else was with the baby, trying to memorize the faces of those who’d stayed. Were they friendly, or just polite?
After everyone but the birthing assistants had left, I offered Anid my finger again. His fist closed around it immediately.
“Don’t let anyone call you a nosoul again,” I whispered to him. “If they do, tell me and I’ll take care of it for you.”
Lidea looked amused. “Are you corrupting him already?”
“Just a little.” I smiled so she’d know I wasn’t serious.
“I’m worried,” Lidea confessed. “After earlier, all that yelling.” She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears shimmered across her lashes. “What if they really try to hurt him?”
Wend appeared by her side, hand on her shoulder. “Nothing will happen to him.” When Lidea twisted toward him, he leaned over to hug her.
Sam touched my elbow and murmured, “Ready to go?” I nodded, and we said our good-byes, fetched our belongings, and headed for the exit.
It was raining again when we went outside, and fully dark now. Only the temple glowed, shedding watery light across the market field. Without conversation, we headed back to the southwest quarter of the city where all our homes were located. Sarit and Stef broke off onto their streets, close to ours.
Inside and dried off, I said, “Sam,” before realizing I’d spoken.
He paused on his way to the piano, one hand drifting over my hip as he faced me. With his face in shadow, Sam’s eyes were even darker, more mysterious, and heavier with the weight of centuries. Millennia.
“Once, you called me a butterfly, because my existence seems so fleeting to everyone else in Heart.”
A line formed between his eyes. “Ana—”
“I know you didn’t mean it to hurt me, and I know you’ve apologized a thousand times.” I swallowed nerves caught in my throat. “That doesn’t make my existence less potentially ephemeral. I could die and never be reincarnated.”
“Please don’t say that,” he whispered.
“You, Stef, Sarit, others—you’ve made the Year of Hunger bearable. I didn’t think I could have friends until you proved me wrong.” I reached up for his shoulders, let my hands slide along the backs of his arms. “But the beginning of my life was terrible, and half the people still treat me like I’m responsible for Templedark and every other horrible thing that’s ever happened.”
He looked downward, like I blamed him for others’ actions. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. None of it’s your fault. I just meant to say, I don’t want Anid to grow up like I did.”
“Lidea and Wend will care for him. So will we.”
I nodded. “But it’s not enough. You saw what happened in there. People were anxious to welcome back a friend, and then it was terrible. Within minutes, people were talking about killing him. If that’s any indication of the rest of the city’s reaction to his birth, when other newsouls start coming, there won’t be anywhere safe. Not in the city. I need to make it safe. Somehow.”
“Ana.” Sam stepped so close I had to drop my head back to meet his eyes, and the way he said my name—it was same reverence people used in their prayers to Janan. My insides knotted up as he touched my jaw and kissed me. Softly, gently, aching with restraint. “Anything you need from me, just ask. I promise, we’ll give these newsouls the chance you never had.”
Hearing it in those words made everything so clear. Sam understood me better than I understood myself, and he’d known what I needed all along.