Sam turned ash pale. Stef glared like she was ready to kill me, while Whit just looked stricken and like he hoped maybe this was a joke.
If only that were true.
Cris gave a small, disbelieving trill. Everyone’s eyes darted toward him, but no one spoke. They just waited for me to explain myself.
“It sounds horrible, but hear me out. The dragons have—They might have—I read in the books—” The words tumbled from me, tripping and bumping one another. Everything came out in the wrong order.
I stopped, swallowed hard, and tried again.
“For thousands of years, dragons have come down from the north. Every time, they attack the temple. The day they flew in during a market, I remember seeing them come straight for the temple, ignoring everything else, even the people attacking them. I remember wondering, why? Why would they willingly sacrifice themselves to destroy a building?
“Now I think they’re not attacking the building. They’re attacking Janan. I know everyone else feels calm and peaceful when they look at the temple, like they’re safe, but since the first time I saw it, the temple has made me feel awful. Like I need to shrink up. Like something is watching me and doesn’t like me. And I thought that was just because so many people were watching me and not liking me, but then I realized Janan was real. Then I found out that if not for Menehem’s experiment, Janan would have—”
Sam jerked his head up, his gaze so black and anguished I hardly recognized him. He looked a little wild, like he’d give anything to make me stop talking.
“The dragons tried to destroy the temple that day. Then, during Templedark, they brought more and attacked people, too, but lots of dragons still went straight at the temple. While it was dark, they cracked the stone open. They wrapped themselves around the temple, squeezed and clawed, and broke it.”
After a moment of awkward humming, Cris said, -That only happened because of Menehem’s poison.-
“I know it sounds like a terrible idea, and maybe it is, but there’s more to my plan.” Why couldn’t I stop talking? But the words kept rushing out, like a waterfall. I looked at Stef and Whit. “I have more of the poison Menehem used. While we were at the lab, I hid the poison so no one would find it. If we can convince the dragons they’ll have a shot at destroying the temple—”
Stef shook her head. “Do you hear yourself? You just said ‘convince the dragons.’ What makes you think that’s possible?”
My throat constricted, making my words come out like squeaks. “The centaurs—”
She shook her head again. “They didn’t understand anything you said. You had two of their children and an army of sylph behind you. They didn’t kill us because nothing can hurt a sylph.”
Cris keened softly.
Stef ignored him. “The centaurs don’t want to be your friends, Ana. If they’d found you without an army of sylph, they would have destroyed you. They would have destroyed all of us if Cris hadn’t arrived. And dragons, Ana. Dragons.” She touched Sam’s shoulder, anguish flashing across her face as he jerked away. “How can you ask that of Sam? You know what happens. How can you ask him to die?”
I looked at Sam, all the fire pouring out of me. I knew about the dragons. I knew about the thirty dragon deaths, and the way he’d been after the dragons attacked the market that day. I remembered the terror in his eyes, and the way he’d steadily grown distant and darker.
He had that look again. Fear. Horror.
Resignation.
His voice was deep, soft. “She’s not asking me to do anything she’s not willing to do herself.”
Everyone looked from Sam to me, though Sam continued speaking.
“Ana doesn’t expect to live through this, either. She’s been waiting to die this entire time.”
I stared at my feet.
Sam’s voice turned raw. “She has this one life, and she’s willing to risk it so others might live. We all came along for a greater cause, knowing we might sacrifice our lives. Knowing we won’t be reincarnated if we succeed in stopping Janan’s ascension. After living for five thousand years, suddenly stopping is such a terrifying concept.”
Where did they go? What did they do? Surely the soul lived on.
“But Ana has only had eighteen years.” His voice tightened. “Nineteen.”
Today was my birthday. I’d forgotten.
“No matter what happens, there’s no reincarnation for her. If she’s willing to sacrifice the rest of her life for this, I can, too. She’s not asking for anything outrageous. She’s asking us to atone for what we’ve already done.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that. “I’m not trying to force you into going out of guilt—”
Sam shook his head, and for a moment a there was a look in his eyes I couldn’t identify, but it broke my heart. Then he was hard again. Distant again. “You don’t have to use guilt against us. If you’re going north, then we all go. We can’t stay behind, can we? There’s no catching up with the other group. And there’s no surviving on our own.”
So they’d join me not because they loved me or believed I was right, but because there was nowhere else to go. And because they believed they owed newsouls their lives.
They were angry with me. All of them. Even Sam.
Especially Sam.
“So that’s your plan?” Stef said. “Menehem’s poison, dragons, and optimism?”
It sounded so stupid when she said it, but I wouldn’t give in. “The dragons will listen to me.”
“Why?” She scowled. “Because you have sylph friends? Because you’re the newsoul? Surely you realize that nothing else out there—sylph aside—cares what you are. They can’t even tell the difference.”
“I’ll find a way.” I would. I had to.
Stef leveled her gaze on me. “Is that before or after they eat Sam?”
Her words were knives in my heart. “I won’t let anything hurt him.” Though when I met his eyes, I could see it was already too late.
“Even if you find a way to convince them, what next? You’ll just set your poison out, put Janan to sleep, and let the dragons rampage through Heart?” Stef threw up her hands in mock surprise. “Oh, I know why that sounds so familiar. That’s exactly what Menehem did.”
“I’m not like Menehem,” I hissed. “I’ll tell the dragons not to hurt people. And we can warn people to stay away from the temple while the dragons—”
“Rip it apart?” She advanced on me. “Do you think that’s going to work? Tear apart the temple, and Janan can’t ascend?”
My eyes stung with tears, but I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t. “I wasn’t finished.”
“What else?” Whit asked.
“I read something about dragons in the books. Something that might help us.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “The dragons have a weapon.”
The cave went so quiet I could hear the sound of snowfall.
“More than their teeth and talons?” Stef muttered darkly. “More than their acid?”
“Yes.”
Sam closed his eyes.
I tried not to look at him. Or any of them. I tried to focus on the shadows shifting on the wall, but I couldn’t ignore Sam’s wretched expression. “Yes, another weapon. I’m still working on translating the symbols, but it seems like this weapon is something they revere. Something that’s important to them.”
“And you think what?” Stef’s voice was a dagger. “You think they’ll just give you the weapon? Or use it because you ask them to? They’re not part of your army.”
I pressed my mouth into a line.
“And even if they do have a weapon, why haven’t they used it before now?”
“Because they’re trying to use it on Janan inside the temple?” That hadn’t been meant as a question, but my voice defied me and lifted at the end. “Look, maybe I’m wrong about the weapon. And the dragons. But do you have a better plan? Do you have any plan? You got us out of Heart and you’ve kept us safe from drones, and I can’t thank you enough for that, but what now, Stef? The rest is up to me.” I glanced at Cris and the other sylph shifting into the natural shadows of the cave, as though trying to avoid notice. “I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know if anything will work. I have to try, though.”
No one spoke, though Sam’s betrayed expression, Whit’s obvious confusion, and Stef’s hostility said everything.
My voice was hoarse as I grabbed my coat. “We leave tomorrow.”
This time, I was the one to leave the cave.
I wandered through the twilight forest, sorrow curled up inside my chest. The sadness was lodged so firmly I could hardly breathe, hardly think. Only as light bled from the world did I realize I’d forgotten a flashlight and my SED, and the only ones who might come looking for me were shadows.
The moon hung somewhere above, but it was dark tonight. I could see the outlines of trees, thanks to starlight, but soon I was lost, shivering inside my coat, which suddenly seemed inadequate. Ice crunched under my boots and broke off against my sleeves as I brushed past.
In the dark, shivering and aching with misery, I swept snow off a boulder and slumped onto the stone. My butt froze instantly, but after everything, I was too tired to care. I was too tired to keep picking my way through the dark.
It was my nineteenth birthday.
A year ago today, I’d left Li at Purple Rose Cottage and set out to find my place in the world. Instead, I’d been chased by sylph—sylph that had evidently been trying to befriend me—and jumped into Rangedge Lake, where Sam rescued me. When I closed my eyes and sent my thoughts back in time, I could still feel the ache in my chest and the blackness swarming in my head as consciousness faded.
I could still feel Sam’s arms wrap around me, feel him blow air into me, feel the cold wind on my wet skin as I saw him above me, smiling.
He’d brought me back to life.
And now I would take him to his death.
I bent over my knees and sobbed myself raw, coming back to the present when the shivers got too much. I grew hyperaware of every sound in the woods: a breeze rattling branches and rustling pine needles, birds settling into nests, and a low and melancholy moan.
Sylph.
I licked moisture back into my cold-chapped lips and tried not to let my voice shake too hard. “Cris?” It could have been any of the other sylph, too, but I didn’t know their names, or if they even had names anymore.
Heat flowed around me, making my skin prickle. The sylph hummed quietly beside me. -This way.-
I couldn’t see where we were going. I followed the warmth, frustratingly slow because any time we turned or went around something, I had to test the air. But I was relieved to have been found, and by someone who could thaw me to the core.
Twigs cracked beneath my boots as I followed, and somewhere in the darkness, small animals scurried away. At last, I caught the faint light that looked as though it shone from around a corner. The cave. Usually at night, sylph lined up at the exit, absorbing the light so anyone—or any creatures—wandering past wouldn’t see it.
“Thank you for finding me,” I murmured to the sylph, then headed inside. When I squinted through the dim light, everyone appeared to be sleeping in their bags. No one stirred as I pulled off my snow-dusted coat and boots and shoved them in a corner, but when I searched for my sleeping bag and found it near Sam’s—though not as near as it had been earlier—I caught the whites of his eyes in lantern light when he blinked.
I paused, crouched by my sleeping bag. I’d been ready to slide it away from him so I wouldn’t forget when I first woke up in the morning.
But our eyes met, and for a moment I hoped he’d say something or open his sleeping bag in invitation. We’d had fights before, and reconciling kisses were always sweet. Instead, he gave a slight nod—acknowledgment of my return—and closed his eyes.