Infinite

25 BURDEN

A DEEP RUMBLE traveled through the earth, shaking the floor, causing lights to flicker. In the other rooms, machinery clattered and banged. A wooden beam snapped.

My heart thundered as Sam grabbed me and held me under a doorway. Stef moved to the opposite door, while sylph flew through the mill, wailing as the earthquake intensified. Windows rattled and glass cracked, but Sarit just sat in her nest of blankets and waited for everything to stop moving.

“They happen a lot,” she said when the world was silenced again. She stood up and straightened her clothes. “I’ll make sure nothing is broken.”

“We’ll go with you.” Sam left the doorway.

I grabbed our SEDs, and the four of us crept through the hall, looking inside rooms for anything out of place.

A few machines had shifted over the floor and one of the looms had a cracked frame, but everything seemed well, otherwise.

I slipped my hand into Sam’s as we followed Stef and Sarit around the mill, and Sarit pointed out all the things she’d done to keep the building from collapsing on her during earthquakes.

“They’re getting worse,” she said. “At first it was just one or two a day, nothing nearly as big as the one the night of the new year. But now we have four or five a day, and most of them are pretty strong. A while ago, Deborl sent people to dispose of all hazardous chemicals in the city; that way they don’t accidentally spill.”

I shuddered, trying not to imagine what kind of chemicals Menehem might have left in the city—chemicals that could eat through buildings and cause fires, and no doubt worse.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Sam. “For earlier. For not panicking. For taking care of me when I did panic.”

He kissed my hand.

“I don’t know why I acted that way. It’s not like I’ve never seen someone die before.” I shuddered with the weight of memories. I’d seen Cris die in the temple. Li shot outside her own house. Menehem burned to death by sylph. Meuric falling apart on the Councilhouse steps—after I’d stabbed him in the eye and kicked him into a pit months before.

I’d seen too much death.

“Just because you’ve seen it before,” Sam murmured, “doesn’t mean it’s easier to deal with the next time. Whit was your friend. A teacher. And considering all we’ve survived together, a lucky shot with a pistol . . .” He stared down at his socked feet.

“I miss Armande, too. I wish we could hear him complain about the state of the market field statues, or too many people skipping breakfast.”

“He was going to start voice lessons.”

“And teach me how to bake turnovers.” I sighed and sat on a crate.

“It’s scary,” Sam said, “knowing they’ll never come back. Knowing that one day—maybe in just a few days—that will be us, too.”

I hugged myself. “We’ve lost so many friends in our quest to stop Janan’s ascension. We have to stop him, no matter what. We have to make their sacrifices matter.”

“We will.”

High-pitched wailing broke the quiet as a sylph flew through the door, singeing the wood as it passed through. Everyone jumped, and I strained my ears to find meanings in the cacophony.

Other sylph swarmed around their fellow, humming and singing to console it.

At last, Cris broke free. -Merton has returned to the city with his warriors. They’ve brought their prize. They’re coming up South Avenue with it.-

Without speaking, we were all running back to the storage room, fumbling for boots and coats and scarves. Then, more quietly, we sneaked into the night, keeping to the shadows. Sylph concealed our presence as we moved west, toward South Avenue.

Lights shone across the road, reflecting snow and white stone houses in the southwestern residential quarter, though those were mostly hidden by trees. People filled the street, shivering in the cold weather. Above everything, the temple rose in the center of the city, blazing like a moon crashed to earth.

“This way,” Sarit murmured. She took my hand and pulled me toward the pottery mill, a multistory building made of stone and wood. We entered through one of the small side doors, and she took us up a narrow staircase. “This leads to the roof, where we can watch. I try not to get lost in the crowd if I can help it.”

The stairs creaked under the four of us, and the heat from the sylph made the closed space unbearable, but then she pushed open a hatch and brought down a ladder. Cold, fresh air blew in, and we all climbed onto the roof.

“Stay low,” Sarit cautioned. “The templelight will give you away if you’re not careful.”

The dull roar of voices rose up as we crawled to the western edge of the roof. From here, I could see the four main avenues of the city, glowing under the light of the temple. The city wall stood bright white in a perfect circle, and from the Southern Arch, a brilliant lamp shone in on a large cluster of men and women wearing red from head to toe.

The group bore a litter on their shoulders, though whatever they carried on it was covered by a heavy black cloth, with ropes securing it. More supplies for the cage?

The cage itself stood right where Sarit had said: in the industrial quarter, where warehouses used to be. It was close to the market field—therefore close to the temple—and rose at least three stories into the air. Indeed, it looked big enough to hold a small troll, though the electric lines running into its base seemed unusual. Perhaps they wanted to shock whatever they were going to put inside it.

Whatever was being carried on that litter?

The procession made its way up South Avenue slowly. Their burden must have been heavy. Citizens of Heart followed behind them, their chatter loud and frenzied as they gathered in the market field. Focused lights blared down on the field as the red-clothed group called out a count, knelt, and then lowered the litter to the cobblestones.

The bundle trembled, but that might have been from the impact, not because it was alive. Or aware.

I sort of hoped it was dead, whatever it was.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Stef murmured, leaning closer as though a hand-width would make a difference. “I think that’s Merton in the front.”

Sure enough, the man in front was enormous, with wide shoulders and arms as big as both of my legs. Even from this distance, he was huge. As the crowd began to quiet down, I caught snatches of Merton’s speech.

“. . . months of travel . . . five dead . . . Janan’s glorious return.”

I shook my head. Sam seemed to be straining, too. Though we both had excellent hearing, Merton was just too far away.

“He’s talking about their journey,” Sam muttered. “But I can’t tell where they went. Or what they brought back.”

We all seemed to hold our breaths.

“Someone’s saying they want to see it.” Sam tilted his head, as though to hear better. “Merton is saying Deborl will reveal it only when Janan allows. I wonder how Deborl has been communicating with Janan while we have the key.”

“He’s probably just making things up,” Stef said. “Though that cage is really specific.”

“He could have Meuric’s old diaries and plans,” I said. Wind danced over our roof, making me shiver. “Meuric and Janan had lots of time to plan things, after all.”

Stef made a noncommittal noise, and we all peered into the distance as a smaller figure emerged from around the side of the market field.

“Is that Deborl?” I whispered.

“I think so.” Sarit scooted closer to me. “He’s been hiding in the Councilhouse until he’s ready to address everyone. He says he’s in deep discussion with Janan, but he’s been doing a lot of delegating. Like someone in charge of building the cage, though they’re only given enough instructions for the next step, not the whole thing. Someone in charge of all the guards. And someone in charge of rationing food.”

“It gives him the air of importance,” Sam said. “Deborl likes to seem important.”

Sarit snorted a little.

In the distance, Deborl walked around to the front of the litter and climbed onto the edge. It only brought him up a little higher; he was short, barely taller than me.

“Now what are they saying?” Sarit asked.

Sam shook his head. “I can’t tell. Deborl’s voice doesn’t carry like Merton’s.”

We watched until the crowd began to disperse before we climbed off the roof and headed back to the mill. After assigning sylph to guard the building, we sent a few more to spy from shadows, and others to melt snow all over the city to help us avoid leaving tracks. Deborl already knew we were back in Heart, but that didn’t mean we had to advertise our location.

“I’ll start looking through SED messages and listening in on calls,” Stef said. “Maybe someone will say something useful.”

I nodded. “We’ve been doing a lot lately. Hiking across the world. Staying hidden in a locked-up city. It seems to me the best thing we can do until Soul Night is gather information, sabotage whatever we can, and go over every step of our plan for how to stop Janan from ascending on Soul Night.”

I wanted to do as Sam had suggested as well: free the prisoners. They probably wouldn’t help us, but it would annoy Deborl.

“And keep hiding.” Sarit stayed at my side, feigning a smile, though her tone betrayed how desperately alone she’d been for the last months.

“Yes.” I looped my arm with Sarit’s. “And we’ll be together.”

“Look at your SEDs.” The next afternoon, Stef reclined against a stack of crates in the storage room, blankets cushioning her against the splintering wood. “I’ve sent a keyword-recognition program to your devices. The basic searches are already installed: messages with our names or the words ‘Janan,’ ‘cage,’ or ‘Soul Night’ will be sent to you, and voice calls with those words will buzz your SED so you can listen.”

Sam slouched and eyed his SED with distrust. “This thing is already confusing enough. You’re making it worse.”

“It’s not Stef’s Everything Device for no reason.” She smirked and waved him closer so she could help him. “Look, it’s not hard. There’s a buzz coming in now. . . .”

“This will make spying on others a lot less tedious.” I shifted through several tagged messages and glanced at Sarit, who was doing the same. “But no one seems to know what Merton brought back, only that it’s important to Janan. And I had guessed that.”

“Me too.” Sarit put her SED in her pocket. “I was thinking about the people in prison. You and Sam were talking about freeing them, right?”

I nodded. “They probably won’t want to help, but I want to do something. We can’t sabotage much without hurting people, and we can’t just tie up Deborl for a week; his house is too well guarded.”

Sarit grinned. “I think I know a way to get them out, but we’d have to wait until right before dawn.”

It didn’t take much discussion before I was convinced, and we spent the remainder of the evening preparing and going over Sarit’s plan until we were all confident we could pull it off.

Meanwhile, Stef kept an eye on her SED, monitoring calls and messages. We learned that people were afraid: afraid of Deborl and what he’d done to the city; afraid of Janan and what it would mean if he ascended, or didn’t; and afraid of the rumors of the newsoul returning to Heart. What if she ruined everything?

Hah. Maybe they thought I had a real plan that didn’t rely on dragons and poison and trapping myself inside the temple.

But it gave me a measure of satisfaction that people were afraid of Deborl and Janan. We couldn’t rely on anyone to help us—they were more likely to betray us out of fear, like we’d argued with Whit and Orrin in the library—but it was a relief to know not everyone was ready to welcome Janan.

After a short rest, our SEDs beeped an hour after midnight, and we all dressed in red, the same color Deborl’s guards wore. Our jackets and trousers weren’t exactly like the guards’ uniforms, but it was the best we could do with our limited resources and time; we were lucky to have all this cloth to begin with.

We left the textile mill, only a few sylph staying behind to guard it, and moved north toward the temple and Councilhouse. I tucked my hair into my cap as I followed Sam into the darkness.

Shadows pooled around us as we headed for South Avenue. We wouldn’t be bothered unless someone got too close. Wearing the red laser pistols shoved into our waistbands, this was an opportunity to get a look around the city. As long as no one saw through our disguises.

As we came alongside the immense cage, I dared a glance. Templelight illuminated the bars and wires and troop of guards. Whatever Merton had brought back, it remained covered and unmoving.

“What do you think it is?” I muttered as Sam lifted a hand toward the guards around the cage. They waved back. For someone who spent most of his time writing music at home, he was alarmingly good at subterfuge. Stef was a terrible influence on him.

“I wish I knew.” He hurried me along. Stef and Sarit would be waiting for us, since they’d gone straight to the market field. A big group would look suspicious, Sarit had said, because guards usually went in pairs. Since she’d been in the city the longest, I trusted her word.

After the dim road, the templelight was blinding as we crossed the market field to meet up with the others. We took a side door into the Councilhouse.

“Does it seem brighter to you?” Sam asked, shutting the door after a few sylph followed us in.

“It’s been getting brighter these last couple of weeks,” Sarit said.

Sam’s voice grew heavy. “I wonder what it will look like on Soul Night.”

The thought made me shiver. Four more days.

Sarit glanced down the hall, which was dark and quiet. Everyone was sleeping or wishing they were. She’d had lots of time to study the patterns and habits of guards, and while there was no time when it would be easy to sneak past everyone, the predawn hours provided the least resistance.

Shadows at our heels, we crept through the halls, straining to catch any sound of movement. Sarit’s white-knuckled grip on her pistol never eased, but the building remained quiet, save the rumble and clatter of the world trembling beneath us.

Breaking into prison, it turned out, wasn’t very difficult. Stef and Sam went in first, and after a few moments, they signaled Sarit and me to follow.

Three bodies slumped over a desk and chairs, clean burn holes in their temples. When I looked at Sam and Stef, they kept their eyes averted and motioned down a corridor. “That way,” she said. “I’ll unlock the cells from here.”

I took Sarit’s hand and dragged her with me. Sam and the sylph trailed after us, the latter keeping their heat low to avoid burning anything; we didn’t want to leave evidence of their working with us.

Slumbering people crowded the cells, sleeping bags pressed against one another. There had to be a hundred people in this dark place of sweat and stench and hunger, with no empty floor space in any of the ten cells. They sighed and groaned in their sleep.

I turned on the lights.

Several people burrowed deeper into their sleeping bags, while others didn’t move. A few pushed up onto their elbows and blinked around.

“Don’t be alarmed,” I said, conscious of the sylph around me like a cloak, and my friends walking up behind me. “We’ve come to free you.”

“Is that Ana?” Whispers and mutters erupted throughout the cells. A few shook others awake, and the prison grew loud with voices and rustling sleeping bags.

“The newsoul. She’s back.”

“She’s going to get us all killed.”

“Are those sylph?”

“Sylph!”

Within moments, every prisoner was on their feet and pressed as far back inside their cells as possible. One or two wept silently. Most just stared, terror in their eyes.

“Just like Menehem,” breathed someone. “Come to kill us.”

“I’m not here to hurt anyone!” My voice rang out over the cells. “We came to set you free. Stef is back there, ready to open your cells. But first I need you to know something.”

The clamor of voices dulled, and gazes focused on me. I drew a few deep breaths to clear my head, but their fear and distrust was palpable.

“You’ve all been imprisoned for questioning Deborl, or refusing to follow his orders. Others have been killed.” I met a man’s grave eyes, and a woman’s look of despair. “I know what you’ve suffered in the last few months.

“You know many of us left Heart and Range after the new year. Sarit and Armande stayed behind to watch and wait for our return. Because though I’ve been exiled, I swore I’d return and do everything I could to save Heart, the people here, and the people who left. I still intend to do that. Armande died at Deborl’s hands several weeks ago, but Sarit was able to tell us what you’ve endured, and I’m here to tell you something: it will get worse.”

“What do you mean?” someone asked, over the ripple of mutters. “I thought you were going to free us.”

“I am here to free you.” I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. “But Soul Night is coming, and Deborl is preparing for Janan’s return. His ascension will trigger a series of massive eruptions. Whit”—his name caught in my throat, tangling with grief—“finished applying Rahel’s seismic research to these signs, these earthquakes and dying plants and bulges in the land. There will be days and days of eruptions. The ash and pyroclasts will smother Heart and Range and all the surrounding lands. There will be nothing left.”

“Do we all leave, then?” asked one of the boys, maybe a few years older than Sam and me. He kept eyeing the sylph, my silent, shadowy guardians.

I shook my head. “You can try, but you won’t be able to outrun the eruption.”

“Then what do we do?” asked a girl, a few years younger than me.

“I have a plan to keep Janan from returning—from ascending.” I bit back revealing exactly what that plan was. Everyone already thought I was like Menehem. No need to give them more ammunition. “I’m going to do everything in my power to stop him, but I can’t do it alone.”

“What do you need?” The girl stepped forward, scraping black hair from her face. “What can we do?”

“Where will everyone be when Soul Night begins?” I asked.

“By the cage,” someone said. Others muttered agreement.

“All right. Then that’s where I’m asking you to be, too. Disguise yourselves. Do whatever you must to keep from being caught until then, but I’ll need you in that crowd. While Sam and I work, Stef and Sarit will be setting off distractions throughout the city, and we need people to point them out. We need to keep Deborl, Merton, and all of them away from what we’re doing.”

“And what will you be doing?” asked a man in the back of one of the cells.

I met his eyes, keeping mine hard and steady. “Doing anything I can to stop Janan from destroying everything.”

“If we survive this,” Sarit said, “maybe we’ll be able to tell you everything Ana’s done for Heart, oldsouls and newsouls alike. You wouldn’t believe it now, but if we succeed, you will. If we succeed, you’ll understand and believe what her friends already know: Ana can do anything.”

I eyed her askance and frowned, but said nothing. They needed hope, and Sarit was giving it to them. Still, I wished she wouldn’t use me as a vehicle for that hope. Yes, I’d do everything in my power to save Heart and the people I cared about, but my plan sounded crazy even to me. How was I supposed to succeed in this impossible task?

“Well,” I said, “I’ll certainly try.”

Sam’s hand curled around mine, and his thumb rubbed across my skin in a warm rhythm. He touched me all the time now, my hands or my hair or my back. The end of the world loomed nearer every moment, and time to touch each other was running out.

“And the sylph?” a girl asked. “How do they fit in?”

Black roses bloomed all around, and comforting heat enveloped the prison as the cell doors unlocked, then swung open. A trickle at first, and then the rest, the prisoners stepped out of their cells. They approached my sylph and me with only a little hesitation as I said, “They’re my army.”