I smoothed the gray ripples of wool and synthetic silk that hung to my ankles—concealing a pair of thick tights so my legs wouldn’t freeze. The sleeves hugged my wrists, delicate fingerless mitts covered my hands, and I kept a synthetic silk scarf around my neck. The blue matched the rose Sarit threaded into my braid.
“It’s one of Sam’s dresses. From before. We had to do a lot of work to make it fit.” A few generations ago, he—she?—had been taller and curvier, and wore a lot of dresses. Maybe when you were a boy most lifetimes, you wore dresses when you got the chance. “But I thought it suited today perfectly.”
“It looks perfect on you.” Sarit stepped back and admired her work with my braid. “Beautiful. Now warm up, or Sam will frown at both of us. I’ll get your music.”
I pulled my flute from its case and played through warm-up exercises and scales. Outside, Sam played similar exercises on the piano; the powerful sound rattled the series of double doors.
By the time I was warmed up, Sarit had finished organizing my music, which was now written on real music paper and given a temporary ending.
She grabbed the music stand she’d stashed here earlier and nodded toward the doors. “Let’s go, dragonfly.”
I laughed at the attempted endearment, but just as we reached the door, Councilor Sine burst inside.
“Ana, finally. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She took a deep breath, eyeing my dress and flute with uncertainty. “I haven’t had any luck locating Cris or Stef. I’m sorry, but I’m sure they’re fine.”
I scowled, far less sure. “Okay. What about Deborl and Merton? And the guy who shoved me?”
She shifted her weight and shook her head. “I had a few people watch Deborl and Merton, but it sounds like they didn’t do anything more suspicious than shovel snow.”
I snorted. “I find it suspicious they get up and pee in the morning.”
Sine cringed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any more help.”
Maybe she really was. Mostly, I hoped she was ready to listen to what I had to say, and what my friends had to say.
Sarit went first, taking my stand and music onto the wide landing. She placed it just enough away from the microphone that it wouldn’t screech—I hoped.
I clutched my flute and went outside, greeted by cold air, the piano’s rich sound, and the fade of conversation around the market as people crowded to look.
“You can do this,” Sam murmured from the piano bench. This instrument was dark, as though stained with midnight; it was ink against the white stone and evergreens and blue roses.
My smile felt tight, fake, but as I stood behind the music stand, positioned so I could see both Sam and the crowd gathering below, I reminded myself why I had to do this: for Anid and Ariana, held in their mothers’ arms as they paused by a tent with mittens and scarves; for the others who’d be born soon and needed care and protection; for those who would stay trapped in the temple, consumed.
I lifted my flute.
There was a soft click as Sarit turned on the microphones.
Sam nodded. I breathed. A long, low chord rang from the piano. The sound vibrated through stone and into my legs, and the world grew silent as we began to play.
My flute whispered at first, evidence of my fear, but I’d played this before, and I could do it again. At home, I’d practiced with Sam, him humming the chords he’d play on the dark piano, because he’d listened to my music and gazed at me with such wonder that I might have flown.
I’d played it a hundred times with Sam correcting my posture and reminding me that cold air would make me sharp. Now on the stage, I pulled myself straight and let my flute sing.
Melancholy melody drifted across the stage, the deep piano chasing after it. I played loneliness and fear, yearning for things unnameable and shining. The sound caught around people, pushed through tents, and heated the air as I gained confidence. My flute stretched, warm and full and silver, and I played as I never had before.
Music grew, shifted into the richer sounds of courage and hope and desire. The piano provided foundation, encouraging my playing, lifting it and somehow revealing new layers of the flute’s voice.
I played of sunsets and snow, the way leaves shifted and fell, and the anticipation of a kiss.
Music moved around the market field, raining from speakers to make people look up, look around. Friends and teachers smiled. Councilors tilted their heads, expressions unreadable. Strangers wore a range of emotions, some I didn’t want to see, so I turned back to my music, back to Sam, and he smiled.
The music gasped with a kiss, surged with fear, and loomed long and low and lonesome where I’d written my experiences in the temple. Heavy chords were billowing smoke across the stage, and I ended with the four notes that began the waltz Sam had composed for me when we met, a haunting echo of blossoming love.
I lowered my flute, and no one in the market field moved.
They were waiting, which was exactly what I’d hoped, but it was much scarier when it was actually happening, all their eyes trained on me.
I’d played. I could do this, too.
Heart thumping, I stepped around my music stand and up to the microphone. I lifted my chin and found the words I’d practiced; it wasn’t much, because others would do most of the talking. I only needed to make an impression.
“I am Ana, a newsoul. The music you just heard is mine, and this”—I held out my flute, which gleamed in sunlight—“survived in spite of someone’s attempt to destroy it and stop me from playing for you today.”
A few people in the crowd shifted. Some went back to shopping.
“I’ve been attacked,” I said, lifting my voice. “People have thrown rocks at me. Beaten me. Spread rumors about me. All in response to one transgression: I was born. The same is going to happen to Lidea’s baby, and Geral’s, and maybe some of yours.
“The reactions to our new knowledge—that more newsouls will be born—have been varied and complicated. Some people have been welcoming. Others have not. I can’t ask that everyone accept us. I know that won’t happen. But this is my plea to you, the people of Heart, and the Council: protect newsouls. Before dismissing us as inconsequential, give us a chance to prove that we are worthwhile.”
I smiled—sort of—and walked toward Sarit, who waited by a column, wearing a wide grin. Sam got up to speak, and I tried to relax. My part was over. Everyone else would do the rest.
“You were great, firefly,” Sarit whispered. She took my flute and headed inside to put it away while I listened to Sam.
His words came like a song. “I met Ana when she escaped a swarm of sylph by leaping into Rangedge Lake. That was the first thing I knew about her: she would rather choose her own destiny.
“The next day, we encountered another sylph. In order to rescue me, she burned her hands, even after having been told that any significant sylph burn would grow and kill the victim. A lie, as we all know. But that didn’t stop her. That was the second thing I learned about Ana: she is selfless.
“Ana taught herself how to read, memorize music, and survive. Many of you have had the privilege of teaching her and have seen how quickly she acquires new skills. Her very first night in Heart, I left her in my parlor while I cleaned up. When I returned, she was sitting at my piano”—his voice cracked—“and she’d already figured out how to read music. Not long after, she composed her own minuet. The beautiful piece you heard today is only her second composition.”
My face ached with heat, from the people staring at me. He wasn’t supposed to brag about me, just encourage discussion. This was embarrassing.
“Yet when she arrived in Heart, she was not welcomed. In her absence, a law had been made to keep her from living as an adult, though she was already three years past her first quindec. She wasn’t allowed farther than the guard station until she agreed to lessons and curfews and progress reports, as though she were less than human. Less than everyone else simply because she is new.”
I wanted to find a cozy rock to hide under. If it were possible for a face to glow with so much blood rushing upward, mine did. People kept looking at me and hmming.
“During Templedark,” Sam said, his voice deeper, “when Menehem told her his intentions, Ana did everything in her power to save souls. She warned everyone of the price of dying during those hours. She sought me out when I’d gone to fight—and she rescued me again, this time from a dragon.
“Have any of you ever seen me not die when a dragon was trying to kill me?”
A few people chuckled nervously.
“That is what I want you to understand when I tell you we need newsouls. We need them to have privileges and rights, just like the rest of us. We need to encourage their talents and growth. No one will deny education is necessary, but Ana has proven ten times over that she can be trusted, and she will do anything in order to protect our community. It’s her community as well.”
Just as Sam finished speaking, screams flashed throughout the crowd. A commotion pushed its way between tents, coming toward the stage. Men in black coats dragged something behind them.
I walked back to Sam and the microphone to get a better look. “What’s going on?” My voice carried from speakers everywhere as screams grew louder and people hurried to get out of the black-coated men’s way.
One was Merton; his huge frame was impossible to mistake as he crashed up the half-moon stairs. Deborl hurried after him, and between them…
Meuric.
The reek of his putrid wounds heralded his appearance, all broken and seeping like he’d been before.
I staggered back. Sam caught me, arms tight around my waist.
“Is that Meuric?” His tone was incredulous, and the microphone dropped it all across the market field. People rushed like colliding waves, many away from Meuric’s decaying body, and even more toward because they couldn’t see the horror; they’d only heard Sam’s words.
Meuric did not move by his own power. Merton carried him, while Deborl made a show of assistance. Other Councilors rushed in, though I couldn’t guess their intentions. They wanted to help him? Keep people away?
“Where’s a medic?” Sam leaned toward the microphone. “Rin, we need you on the stairs.”
“Don’t bother.” Deborl shoved his way to the microphone. “Meuric isn’t going to live. His bones have been shattered. His eye was carved out. He’s been starving for months.”
“How is he still alive?” Councilor Frase scrambled up the steps, gaping at the mess on Meuric’s clothes and the way his body drooped. “Oh, Janan. Give mercy!” At the top of the steps, Frase bent over and threw up.
I gagged on the miasma of decay and vomit, backing toward the columns and piano like they could save me. Sam turned gray, trying vainly to hide my eyes, as though I hadn’t seen this before in the smothering quiet of the temple.
Screams crescendoed as Merton positioned Meuric’s fading body where everyone could see it. The crowd pushed around to the front of the steps, leaving tents and stalls untended. Shouts of disgust rang out.
Deborl spoke into the microphone and motioned at Meuric. “This is what the newsoul has done. She obtained a key to the temple, to our temple, and took Meuric inside, where she all but killed him. To mock Janan, she left him there, broken. I know such beliefs have fallen out of favor, but Meuric was once called Janan’s Hallow. And to leave him there in this state is one of the highest insults.”
The screams became cacophony, deafening. Sam grabbed my hand and tried to pull me toward the Councilhouse, but I felt like stone. I couldn’t look away from Meuric, and from Deborl, because he was right. I had left Meuric there. I’d stabbed him, kicked him into the pit, and then abandoned him. And even when I found him in the temple again, I did nothing.