“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.-
13 BEFORE
WHAT MADE THEM think I could do anything?
-For a long time, sylph hoped you would come. They hoped you would see the truth about Janan. After thousands of years, many gave up that belief, but when they discovered you in Purple Rose Cottage, the news spread to all the sylph.-
“I don’t understand.”
-Phoenixes cursed the sylph. The only way to break the curse is to stop Janan from ascending. However, sylph are incapable of doing this on their own.-
“That doesn’t seem like a very fair curse.”
Cris trilled, like a laugh, and the others burned a little hotter. -No. But the phoenixes told them about the possibility of a newsoul, someone who could break the curse by stopping Janan. And all the sylph swore they would do anything to find this soul, keep it safe. They would do anything necessary to gain their redemption.-