I know exactly what he means. “Not without her permission.”
His face twists. I’m faintly repelled before I remember that not long ago I, too, was so constantly, wetly, in motion. Glad that’s over with. “How honorable of you,” he says, in a tone that he probably means as an insult.
No more honorable than his decision not to eat your other arm. Some things are simple decency.
Some while later, probably not years because he hasn’t moved, possibly hours because he does look so very tired, he says, “I don’t know what we’re going to do now. Castrima’s dying.” As if to emphasize these words, the crystal around us stops glowing for a moment, dropping us into darkness lit harshly by the light from outside the apartment. Then the light returns. Lerna exhales, his breath redolent of fear-aldehydes. “We’re commless.”
It isn’t worth pointing out that they would have also been commless if their enemies had succeeded in slaughtering Essun and the other orogenes. He’ll figure it out eventually, in his plodding, sweaty way. But since there’s one thing he does not know, I speak it aloud.
“Rennanis is dead,” I say. “Essun killed it.”
“What?”
He heard me. He just doesn’t believe what he heard.
“You mean… she iced it? From here?”
No, she used magic, but all that matters is, “Everyone within its walls is now dead.”
He ponders this for eternities, or maybe seconds. “An Equatorial city would have vast storecaches. Enough to last us years.” Then his brow furrows. “Traveling there and bringing that many goods back would be a major undertaking.”
He isn’t a stupid man. I ponder the past while he figures things out. When he gasps, I pay attention to him again.
“Rennanis is empty.” He stares at me, then gets to his feet, thumping and sloshing across the room. “Evil Earth—Hoa, that’s what you’re saying! Intact walls, intact homes, storecaches… and who the rust are we going to have to fight for it? No one with sense goes north, these days. We could live there.”
At last. I return to my contemplations even as he mutters to himself and paces and finally laughs aloud. But then Lerna stops, staring at me. His eyes narrow in suspicion.
“You do nothing for us,” he says softly. “Only for her. Why are you telling me this?”
I shape my lips into a curve, and his jaw tightens in disgust. I shouldn’t have bothered. “Essun wants somewhere safe for Nassun,” I say.
Silence, for maybe an hour. Or a moment. “She doesn’t know where Nassun is.”
“The Obelisk Gate permits sufficient precision of perception.”
A flinch. I remember the words for movement: flinch, inhale, swallow, grimace. “Earthfires. Then—” He sobers and turns to look at the bedroom curtain.
Yes. When you wake, you will want to go find your daughter. I watch this realization soften Lerna’s face, weigh down the tension of his muscles, slacken his posture. I have no idea what any of these things means.
“Why?” It takes a year for me to realize he’s speaking to me and not himself. By the time I figure it out, however, he has finished the question. “Why do you stay with her? Are you just… hungry?”
I resist the urge to crush his head. “I love her, of course.” There; I’ve managed a civil tone.
“Of course.” Lerna’s voice has grown soft.
Of course.
He leaves then, to ferry the information I’ve given him to the comm’s other leaders. There follows a century, or a week, of frantic activity as the other people of the comm pack and prepare and gather their strength for what is sure to be a long, grueling, and—for a few—deadly journey. But they have no choice. Such is life, in a Season.
Sleep, my love. Heal. I’ll stand guard over you, and be at your side when you set forth again. Of course. Death is a choice. I will make certain of that, for you.
(But not for you.)
20
Nassun, faceted
BUT ALSO…
I listen through the earth. I hear the reverberations. When a new key is cut, her bittings finally ground and sharpened enough that she can connect to the obelisks and make them sing, we all know of it. Those of us who… hope… seek out that singer. We are forever barred from turning the key ourselves, but we can influence its direction. Whenever an obelisk resonates, you may be sure that one of us lurks nearby. We talk. This is how I know.
In the dead of the night Nassun wakes. It’s dark in the barracks, still, so she’s careful not to step on the creakier floorboards as she pulls on her shoes and jacket and makes her way across the room. None of the others stirs, if they even wake and notice. They probably just think she has to go to the outhouse.
Outside, it’s quiet. The sky is beginning to lighten with dawn in the east, though it’s harder to tell now that the ash clouds have thickened. She goes to the top of the downhill path and notices a few lights on in Jekity. Some of the farmers and fishers are up. In Found Moon, though, all is still.
What is it that tugs at her mind? The feel of it is irritating, gummy, as if something is caught in her hair and needs to be yanked free. The sensation is centered in her sessapinae—no. Deeper. This tugs at the light of her spine, the silver between her cells, the threads that bind her to the ground and to Found Moon and to Schaffa and to the sapphire that hovers just above the clouds of Jekity, visible now and again when the clouds break a little. The irritation is… it is… north.
Something is happening up north.
Nassun turns to follow the sensation, climbing the hill up to the crucible mosaic and stopping at its center as the wind makes her hair puffs shiver. Up here she can see the forest that surrounds Jekity spread before her like a map: rounded treetops and occasional outcroppings of ribbon-basalt. Part of her can perceive shifting forces, reverberating lines, connections, amplification. But of what? Why? Something immense.
“What you perceive is the opening of the Obelisk Gate,” says Steel. She is unsurprised to find him suddenly standing beside her.
“More than one obelisk?” Nassun asks, because that’s what she’s sessing. Lots more.
“Every one stationed above this half of the continent. A hundred parts of the great mechanism beginning to work again as they were meant to.” Steel’s voice, baritone and surprisingly pleasant, sounds wistful in this moment. Nassun finds herself wondering about his life, his past, whether he has ever been a child like her. That seems impossible. “So much power. The very heart of the planet is channeled through the Gate… and she uses it for so frivolous a purpose.” A faint sigh. “Then again, so did its original creators, I suppose.”
Somehow, Nassun knows that Steel is talking about her mother with that she. Mama is alive, and angry, and full of so much power.
“What purpose?” Nassun makes herself ask.
Steel’s eyes slide toward her. She has not specified whose purpose she means: her mother’s, or those ancient people who first created and deployed the obelisks. “The destruction of one’s enemies, of course. A small and selfish purpose that feels great, in the moment—though not without consequence.”
Nassun considers what she has learned, and sessed, and seen in the dead smiles of the other two Guardians. “Father Earth fought back,” she says.
“As one does, against those who seek to enslave. That’s understandable, isn’t it?”
Nassun closes her eyes. Yes. It’s all so understandable, really, when she thinks about it. The way of the world isn’t the strong devouring the weak, but the weak deceiving and poisoning and whispering in the ears of the strong until they become weak, too. Then it’s all broken hands and silver threads woven like ropes, and mothers who move the earth to destroy their enemies but cannot save one little boy.
(Girl.)
There has never been anyone to save Nassun. Her mother warned her there never would be. If Nassun ever wants to be free of fear, she has no choice but to forge that freedom for herself.