You’re looking at Jija again. You see one piece of jewel in the perfect likeness of a pinky finger. You know that pinky finger. You kissed that pinky finger—
It’s too much, you can’t do this, you’ve got to get a grip, get out of here before you break down any further. “I—I n-need—” Deep breath for calm. “I need some time to consider the situation. Would you go and let your headwoman know I’ll come pay my respects shortly?”
The young man side-gazes you for a moment, but you know now that it’s not a bad thing if you seem a little off. He’s used to Guardian-style offness. Perhaps because of this, he nods and shuffles back awkwardly. “Can I ask you a question?”
No. “Yes?”
He bites his lip. “What’s going on? It feels like … Nothing that’s happening is normal lately. I mean, it’s a Season, but even that feels wrong. Guardians not taking roggas to the Fulcrum. Roggas doing things nobody’s ever heard of them doing.” He chin-points toward the pile of Jija. “Whatever the rust went on up north. Even those things in the sky, the obelisks … It’s all … People are talking. Saying maybe the world’s not going to go back to normal. Ever.”
You’re staring at Jija, but you’re thinking of Alabaster. Don’t know why.
“One person’s normal is another person’s Shattering.” Your face aches from smiling. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe, and you’re terrible at it. “Would’ve been nice if we could’ve all had normal, of course, but not enough people wanted to share. So now we all burn.”
He stares at you for a long, vaguely horrified moment. Then he mumbles something and finally goes away, skirting wide around Hoa. Good riddance.
You crouch beside Jija. He is beautiful like this, all jewels and colors. He is monstrous like this. Beneath the colors you perceive the crazed every-which-wayness of the magic threads in him. It’s wholly different from what happened to your arm and your breast. He has been smashed apart and rearranged at random, on an infinitesimal level.
“What have I done?” you ask. “What have I made her?”
Hoa’s toes have appeared in your peripheral vision. “Strong,” he suggests.
You shake your head. Nassun was that on her own.
“Alive.”
You close your eyes again. It’s the only thing that should matter, that you’ve brought three babies into the world and this one, this precious last one, is still breathing. And yet.
I made her me. Earth eat us both, I made her into me.
And maybe that’s why Nassun is still alive. But it’s also, you realize as you stare at what she’s done to Jija, and as you realize you can’t even get revenge on him for Uche because your daughter has done that for you … why you are terrified of her.
And there it is—the thing you haven’t faced in all this time, the kirkhusa with ash and blood on its muzzle. Jija owed you a debt of pain for your son, but you owe Nassun, in turn. You didn’t save her from Jija. You haven’t been there when she’s needed you, here at the literal end of the world. How dare you presume to protect her? Gray Man and Schaffa; she has found her own, better, protectors. She has found the strength to protect herself.
You are so very proud of her. And you don’t dare go anywhere near her, ever again.
Hoa’s heavy, hard hand presses down on your good shoulder. “It isn’t wise for us to stay here.”
You shake your head. Let the people of this comm come. Let them realize you aren’t a Guardian. Let one of them finally notice how alike you and Nassun look. Let them bring their crossbows and slingshots and—
Hoa’s hand curves to grip your shoulder, vise-tight. You know it’s coming and still you don’t bother to brace yourself as he drags you into the earth, back north. You keep your eyes open on purpose this time, and the sight doesn’t bother you. The fires within the earth are nothing to what you’re feeling right now, failed mother that you are.
The two of you emerge from the ground in a quiet part of the encampment, though it’s near a small stand of trees that a lot of people, by the stink, have apparently been using for a pisser. When Hoa lets you go, you start to walk away and then stop again. Your thoughts have gone blank. “I don’t know what to do.”
Silence from Hoa. Stone eaters don’t bother with unnecessary movement or words, and Hoa has already made his intentions clear. You imagine Nassun talking with Gray Man, and you laugh softly, because he seems more animate and talkative than most of his kind. Good. He’s a good stone eater, for her.
“I don’t know where to go,” you say. You’ve been sleeping in Lerna’s tent lately, but that isn’t what you mean. Inside you, there’s a clump of emptiness. A raw hole. “I don’t have anything left now.”
Hoa says, “You have comm and kin. You’ll have a home, once you reach Rennanis. You have your life.”
Do you really have these things? The dead have no wishes, says stonelore. You think of Tirimo, where you didn’t want to wait for death to come for you, and so you killed the comm. Death is always with you. Death is you.
Hoa says to your slumped back, “I can’t die.”
You frown, jarred out of melancholy by this apparent non sequitur. Then you understand: He’s saying you won’t ever lose him. He will not crumble away like Alabaster. You can’t ever be surprised by the pain of Hoa’s loss the way you were with Corundum or Innon or Alabaster or Uche, or now Jija. You can’t hurt Hoa in any way that matters.
“It’s safe to love you,” you murmur, in startled realization.
“Yes.”
Surprisingly, this eases the knot of silence in your chest. Not much, but … but it helps.
“How do you do it?” you ask. It’s hard to imagine. Not being able to die even when you want to, even as everything you know and care about falters and fails. Having to go on, no matter what. No matter how tired you are.
“Move forward,” Hoa says.
“What?”
“Move. Forward.”
And then he is gone, into the earth. Nearby, somewhere, if you need him. Right now, though, he’s right: you don’t.
Can’t think. You’re thirsty, and hungry and tired besides. It stinks in this part of camp. The stump of your arm hurts. Your heart hurts more.
You take a step, though, toward the camp. And then another. And another.
Forward.
2490: Antarctics near eastern coast; unnamed farming comm twenty miles from Jekity City. Initially unknown event caused everyone in the comm to turn to glass. (?? Is this right? Glass, not ice? Find tertiary sources.) Later, headman’s second husband found alive in Jekity City; discovered to be rogga. Under intensive questioning by comm militia, he admitted to somehow doing the deed. Claimed that it was the only way to stop the Jekity volcano from erupting, though no eruption signs were observed. Reports indicate the man’s hands were also stone. Questioning interrupted by a stone eater, who killed seventeen militia members and took rogga into earth; both vanished.
—Project notes of Yaetr Innovator Dibars
8
Nassun underground