“My kind are opportunistic feeders,” Hoa says.
Yeah, that’s exactly what you were afraid he would say.
“And apparently very damned hungry? There were a lot of people here. Most of them must be missing.”
“We, too, put aside surplus resources for later, Essun.”
You rub your face with your one remaining hand, trying and failing to not visualize a gigantic stone eater larder somewhere, now stuffed full of brightly colored statues. “Evil Earth. Why do you bother with me, then? I’m not as—easy a meal as those.”
“Lesser members of my kind need to strengthen themselves. I don’t.” There is a very slight shift in the inflection of Hoa’s voice. By this point you know him; that was contempt. He’s a proud creature (even he will admit). “They are poorly made, weak, little better than beasts. We were so lonely in those early years, and at first we had no idea what we were doing. The hungry ones are the result of our fumbling.”
You waver, because you don’t really want to know … but you haven’t been a coward for some years now. So you steel yourself and turn to him and then say, “You’re making another one now. Aren’t you? From—from me. If it’s not about food for you, then it’s … reproduction.” Horrifying reproduction, if it is dependent on the death-by-petrification of a human being. And there must be more to it than just turning people to stone. You think about the kirkhusa at the roadhouse, and Jija, and the woman back in Castrima whom you killed. You think about how you hit her, smashed her with magic, for the not-crime of making you relive Uche’s murder. But Alabaster was not the same, in the end, as what you did to that woman. She was a shining, brightly colored collection of gemstones. He was an ugly lump of brown rock—and yet the brown rock was finely made, precisely crafted, careful, where the woman was a disorderly mess beneath her surface beauty.
Hoa is silent in answer to your question, which is an answer in itself. And then you finally remember. Antimony, in the moments after you closed the Obelisk Gate, but before you teetered into magic-traumatized slumber. Beside her, another stone eater, strange in his whiteness, disturbing in his familiarity. Oh, Evil Earth, you don’t want to know, but—“Antimony used that …” Too-small lump of brown stone. “Used Alabaster. As raw material to—to, oh rust, to make another stone eater. And she made it look like him.” You hate Antimony all over again.
“He chose his own shape. We all do.”
This slaps your rage out of its spiral. Your stomach clenches, this time in something other than revulsion. “That—then—” You have to take a deep breath. “Then it’s him? Alabaster. He’s … he’s …” You can’t make yourself say the word.
Flick and Hoa faces you, expression compassionate, but somehow also warning. “The lattice doesn’t always form perfectly, Essun,” he says. The tone is gentle. “Even when it does, there is always … loss of data.”
You have no idea what this means and yet you’re shaking. Why? You know why. Your voice rises. “Hoa, if that’s Alabaster, if I can talk to him—”
“No.”
“Why the rust not?”
“Because it must be his choice, first.” Harder voice here. A reprimand. You flinch. “More importantly, because we are fragile at the beginning, like all new creatures. It takes centuries for us, the who of us, to … cool. Even the slightest of pressures—like you, demanding that he fit himself to your needs rather than his own—can damage the final shape of his personality.”
You take a step back, which surprises you because you hadn’t realized you were getting in his face. And then you sag. Alabaster is alive, but not. Is Stone Eater Alabaster even remotely the same as the flesh-and-blood man you knew? Does that even matter anymore, now that he has transformed so completely? “I’ve lost him again, then,” you murmur.
Hoa doesn’t seem to move at first, but there’s a brief flit of wind against your side, and abruptly a hard hand nudges the back of your soft one. “He will live for an eternity,” Hoa says, as softly as his hollow voice can manage. “For as long as the Earth exists, something of who he was will, too. You’re the one still in danger of being lost.” He pauses. “But if you choose not to finish what we have begun, I will understand.”
You look up and then, for only maybe the second or third time, you think you understand him. He knows you’re pregnant. Maybe he knew it before you did, though what that means to him, you cannot guess. He knows what underlies your thoughts about Alabaster, too, and he’s saying … that you aren’t alone. That you don’t have nothing. You have Hoa, and Ykka and Tonkee and maybe Hjarka, friends, who know you in all your rogga monstrosity and accept you despite it. And you have Lerna—quietly demanding, relentless Lerna, who does not give up and does not tolerate your excuses and does not pretend that love precludes pain. He is the father of another child that will probably be beautiful. All of your children so far have been. Beautiful, and powerful. You close your eyes against regret.
But that brings the sounds of the city to your ears, and you are startled to catch laughter on the wind, loud enough to carry up from the ground level, probably over by one of the communal fires. Which reminds you that you have Castrima, too, if you want it. This ridiculous comm of unpleasant people who are impossibly still together, which you have fought for and which has, however grudgingly, fought for you in return. It pulls your mouth into a smile.
“No,” you say. “I’ll do what needs doing.”
Hoa considers you. “You’re certain.”
Of course you are. Nothing has changed. The world is broken and you can fix it; that’s what Alabaster and Lerna both charged you to do. Castrima is more reason for you to do it, not less. And it’s time you stopped being a coward, too, and went to find Nassun. Even if she hates you. Even if you left her to face a terrible world alone. Even if you are the worst mother in the world … you did your best.
And maybe it means you’re choosing one of your children—the one who has the best chance of survival—over the other. But that’s no different from what mothers have had to do since the dawn of time: sacrifice the present, in hopes of a better future. If the sacrifice this time has been harder than most … Fine. So be it. This is a mother’s job, too, after all, and you’re a rusting ten-ringer. You’ll see to it.
“So what are we waiting for?” you ask.
“Only you,” Hoa replies.
“Right. How much time do we have?”
“Perigee is in two days. I can get you to Corepoint in one.”
“Okay.” You take a deep breath. “I need to say some goodbyes.”
With perfect bland casualness, Hoa says, “I can carry others with us.”