The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,124

attempt on its life, and it did—but somehow, perhaps through its years of study, it understood that we were tools of others, not actors of our own volition. Remember, too, that the Earth does not fully understand us. It looks upon human beings and sees short-lived, fragile creatures, puzzlingly detached in substance and awareness from the planet on which their lives depend, who do not understand the harm they tried to do—perhaps because they are so short-lived and fragile and detached. And so it chose for us what seemed, to it, a punishment leavened with meaning: It made us part of it. In my wire chair, I screamed as wave upon wave of alchemy worked over me, changing my flesh into raw, living, solidified magic that looks like stone.

We didn’t get the worst of it; that was reserved for those who had offended the Earth the most. It used the corestone fragments to take direct control of these most dangerous vermin—but this did not work as it intended. Human will is harder to anticipate than human flesh. They were never meant to continue.

I will not describe the shock and confusion I felt, in those first hours after my change. I will not ever be able to answer the question of how I returned to Earth from the Moon; I remember only a nightmare of endless falling and burning, which may have been delirium. I will not ask you to imagine how it felt to suddenly find oneself alone, and tuneless, after a lifetime spent singing to others like myself. This was justice. I accept it; I admit my crimes. I have sought to make up for them. But …

Well. What’s done is done.

In those last moments before we transformed, we did successfully manage to cancel the Burndown command to the two hundred and twenty-nine. Some fragments were shattered by the stress. Others would die over the subsequent millennia, their matrices disrupted by incomprehensible arcane forces. Most went into standby mode, to continue drifting for millennia over a world that no longer needed their power—until, on occasion, one of the fragile creatures below might send a confused, directionless request for access.

We could not stop the Earth’s twenty-seven. We did, however, manage to insert a delay into their command lattices: one hundred years. What the tales get wrong is only the timing, you see? One hundred years after Father Earth’s child was stolen from him, twenty-seven obelisks did burn down to the planet’s core, leaving fiery wounds all over its skin. It was not the cleansing fire that the Earth sought, but it was still the first and worst Fifth Season—what you call the Shattering. Humankind survives because one hundred years is nothing to the Earth, or even to the expanse of human history, but to those who survived the fall of Syl Anagist, it was just time enough to prepare.

The Moon, bleeding debris from a wound through its heart, vanished over a period of days.

And …

I never saw Kelenli, or her child, again. Too ashamed of the monster I’d become, I never sought them out. She lived, though. Now and again I heard the grind and grumble of her stone voice, and those of her several children as they were born. They were not wholly alone; with the last of their magestric technology, the survivors of Syl Anagist decanted a few more tuners and used them to build shelters, contingencies, systems of warning and protection. Those tuners died in time, however, as their usefulness ended, or as others blamed them for the Earth’s wrath. Only Kelenli’s children, who did not stand out, whose strength hid in plain sight, continued. Only Kelenli’s legacy, in the form of the lorists who went from settlement to settlement warning of the coming holocaust and teaching others how to cooperate, adapt, and remember, remains of the Niess.

It all worked, though. You survive. That was my doing, too, isn’t it? I did my best. Helped where I could. And now, my love, we have a second chance.

Time for you to end the world again.

2501: Fault line shift along the Minimal-Maximal: massive. Shockwave swept through half the Nomidlats and Arctics, but stopped at outer edge of Equatorial node network. Food prices rose sharply following year, but famine prevented.

—Project notes of Yaetr Innovator Dibars

13

Nassun and Essun, on the dark side of the world

IT’S SUNSET WHEN NASSUN DECIDES to change the world.

She has spent the day curled beside Schaffa, using his still-ash-flecked old clothes as a pillow, breathing his scent