The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,127

watching everyone and folding her arms. She’s noticeably more restless than usual. “You get there, grab the Moon, shove it into position, and then what? Will we see any sign of the change?”

“The Rifting will go cold,” you say. “That won’t change much in the short term because there’s too much ash in the air already. This Season will have to play itself out, and it’s going to be bad no matter what. The Moon might even make things worse.” You can sess it pulling on the world already; yeah, you’re pretty sure it’ll make things worse. Ykka nods, though. She can sess it, too.

But there’s a long-term loose end that you haven’t been able to figure out yourself. “If I can do it, though, restore the Moon …” You shrug helplessly and look at Hoa.

“It opens room for negotiation,” he says in his hollow voice. Everyone pauses to stare at him. By the flinches, you can tell who’s used to stone eaters and who isn’t. “And perhaps, a truce.”

Ykka grimaces. “‘Perhaps’? So we’ve gone through all this and you can’t even be sure it will stop the Seasons? Evil Earth.”

“No,” you admit. “But it will stop this Season.” That much you’re sure of. That much, alone, is worth it.

Ykka subsides, but she keeps muttering to herself now and again. This is how you know she wants to go, too—but you’re very glad she seems to have talked herself out of it. Castrima needs her. You need to know that Castrima will be here after you’re gone.

Finally everyone is ready. You take Hoa’s right hand with your left. You’ve got no other arm to spare for Lerna, so he wraps an arm around your waist; when you glance at him he nods, steady, determined. On Hoa’s other side are Tonkee and Hjarka and Danel, chain-linked hand to hand.

“This is going to blow, isn’t it?” Hjarka asks. She alone looks nervous, of the set. Danel’s radiating calm, at peace with herself at last. Tonkee’s so excited she can’t stop grinning. Lerna’s just leaning on you, rock-steady the way he always is.

“Probably!” Tonkee says, bouncing a little.

“This seems like a spectacularly bad idea,” Ykka says. She’s leaned against a wall of the room, arms folded, watching the group assemble. “Essie’s got to go, I mean, but the rest of you …” She shakes her head.

“Would you be coming, if you weren’t headwoman?” Lerna asks. It’s quiet. He always drops his biggest rocks like that, quietly and out of nowhere.

She scowls and glares at him. Then throws you a look that’s wary and maybe a little embarrassed, before she sighs and pushes away from the wall. You saw, though. The lump is back in your throat.

“Hey,” you say, before she can flee. “Yeek.”

She glares at you. “I hate that rusting nickname.”

You ignore this. “You told me a while back that you had a stash of seredis. We were supposed to get drunk after I beat the Rennanis army. Remember?”

Ykka blinks, and then a slow smile spreads across her face. “You were in a coma or something. I drank it all myself.”

You glare at her, surprised to find yourself honestly annoyed. She laughs in your face. So much for tender farewells.

But … well. It feels good anyway.

“Close your eyes,” Hoa says.

“He’s not joking,” you add, in warning. You keep yours open, though, as the world goes dark and strange. You feel no fear. You are not alone.

It’s nighttime. Nassun stands on what she thinks of as Corepoint’s town green. It isn’t; a city built before the Seasons would have no need of such a thing. It’s just a place near the enormous hole that is Corepoint’s heart. Around the hole are strangely slanted buildings, like the pylons she saw in Syl Anagist—but these ones are huge, stories high and a block wide apiece. She’s learned that when she gets too near these buildings, which don’t have any doors or windows that she can see, it sets off warnings composed of bright red words and symbols, several feet high apiece, which blaze in the air over the city. Worse are the low, blatting alarm-sounds that echo through the streets—not loud, but insistent, and they make her teeth feel loose and itchy.

(She’s looked into the hole, despite all this. It’s enormous compared to the one that was in the underground city—many times that one’s circumference, so big that it would take her an hour or more to walk all the way around it. Yet for all