The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,142
risen bright and warm in the ashless blue sky. After pausing for a moment to stare at this sky in wonder and longing and fascination, Tonkee goes back to the edge of the hole, and to the pylon stair. Nassun’s still there, sitting on one of the lower steps next to the brown lump of you. Her knees are drawn up, her head bowed, her completely solidified hand—frozen in the splayed gesture that she used while activating the Gate—resting awkwardly on the step beside her.
Tonkee sits down on your other side, gazing at you for a long moment. Nassun starts and looks up as she becomes aware of another presence, but Tonkee only smiles at her, and awkwardly rests a hand on what was once your hair. Nassun swallows hard, scrubs at the dried tear-tracks on her face, and then nods to Tonkee. They sit together, with you, grieving for a time.
Danel is the one who goes with Nassun, later, to fetch Schaffa from the dead darkness of Warren. The other Guardians, who still had corestones, have turned to jewel. Most seem to have simply died where they lay, though some fell out of their cells in their thrashing, and their glittering bodies sprawl awkwardly against the wall or along the floor.
Schaffa alone still lives. He’s disoriented, weak. As Danel and Nassun help him back up into the surface light, it becomes clear that his hacked-off hair is already streaked with gray. Danel’s worried about the stitched wound on the back of his neck, though it has stopped bleeding and seems to cause Schaffa no pain. That isn’t what’s going to kill him.
Nevertheless. Once he’s capable of standing and the sun has helped to clear his mind somewhat, Schaffa holds Nassun, there beside what remains of you. She doesn’t weep. Mostly she’s just numb. The others come out, Tonkee and Hjarka joining Danel, and they stand with Schaffa and Nassun while the sun sets and the Moon rises again. Maybe it’s a silent memorial service. Maybe they just need time and company to recover from events too vast and strange to comprehend. I don’t know.
Elsewhere in Corepoint, in a garden long since gone to wild meadow, I and Gaewha face Remwha—Steel, Gray Man, whatever—beneath the now-waning Moon.
He’s been here since Nassun made her choice. When he finally speaks, I find myself thinking that his voice has become so thin and weary. Once, he made the very stones ripple with the wry, edged humor of his earthtalk. Now he sounds old. Thousands of years of ceaseless existence will do that to a man.
He says: “I only wanted it to end.”
Gaewha—Antimony, whatever—says, “That isn’t what we were made for.”
He turns his head, slowly, to look at her. It is tiring just to watch him do this. Stubborn fool. There is the despair of ages on his face, all because he refuses to admit that there’s more than one way to be human.
Gaewha offers a hand. “We were made to make the world better.” Her gaze slides to me for support. I sigh inwardly, but offer a hand in truce as well.
Remwha looks at our hands. Somewhere, perhaps among the others of our kind who have gathered to watch this moment, are Bimniwha and Dushwha and Salewha. They forgot who they were long ago, or else they simply prefer to embrace who they are now. Only we three have retained anything of the past. This is both a good and bad thing.
“I’m tired,” he admits.
“A nap might help,” I suggest. “There is the onyx, after all.”
Well! Something of the old Remwha remains. I don’t think I deserved that look.
But he takes our hands. Together, the three of us—and the others, too, all who have come to understand that the world has to change, the war must end—descend into the boiling depths.
The heart of the world is quieter than usual, we find as we take up positions around it. That is a good sign. It does not rage us away at once, which is a better one. We spell out the terms in placatory fluxes of reverberation: The Earth keeps its life-magic, and the rest of us get to keep ours without interference. We have given it back the Moon, and thrown the obelisks in as a surety of good faith. But in exchange, the Seasons must cease.
There is a period of stillness. I know only later that this is several days. In the moment, it feels like another millennium.