The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,7
know how to explain that to him, and you wouldn’t have the energy to try even if you did.
“Help me up,” you say.
Tonkee gingerly takes hold of the stone arm, helping to support it so it doesn’t shift or flop and wrench your shoulder. She throws a glare at Lerna until he finally gets over himself and slides an arm under you again. Between the two of them, you manage to gain your feet, but it’s hard going. You’re panting by the end, and your knees are distinctly wobbly. The blood in your body is less committed to the cause, and momentarily you sway, dizzy and light-headed. Lerna immediately says, “All right, let’s get her back down.” Abruptly you’re sitting down again, out of breath this time, the arm awkwardly jacking up your shoulder until Tonkee adjusts it. The thing really is heavy.
(Your arm. Not “the thing.” It’s your right arm. You’ve lost your right arm. You’re aware of that, and soon you’ll mourn it, but for now it’s easier to think of it as a thing separate from yourself. An especially useless prosthesis. A benign tumor that needs to be removed. These things are all true. It’s also your rusting arm.)
You’re sitting there, panting and willing the world to stop spinning, when you hear someone else approach. This one’s speaking loudly, calling for everyone to pack up, break’s over, they need to do another five miles before dark. Ykka. You lift your head as she gets close enough, and it’s in this moment that you realize you think of her as a friend. You realize it because it feels good to hear her voice, and to see her resolve out of the swirling ash. Last time you saw her, she was in serious danger of being murdered by hostile stone eaters attacking Castrima-under. That’s one of the reasons you fought back, using the crystals of Castrima-under to ensnare the attackers; you wanted her, and all the other orogenes of Castrima, and by extension all the people of Castrima who depended on those orogenes, to live.
So you smile. It’s weak. You’re weak. Which is why it actually hurts when Ykka turns to you and her lips tighten in what is unmistakably disgust.
She’s pulled the cloth wrapping off the lower half of her face. Beyond her gray-and-kohl eye makeup, which not even the end of the world will stop her from wearing, you can’t make out her eyes behind her makeshift goggles—a pair of spectacles that she’s wrapped rags around to keep ash out. “Shit,” she says to Hjarka. “You’re never going to let me hear the end of it, are you?”
Hjarka shrugs. “Not till you pay up, no.”
You’re staring at Ykka, the tentative little smile freezing off your face.
“She’ll probably make a full recovery,” Lerna says. His voice is neutral in a way that you immediately sense is careful. Walking-over-a-lava-tube careful. “It’ll be a few days before she can keep up on foot, though.”
Ykka sighs, putting a hand on her hip and very obviously rifling through a series of things to say. What she finally settles on is neutral, too. “Fine. I’ll extend the rotation of people carrying the stretcher. Get her walking as soon as possible, though. Everyone carries their own weight in this comm, or gets left behind.” She turns and heads off.
“Yeah, so,” Tonkee says in a low voice, once Ykka’s out of earshot. “She’s a little pissed about you destroying the geode.”
You flinch. “Destroying—” Oh, but. Locking all those stone eaters into the crystals. You meant to save everyone, but Castrima was a machine—a very old, very delicate machine that you didn’t understand. And now you’re topside, traipsing through the ashfall … “Oh, rusting Earth, I did.”
“What, you didn’t realize?” Hjarka laughs a little. It’s got a bitter edge. “You actually thought we were all up here topside, the whole rusting comm traveling north in the ash and cold, for fun?” She strides away, shaking her head. Ykka’s not the only one pissed about it.
“I didn’t …” You start to say, I didn’t mean to, and stop. Because you never mean it, and it never matters in the end.
Watching your face, Lerna lets out a small sigh. “Rennanis destroyed the comm, Essun. Not you.” He’s helping you shift back down into a prone position, but not meeting your eyes. “We lost it the minute we infested Castrima-over with boilbugs to save ourselves. It’s not like they would’ve just gone away, or left anything in the territory