The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,72

clears from his face, and he shakes his head and crouches to face her. “No,” he says. “Nothing is your fault, my Nassun. No matter what it has cost me, and no matter what it may cost yet, always remember that I—that I—”

His expression falters. For a fleeting instant, that horrible, blurry confusion is there, threatening to wipe away even this moment in which he means to declare his strength to her. Nassun catches her breath and focuses on him in the silver and bares her teeth as she sees that the corestone in him is alive again, working viciously along his nerves and spidering over his brain, even now trying to force him to heel.

No, she thinks in a sudden fury. She grips his shoulders and shakes him. It takes her whole body to do this because he’s such a big man, but it makes him blink and focus through the blur. “You’re Schaffa,” she says. “You are! And … and you chose.” Because that’s important. That’s the thing the world doesn’t want people like them to do. “You’re not my Guardian anymore, you’re—” She dares to say it aloud at last. “You’re my new father. Okay? And th-that means we’re family, and … and we have to work together. That’s what family does, right? You let me protect you sometimes.”

Schaffa stares at her, then he sighs and leans forward to kiss her forehead. He stays there after the kiss, nose pressed into her hair; Nassun makes a mighty effort and does not burst into tears. When he speaks at last, the horrible blurriness has faded, as have even some of the pain-lines around his eyes. “Very well, Nassun. Sometimes, you may protect me.”

That settled, she sniffs, wipes her nose on a sleeve, and then turns to face Steel. He hasn’t changed position, so she pulls away from Schaffa and goes over to him, stopping right in front of him. His eyes shift to follow her, lazily slow. “Don’t do that again.”

She half expects him to say, in his too-knowing voice, Do what? Instead he says, “It’s a mistake to bring him with us.”

Cold washes through Nassun, followed by hot. Is it a threat, or a warning? She doesn’t like it, either way. Her jaw feels so tight that she almost bites her tongue trying to speak. “I don’t care.”

Silence in reply. Is this capitulation? Agreement? Refusal to argue? Nassun doesn’t know. She wants to yell at him: Say you won’t hurt Schaffa again! Even though it feels wrong to yell at any adult. Yet she has also spent the past year and a half learning that adults are people, and sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes somebody should yell at them.

But Nassun is tired, so instead she retreats to Schaffa, taking his hand tightly and glaring back at Steel, daring him to say anything else. He doesn’t, though. Good.

The huge green thing sort of ripples then, and they all turn to face it. Something is—Nassun shudders, both revolted and fascinated. Something is growing from the weird nodules all over the thing’s surface. Each is several feet long, narrow, featherlike, attenuating near the tips. In a moment there are dozens of them, curling and waving gently in an unfelt breeze. Cilia, Nassun thinks suddenly, remembering a picture in an old biomestry creche book. Of course. Why wouldn’t people who made buildings out of plants also make carriages that look like germs?

Some of the feathers are flickering faster than others, clustering together for a moment at a point along the thing’s side. Then the feathers all peel back, flattening against the mother-of-pearl surface, to reveal a soft rectangle of a door. Beyond, Nassun can see gentle light and surprisingly comfortable-looking chairs, in rows. They will ride in style to the other side of the world.

Nassun looks up at Schaffa. He nods back at her with jaw tight. She does not look at Steel, who hasn’t moved and makes no attempt to join them.

Then they climb aboard, and the feathers weave the door shut behind them. As they sit down, the great vehicle utters a low, resonant tone, and begins to move.

Wealth has no value when the ash falls.

—Tablet Three, “Structures,” verse ten

Syl Anagist: Two

IT’S A MAGNIFICENT HOUSE, COMPACT but elegantly designed and full of beautiful furnishings. We stare at its arches and bookcases and wooden bannisters. There are only a few plants growing from the cellulose walls, so the air is dry and a little stale. It feels like the