The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) - N. K. Jemisin Page 0,93

of her as my sister until we both reached the age of fifteen. Then they told us.”

Such a long time. And yet Kelenli must have suspected that she was different. The silver glimmer of magic flows around us, through us, like water. Everyone can sess it, but we tuners, we live it. It lives in us. She cannot have ever thought herself normal.

Gallat, however, had been completely surprised. Perhaps his view of the world had been as thoroughly upended as mine has been now. Perhaps he floundered—flounders—in the same way, struggling to resolve his feelings with reality. I feel a sudden sympathy for him.

“I never mistreated her.” Gallat’s voice has gone soft, and I’m not certain he’s still speaking to me. He has folded his arms and crossed his legs, closing in on himself as he gazes steadily through one of the vehimal’s windows, seeing nothing. “Never treated her like …” Suddenly he blinks and darts a hooded glance at me. I start to nod to show that I understand, but some instinct warns me against doing this. I just look back at him. He relaxes. I don’t know why.

He doesn’t want you to hear him say “like one of you,” Remwha signals, humming with irritation at my obtuseness. And he doesn’t want you to know what it means, if he says it. He reassures himself that he is not like the people who made his own life harder. It’s a lie, but he needs it, and he needs us to support that lie. She should not have told us that we were Niess.

We aren’t Niess, I gravitic-pulse back. Mostly I’m annoyed that he had to point this out. Gallat’s behavior is obvious, now that Remwha has explained.

To them we are. Gaewha sends this as a single microshake whose reverberations she kills, so that we sess only cold silence afterward. We stop arguing because she’s right.

Gallat continues, oblivious to our identity crisis, “I’ve given her as much freedom as I can. Everyone knows what she is, but I’ve allowed her the same privileges that any normal woman would have. Of course there are restrictions, limitations, but that’s reasonable. I can’t be seen to be lax, if …” He trails off, into his own thoughts. Muscles along his jaw flex in frustration. “She acts as if she can’t understand that. As if I’m the problem, not the world. I’m trying to help her!” And then he lets out a heavy breath of frustration.

We have heard enough, however. Later, when we process all this, I will tell the others, She wants to be a person.

She wants the impossible, Dushwha will say. Gallat thinks it better to own her himself, rather than allow Syl Anagist to do the same. But for her to be a person, she must stop being … ownable. By anyone.

Then Syl Anagist must stop being Syl Anagist, Gaewha will add sadly.

Yes. They will all be right, too, my fellow tuners … but that does not mean Kelenli’s desire to be free is wrong. Or that something is impossible just because it is very, very hard.

The vehimal stops in a part of town that, amazingly, looks familiar. I have seen this area only once and yet I recognize the pattern of the streets, and the vineflowers on one greenstrate wall. The quality of the light through the amethyst, as the sun slants toward setting, stirs a feeling of longing and relief in me that I will one day learn is called homesickness.

The other conductors leave and head back to the compound. Gallat beckons to us. He’s still angry, and wants this over with. So we follow, and fall slowly behind because our legs are shorter and the muscles burn, until finally he notices that we and our guards are ten feet behind him. He stops to let us catch up, but his jaw is tight and one hand taps a brisk pattern on his folded arms.

“Hurry up,” he says. “I want to do start-up trials tonight.”

We know better than to complain. Distraction is often useful, however. Gaewha says, “What are we hurrying to see?”

Gallat shakes his head impatiently, but answers. As Gaewha planned, he walks slower so that he can speak to us, which allows us to walk slower as well. We desperately catch our breath. “The socket where this fragment was grown. You’ve been told the basics. For the time being each fragment serves as the power plant for a node of Syl Anagist—taking in magic, catalyzing it, returning