The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(106)

Her mother? You. Have done none of these things.

And in that pent moment, as you fight past the memory of Innon falling to pieces and the burning ache of broken bones in a hand you no longer possess, with Never say no to me ringing in your head, she intuits the thing that you have, until now, denied:

That it is hopeless. That there can be no relationship, no trust, between you and her, because the two of you are what the Stillness and the Season have made you. That Alabaster was right, and some things really are too broken to fix. Nothing to do but destroy them entirely, for mercy’s sake.

Nassun shakes her head once while you stand there twitching. She looks away. Shakes her head again. Her shoulders bow a little, not in a lazy slouch, but weariness. She does not blame you, but neither does she expect anything from you. And right now, you’re just in the way.

So she turns to walk away, and that shocks you out of your fugue. “Nassun?”



“He needs help,” she says again. Her head is down, her shoulders tight. She doesn’t stop walking. You inhale and start after her. “I have to help him.”



You know what’s happening. You’ve felt it, feared it, all along. Behind you, you hear Danel stop the others. Maybe she thinks you and your daughter need space. You ignore them and run after Nassun. You grab her shoulder, try to turn her around. “Nassun, what —” She shrugs you off, so hard that you stagger. Your balance has been shot since you lost the arm, and she’s stronger than she was. She doesn’t notice you almost fall. She keeps going. “Nassun!” She doesn’t even look back.

You’re desperate to get her attention, to get her to react, something. Anything. You grope and then say, to her back, “I – I – I know about Jija!”



That makes her falter to a halt. Jija’s death is still a raw wound within her that Schaffa has cleaned and stitched, but that will not heal for some time. That you know what she has done makes her hunch in shame. That it was necessary, self-defense, frustrates her. That you have reminded her of this, now, tips the shame and frustration into anger.

“I have to help Schaffa,” she says again. Her shoulders are going up in a way that you recognize from a hundred afternoons in your makeshift crucible, and from when she was two and learned the word no. There’s no reasoning with her when she gets like this. Words become irrelevant. Actions mean more. But what actions could possibly convey the morass of your feelings right now? You look back at the others helplessly. Hjarka is holding Tonkee back; Tonkee’s gaze is fixed on the sky and the assemblage there of more obelisks than you’ve seen in your whole life. Danel is a little apart from the rest, her hands behind her back, her black lips moving in what you recognize as a lorist mnemonic exercise to help her absorb everything she sees and hears, verbatim. Lerna —



You forgot. Lerna is not here. But if he were here, you suspect, he would be warning you. He was a doctor. Wounds of the family weren’t really within his purview… but anyone can see that something here has festered.

You trot after her again. “Nassun. Nassun, rust it, look at me when I’m talking to you!” She ignores you, and it’s a slap in the face – the kind that clears your head, though, and not the kind that makes you want to fight. Okay. She won’t hear you until she’s helped… Schaffa. You push past this thought, though it is like plodding through muck full of bones. Okay. “L-let me help you!”



This actually gets Nassun to slow down, and then stop. Her expression is wary, so wary, when she turns back. “Help me?”



You look beyond her and see then that she was heading for another of the pylon buildings – this one with a broad, railed staircase going up its sloping side. The view of the sky would be excellent at the top… Irrationally you conclude that you have to keep her from going up there. “Yes.” You hold out your hand again. Please. “Tell me what you need. I’ll… Nassun.” You’re out of words. You’re willing her to feel what you feel. “Nassun.”



It’s not working. She says, in a voice as hard as stone, “I need to use the Obelisk Gate.”



You flinch. I told you this already, weeks ago, but apparently you did not believe. “What? You can’t.”



You’re thinking: It will kill you.

Her jaw tightens. “I will.”



She’s thinking: I don’t need your permission.

You shake your head, incredulous. “To do what?” But it’s too late. She’s done. You said you would help but then hesitated. She is Schaffa’s daughter, too, in her heart of hearts; Earthfires, two fathers and you of all people to shape her, is it any wonder that she’s turned out the way she has? To her, hesitation is the same thing as no. She doesn’t like it when people say no to her.

So Nassun turns her back on you again and says, “Don’t follow me anymore, Mama.”



You immediately start after her again, of course. “Nassun —”



She whips back around. She’s in the ground, you sess it, and she’s in the air, you see the lines of magic, and suddenly the two weave together in a way that you can’t even comprehend. The stuff of Corepoint’s ground, which is metals and pressed fibers and substances for which you have no name, layered over volcanic rock, heaves beneath your feet. Out of old habit, years spent containing your children’s orogenic tantrums, you react even as you stagger, setting a torus into the ground that you can use to cancel her orogeny. It doesn’t work, because she isn’t just using orogeny.