The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(24)
The other circle, however, which Nassun now understands to be a representation of the world, he leaves blank save for a single spot just above the equator and slightly to the east of the circle’s middle longitude. He doesn’t sketch an island or continent to put it on. Just that lone dot.
“Once, there were more cities on the empty face of the world,” Schaffa explains. “A few civilizations have built upon or under the sea, over the millennia. None of those lasted long, though. All that remains is Corepoint.”
It is literally a world away. “How could we get there?”
“If —” He pauses. Nassun’s belly clenches when the blurry look crosses his face. This time he winces and shuts his eyes, too, as if even the attempt to access his old self has added to his pain.
“You don’t remember?”
He sighs. “I remember that I used to.”
Nassun realizes she should have expected this. She bites her lip. “Steel might know.”
There is a slight flex of muscle along Schaffa’s jaw, quick and there and then gone. “Indeed he might.”
Steel, who vanished while Schaffa was putting away the other Guardians’ bodies, might also be listening from within the stone somewhere nearby. Does it mean something that he hasn’t popped up to tell them what to do yet? Maybe they don’t need him. “And what about the Antarctic Fulcrum? Don’t they have records and things?” She remembers seeing the Fulcrum’s library before she and Schaffa and Umber sat down with its leaders, had a cup of safe, then killed them all. The library was a strange high room filled floor to ceiling with shelves of books. Nassun likes books – her mother used to splurge and buy one every few months, and sometimes Nassun got the hand-me-downs if Jija deemed them appropriate for children – and she remembers boggling in awe, for she’d never seen so many books in her life. Surely some of those contained information about… very old cities no one has ever heard of, that only Guardians know how to get to. Um. Hmm.
“Unlikely,” Schaffa says, confirming Nassun’s misgivings. “And by now, that Fulcrum has probably been annexed by another comm, or perhaps even taken over by commless rabble. Its fields were full of edible crops, after all, and its houses were livable. Returning there would be a mistake.”
Nassun bites her lower lip. “Maybe… a boat?” She doesn’t know anything about boats.
“No, little one. A boat won’t do for such a long journey.”
He pauses significantly, and with this as warning Nassun tries to brace herself. Here is where he will abandon her, she feels painfully, fearfully certain. Here is where he will want to know what she’s up to – and then want no part of it. Why would he? Even she knows that what she wants is a terrible thing.
“I take it, then,” Schaffa says, “that you mean to assume control of the Obelisk Gate.”
Nassun gasps. Schaffa knows what the Obelisk Gate is? When Nassun herself only learned the term that morning from Steel? But then, the lore of the world, all its strange mechanisms and workings and aeons of secrets, is mostly still intact within Schaffa. It’s only things connected to his old self that are permanently lost… which means that the route to Corepoint is something that Old Schaffa needed to know, particularly. What does that mean? “Uh, yes. That’s why I want to go to Corepoint.”
His mouth quirks at her surprise. “Finding an orogene who could activate the Gate was our original purpose, Nassun, in creating Found Moon.”
“What? Why?”
Schaffa glances up at the sky. The sun’s beginning to set. They could get maybe another hour of walking in before it gets too dark to continue. What he’s looking at is the sapphire, though, which hasn’t noticeably moved from its position over Jekity. Rubbing absently at the back of his head, Schaffa gazes at its faint outline through the thickening clouds and nods, as if to himself.
“I and Nida and Umber,” he says. “Perhaps ten years ago, we were all… instructed… to travel southward, and to find one another. We were bidden to seek and train any orogenes who had the potential to connect to obelisks. This is not a thing Guardians normally do, understand, because there can be only one reason to encourage an orogene along the obelisk path. But it’s what the Earth wanted. Why, I don’t know. During that time, I was… less questioning.” His mouth curves in a brief, rueful smile. “Now I have guesses.”
Nassun frowns. “What guesses?”
“That the Earth has its own plans for human —”
Abruptly Schaffa tenses all over, and he sways in his crouch. Quickly Nassun grabs him so he won’t fall over, and reflexively he puts an arm around her shoulders. The arm is very tight, but she does not protest. That he needs the comfort of her presence is obvious. That the Earth is angrier than ever with him, perhaps because he’s giving away its secrets, is as palpable as the raw, flensing pulse of the silver along every nerve and between every cell of his body.
“Don’t talk,” Nassun says, her throat tight. “Don’t say anything else. If it’s going to hurt you like this —”