The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(44)

(Three bites, it takes him, to eat the breast that Nassun liked best. You’re perversely proud to feed someone else with it.)

As you awkwardly pull undershirts and shirts back on with one arm – stuffing one side of your bra with the lightest undershirt so it won’t slip off – you probe after that hint of unease that you heard in Hoa’s voice earlier. “You know something.”



Hoa doesn’t answer at first. You think you’re going to have to remind him that this is a partnership, that you’re committed to catching the Moon and ending this endless Season, that you care about him but he can’t keep hiding things from you like this – and then he finally says, “I believe Nassun seeks to open the Obelisk Gate herself.”



Your reaction is visceral and immediate. Pure fear. It probably isn’t what you should feel. Logic would dictate disbelief that a ten-year-old girl can manage a feat that you barely accomplished. But somehow, maybe because you remember the feel of your little girl thrumming with angry blue power, and you knew in that instant that she understood the obelisks better than you ever will, you have no trouble believing Hoa’s core premise – that your little girl is bigger than you thought.

“It will kill her,” you blurt.

“Very likely, yes.”



Oh, Earth. “But you can track her again? You lost her after Castrima.”



“Yes, now that she is attuned to an obelisk.”



Again, though, that odd hesitation is in his voice. Why? Why would it bother him that – Oh. Oh, rusty burning Earth. Your voice shakes as you understand. “Which means that any stone eater can ‘perceive’ her now. Is that what you’re saying?” Castrima all over again. Ruby Hair and Butter Marble and Ugly Dress, may you never see those parasites again. Fortunately, Hoa killed most of them. “Your kind get interested in us then, right? When we start using obelisks, or when we’re close to being able to.”



“Yes.” Inflectionless, that one soft word, but you know him by now.

“Earthfires. One of you is after her.”



You didn’t think stone eaters were capable of sighing, but sure enough the sound emerges from Hoa’s chest. “The one you call Gray Man.”



Cold runs through you. But yes. You’d guessed already, really. There have been, what, three orogenes in the world lately who mastered connecting to the obelisks? Alabaster and you and now Nassun. Uche, maybe, briefly – and maybe there was even a stone eater lurking about Tirimo back then. Rusting bastard must be terribly disappointed that Uche died by filicide rather than stoning.

Your jaw tightens as your mouth tastes of bile. “He’s manipulating her.” To activate the Gate and transform herself into stone, so that she can be eaten. “That’s what he tried to do at Castrima, force Alabaster, or me, or – rust it, or Ykka, any of us, to try to do something beyond our ability so we might turn ourselves into —” You put a hand on the stone marker of your breast.

“There have always been those who use despair and desperation as weapons.” This is delivered softly, as if in shame.

Suddenly you’re furious with yourself, and your impotence. Knowing that you’re the real target of your own anger doesn’t stop you from taking it out on him. “Seems to me all of you do that!”



Hoa has positioned himself to gaze out at the dull red horizon, a statue paying homage to nostalgia in pensive shadowed lines. He does not turn, but you hear hurt in his voice. “I haven’t lied to you.”



“No, you’ve just withheld the truth so much it’s the same fucking thing!” You rub your eyes. Had to take the goggles off to put your shirt back on, and now you’ve got ash in them. “You know what, just – I don’t want to hear anything else right now. I need to rest.” You get to your feet. “Take me back.”



His hand is abruptly extended in your direction. “One more thing, Essun.”



“I told you —”



“Please. You need to know this.” He waits until you settle into a fuming silence. Then he says, “Jija is dead.”



You freeze.

***

In this moment I remind myself of why I continue to tell this story through your eyes rather than my own: because, outwardly, you’re too good at hiding yourself. Your face has gone blank, your gaze hooded. But I know you. I know you. Here is what’s inside you.

***

You surprise yourself by being surprised. Surprised, that is, and not angry, or thwarted, or sad. Just… surprised. But that is because your first thought, after relief that Nassun’s safe now, is…



Isn’t she?

And then you surprise yourself by being afraid. You aren’t sure of what, but it’s a stark, sour thing in your mouth. “How?” you ask.

Hoa says, “Nassun.”



The fear increases. “She couldn’t have lost control of her orogeny, she hasn’t done that since she was five —”



“It was not orogeny. And it was intentional.”



There, at last: the foreshock of a Rifting-level shake, inside you. It takes you a moment to say aloud, “She killed him? On purpose?”