The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(63)

“How many rings?”



You grimace in distaste, consider trying to explain the “unofficial” rings that Alabaster gave you, consider how far you’ve come beyond even those, consider being humble… and then finally you settle for accuracy. “Ten.” Essun Tenring, the Fulcrum would call you now, if the seniors would bother to acknowledge your current name, and if the Fulcrum still existed. For what it’s worth.

Danel whistles appreciatively. So strange to encounter someone who knows and cares about such things. “They say,” she continues, “that you can do things with the obelisks. That’s how you beat us, at Castrima; I had no idea you’d be able to rile up the bugs that way. Or trap so many of the stone eaters.”



You pretend not to care and concentrate on the cornbread. It’s just a little sweet; the cookfire squad is trying to use up the sugar, to make room for edibles with more nutritional value. It’s delicious.

“They say,” Danel continues, watching you sidelong, “that a ten-ring rogga broke the world, up in the Equatorials.”



Okay, no. “Orogene.”



“What?”



“Orogene.” It’s petty, maybe. Because of Ykka’s insistence on making rogga a use-caste name, all the stills are tossing the word around like it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not petty. It means something. “Not ‘rogga.’ You don’t get to say ‘rogga.’ You haven’t earned that.”



Silence for a few breaths. “All right,” Danel says then, with no hint of either apology or humoring you. She just accepts the new rule. She also doesn’t insinuate again that you’re the person who caused the Rifting. “Point stands, though. You can do things most orogenes can’t. Yeah?”



“Yeah.” You blow a stray ash flake off the baked potato.

“They say,” Danel says, planting her hands on her knees and leaning forward, “that you know how to end this Season. That you’re going to be leaving soon to go somewhere and actually try. And that you’ll need people to go with you, when you do.”



What. You frown at your potato. “Are you volunteering?”



“Maybe.”



You stare at her. “You just got accepted into the Strongbacks.”



Danel regards you for a moment longer, expression unreadably still. You don’t realize she’s wavering, trying to decide whether to reveal something about herself to you, until she sighs and does it. “I’m Lorist caste, actually. Danel Lorist Rennanis, once. Danel Strongback Castrima’s never gonna sound right.”



You must look skeptical as you try to visualize her with black lips. She rolls her eyes and looks away. “Rennanis didn’t need lorists, the headman said. It needed soldiers. And everybody knows lorists are good in a fight, so —”



“What?”



She sighs. “Equatorial lorists, I mean. Those of us who come out of the old Lorist families train in hand-to-hand, the arts of war, and so forth. It makes us more useful during Seasons, and in the task of defending knowledge.”



You had no idea. But – “Defending knowledge?”



A muscle flexes in Danel’s jaw. “Soldiers might get a comm through a Season, but storytellers are what kept Sanze going through seven of them.”



“Oh. Right.”



She makes a palpable effort to not shake her head at Midlatter provincialism. “Anyway. Better to be a general than cannon fodder, since that was the only choice I was given. But I’ve tried not to forget who I really am…” Abruptly her expression grows troubled. “You know, I can’t remember the exact wording of Tablet Three anymore? Or the Tale of Emperor Mutshatee. Just two years without stories, and I’m losing them. Never thought it would happen so fast.”



You’re not sure what to say to that. She looks so grim that you almost want to reassure her. Oh, it’ll be all right now that you’re no longer occupying your mind with the wholesale slaughter of the Somidlats, or something like that. You don’t think you could pull that off without sounding a little snide, though.

Danel’s jaw tightens in a determined sort of way anyway as she looks sharply at you. “I know when I see new stories being written, though.”



“I… I don’t know anything about that.”



She shrugs. “The hero of the story never does.”



Hero? You laugh a little, and it’s got an edge. Can’t help thinking of Allia, and Tirimo, and Meov, and Rennanis, and Castrima. Heroes don’t summon swarms of nightmare bugs to eat their enemies. Heroes aren’t monsters to their daughters.

“I won’t forget what I am,” Danel continues. She’s braced one hand on her knee and is leaning forward, insistent. Somewhere in the last few days, she’s gotten her hands on a knife, and used it to shave the sides of her scalp. It gives her a naturally lean, hungry look. “If I’m possibly the last Equatorial lorist left, then it’s my duty to go with you. To write the tale of what happens – and if I survive, to make sure the world hears it.”