The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(88)

“BUT I DO,” he shouts.

Nassun stumbles back and cries out. Between one blink and the next, however, Steel returns to his former position, upright, arms at his sides, a smile on his lips.

“So think carefully,” Steel says. His voice is conversational again, as if nothing has happened. “Think with something more than the selfishness of a child, little Nassun. And ask yourself: Even if I could help you save that controlling, sadistic sack of shit that currently passes for your adoptive father figure, why would I? Not even my enemy deserves that fate. No one does.”



Nassun’s still shaking. She blurts, bravely, “Sch-Schaffa might want to live.”



“He might. But should he? Should anyone, forever? That is the question.”



She feels the absent weight of countless years, and is obliquely ashamed of being a child. But at her core, she is a kind child, and it’s impossible for her to have heard Steel’s story without feeling something other than her usual anger at him. She looks away twitchily. “I’m… sorry.”



“So am I.” There’s a moment’s silence. In it, Nassun pulls herself together slowly. By the time she focuses on him again, Steel’s smile has vanished.

“I cannot stop you, once you’ve opened the Gate,” he says. “I’ve manipulated you, yes, but the choice is still ultimately yours. Consider, however. Until the Earth dies, I live, Nassun. That was its punishment for us: We became a part of it, chained fate to fate. The Earth forgets neither those who stabbed it in the back… nor those who put the knife in our hand.”



Nassun blinks at our. But she loses this thought amid misery at the realization that there can be no fixing Schaffa. Until now, some part of her has nursed the irrational hope that Steel, as an adult, had all the answers, including some sort of cure. Now she knows that her hope has been foolish. Childish. She is a child. And now the only adult she has ever been able to rely on will die naked and hurt and helpless, without ever being able to say goodbye.

It’s too much to bear. She sinks into a crouch, wrapping one arm round her knees and folding the other over her head, so that Steel will not see her cry even if he knows that’s exactly what’s happening.

He lets out a soft laugh at this. Surprisingly, it does not sound cruel.

“You achieve nothing by keeping any of us alive,” he says, “except cruelty. Put us broken monsters out of our misery, Nassun. The Earth, Schaffa, me, you… all of us.”



Then he vanishes, leaving Nassun alone beneath the white, burgeoning Moon.

Syl Anagist: Zero



A moment in the present, before I speak again of the past.

Amid the heated, fuming shadows and unbearable pressure of a place that has no name, I open my eyes. I’m no longer alone.

Out of the stone, another of my kind pushes forth. Her face is angular, cool, as patrician and elegant as any statue’s should be. She’s shed the rest, but kept the pallor of her original coloring; I notice this at last, after tens of thousands of years. All this reminiscing has made me nostalgic.

In token of which, I say aloud, “Gaewha.”



She shifts slightly, as close as any of us gets to an expression of… recognition? Surprise? We were siblings once. Friends. Since then, rivals, enemies, strangers, legends. Lately, cautious allies. I find myself contemplating some of what we were, but not all. I’ve forgotten the all, just as much as she has.

She says, “Was that my name?”



“Close enough.”



“Hmm. And you were…?”



“Houwha.”



“Ah. Of course.”



“You prefer Antimony?”



Another slight movement, the equivalent of a shrug. “I have no preference.”



I think, Nor do I, but that is a lie. I would never have given my new name to you, Hoa, if not in homage to what I remember of that old name. But I’m woolgathering.

I say, “She is committed to the change.”



Gaewha, Antimony, whoever and whatever she is now, replies, “I noticed.” She pauses. “Do you regret what you did?”



It’s a foolish question. All of us regret that day, in different ways and for different reasons. But I say, “No.”



I expect comment in return, but I suppose there’s really nothing to be said anymore. She makes minute sounds, settling into the rock. Getting comfortable. She means to wait here with me. I’m glad. Some things are easier when not faced alone.

***

There are things Alabaster never told you, about himself.

I know these things because I studied him; he is part of you, after all. But not every teacher needs every protégé to know of his every stumble on the journey to mastery. What would be the point? None of us got here overnight. There are stages to the process of being betrayed by your society. One is jolted from a place of complacency by the discovery of difference, by hypocrisy, by inexplicable or incongruous ill treatment. What follows is a time of confusion – unlearning what one thought to be the truth. Immersing oneself in the new truth. And then a decision must be made.

Some accept their fate. Swallow their pride, forget the real truth, embrace the falsehood for all they’re worth – because, they decide, they cannot be worth much. If a whole society has dedicated itself to their subjugation, after all, then surely they deserve it? Even if they don’t, fighting back is too painful, too impossible. At least this way there is peace, of a sort. Fleetingly.