The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(20)

Everyone goes still. No one protests, though. The Hunters have been finding more game and forage, but Castrima has a lot of people who need more protein than they’ve been getting, and the desert is coming. It was always going to come to this.

After a moment of silence, though, you step over to Ykka. “You sure about this?” you ask softly. One of the guards comes over to unlock Danel’s ankle chains. Danel, who tried to kill every living member of Castrima. Danel, who tried to kill you.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ykka shrugs. Her voice is loud enough that the prisoners can hear her. “We’ve been short on Strongbacks since Rennanis attacked. Now we’ve got six replacements.”

“Replacements who’ll stab us – or maybe just you – in the back first chance!”

“If I don’t see them coming and kill them first, yeah. But that would be pretty stupid of them, and I killed the stupidest one for a reason.” You get the sense that Ykka’s not trying to scare the Rennanis people. She’s just stating facts. “See, this is what I keep trying to tell you, Essie: The world isn’t friends and enemies. It’s people who might help you, and people who’ll get in your way. Kill this lot and what do you get?”

“Safety.”

“Lots of ways to be safe. Yeah, there’s now a bigger chance I’ll get shanked in the night. More safety for the comm, though. And the stronger the comm is, the better the chance we’ll all get to Rennanis alive.” She shrugs, then glances around at the stone forest. “Whoever built this is one of us, with real skill. We’re going to need that.”

“What, now you want to adopt…” You shake your head, incredulous. “Violent bandit ferals?”

But then you stop. Because once upon a time, you loved a violent pirate feral.

Ykka watches while you remember Innon and mourn him anew. Then, with remarkable gentleness, she says, “I play a longer game than just making it to the next day, Essie. Maybe you ought to try it for a change.”

You look away, feeling oddly defensive. The luxury of thinking beyond the next day isn’t something you’ve ever had much of a chance to try. “I’m not a headwoman. I’m just a rogga.”

Ykka tilts her head in ironic acknowledgment. You don’t use that word nearly as often as she does. When she says it, it’s pride. When you use it, it’s assault.

“Well, I’m both,” Ykka says. “A headwoman, and a rogga. I choose to be both, and more.” She steps past you, and throws her next words at you over her shoulder, as if they’re meaningless. “You didn’t think about any of us while you were using those obelisks, did you? You thought about destroying your enemies. You thought about surviving – but you couldn’t get beyond that. That’s why I’ve been so pissed at you, Essie. Months in my comm, and still all you are is ‘just a rogga.’”

She walks off then, yelling to everyone in earshot that the rest break is over. You watch until she vanishes amid the stretching, grumbling crowd, then you glance over at Danel, who’s since stood up and is rubbing the red mark on one of her wrists. There’s a carefully neutral look on the woman’s face as she watches you.

“She dies, you die,” you say. If Ykka won’t look after herself, you’ll do what you can for her.

Danel lets out a brief, amused breath. “That’s true whether you threaten me or not. Not like anybody else here would give me a chance.” She throws you a skeptical look, all her Sanzed pride completely intact despite the change in circumstances. “You really aren’t very good at this, are you?”

Earthfires and rustbuckets. You walk away, because if Ykka already thinks less of you for destroying all threats, she’s really not going to like it if you start killing people who annoy you, for sheer pique.

***

2562: Niner shake in Western Coastals, epicenter somewhere in Baga Quartent. Lorist accounts from the time note that the shake “turned the ground to liquid.” (Poetic?) One fishing village survived intact. From a villager’s written account: “Bastard roggye killed lah shake then we killed hym.” Report filed at the Fulcrum (shared with permission) by Imperial Orogene who later visited the area notes also that an underwater oil reservoir off the coast could have been breached by the shake, but the unregistered rogga in the village prevented this. Would have poisoned water and beaches for miles down the coast.

— Project notes of Yaetr Innovator Dibars

4
Nassun, wandering in the wilderness

Schaffa is kind enough to guide the other eight children of Found Moon out of Jekity along with Nassun and himself. He tells the headwoman that they’re all going on a training trip some miles away so that the comm won’t be disturbed by additional seismics. Since Nassun has just returned the sapphire to the sky – loudly, thanks to the thunderclap of displaced air; dramatically, because suddenly there it was overhead, huge and deep blue and too close – the headwoman just about falls over herself to provide the children with runny-sacks containing travel food and supplies so they can hurry on their way. These aren’t the kinds of top-notch supplies one needs for a long journey. No compasses, only moderately good boots, the kinds of rations that won’t last more than a couple of weeks before going bad. Still, it’s much better than leaving empty-handed.

None of the people of the comm know that Umber and Nida are dead. Schaffa carried their bodies into the Guardians’ dorm and laid them out on their respective beds, arranged in dignified poses. This worked better for Nida, who looked more or less intact but for the nape of her neck, than Umber, whose head was a ruin. Schaffa then threw dirt over the bloodstains. Jekity will figure it out eventually, but by that time, Found Moon’s children will be out of reach, if not safe.