(There is a traitor part of you that whispers, Except you did. You spoke to Nassun like this. And the loyal part of you snarls back, Because she wouldn’t have understood. She wouldn’t have been safe if you’d been gentler, slower. It was for her own good, and—)
“It’s for your own rusting good,” Alabaster grates. The progression of the stone down his arm has stopped, only an inch or so this time. Lucky. “I’m trying to protect you, for Earth’s sake!”
You stop, glaring at him, and he glares back, and silence falls.
There is the clink of something heavy and metallic being put down behind you. This makes you glance back at Lerna, who is looking at you and has folded his arms. Most of the people in Castrima, even the orogenes, won’t know what the jolt was all about, but he does because he saw the body language, and now you’ve got to explain things to him—hopefully before he doses Alabaster’s next bowl of mush with something toxic.
It’s a reminder that these are not the old days and you cannot react in the old ways. If Alabaster has not changed, then it’s up to you. Because you have.
So you straighten and take a deep breath. “You’ve never taught anyone anything, have you?”
He blinks, frowning in apparent suspicion at your change of tone. “I taught you.”
“No, Alabaster. Back then you did impossible things and I just watched you and tried not to die when I imitated you. But you’ve never tried to intentionally disseminate information to another adult, have you?” You know the answer even without him saying it, but it’s important that he say it. This is something he needs to learn.
A muscle in his jaw flexes. “I’ve tried.”
You laugh. The defensive note in his voice tells you everything. After another moment’s consideration—and a deep breath to marshal your self-control—you sit down again. This leaves Antimony looming over you both, but you try to ignore her. “Listen,” you say. “You need to give me a reason to trust you.”
His eyes narrow. “You don’t trust me by now?”
“You’ve destroyed the world, Alabaster. You’ve told me you want me to make it worse. I’m not hearing a whole lot here that screams, ‘Obey me without question.’”
His nostrils flare. The pain of the stoning seems to have faded, though he’s drenched with sweat and still breathing hard. But then something in his expression shifts, too, and a moment later he slumps, to the degree that he is able.
“I let him die,” he murmurs, looking away. “Of course you don’t trust me.”
“No, Alabaster. The Guardians killed Innon.”
He half smiles. “Him, too.”
Then you know. Ten years and it’s like no time has passed at all. “No,” you say again. But this is softer. Strengthless. He’s said he wouldn’t forgive you for Corundum… but perhaps you’re not the only one he doesn’t forgive.
A long silence passes.
“All right,” he says at last. His voice is very soft. “I’ll tell you.”
“What?”
“Where I’ve been for the past ten years.” He glances up at Antimony, who still looms over both of you. “What this is all about.”
“She isn’t ready,” the stone eater says. You jump at her voice.
Alabaster tries to shrug, winces as something twinges somewhere on his body, sighs. “Neither was I.”
Antimony stares down at both of you. It’s not really that different from the way she’s been staring at you since you came back, but it feels more pent. Maybe that’s just projection. But then, suddenly, she vanishes. You see it happen this time. Her form blurs, becoming insubstantial, translucent. Then she drops into the ground as if a hole has opened beneath her feet. Gone.
Alabaster sighs. “Come sit beside me,” he says.
You frown immediately. “Why?”
“So we can have sex again. Why the rust do you think?”
You loved him once. You probably still do. With a sigh you get up and move to the wall. Gingerly, though his back is unburned, you prop yourself for comfort, then rest a hand against his back to hold him up, the way Antimony so often does.
Alabaster’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “Thank you.”
Then… he tells you everything.
Breathe not the fine ashfall. Drink not the red water. Walk not long upon warm soil.
9
Nassun, needed
BECAUSE YOU ARE ESSUN, I should not need to remind you that all Nassun knew before Found Moon was Tirimo, and the ash-darkening world of the road during a Fifth Season. You know your daughter, don’t you? So it should be obvious therefore that Found Moon becomes something she never believed she had before: a true home.
It is not a newcomm. At its core is the village of Jekity, which was a city before the Choking Season some hundred years before. During that Season, Mount Akok blanketed the Antarctics with ash—but that is not what nearly killed Jekity, since the city had vast stores and sturdy wood-and-slate walls at the time. Jekity the city died because of human errors, compounded: A child lighting a lantern spilled oil, which set off a fire that swept the western end of the comm and burned a third of it before people managed to get it under control. The comm’s headman died in the fire, and when three qualified candidates stepped forward to take his place, factionalism and infighting meant that the burned section of the wall didn’t get rebuilt quickly enough. A tibbit-run—small, furred animals that swarm like ants when food is scarce enough—swept into the comm and took care of anyone too slow to get off the ground… and the comm’s ground-level storecaches. The survivors lasted for a time on what was left, then starved. By the time the sky cleared five years later, less than five thousand souls remained of the hundred thousand who’d begun the Season.
The Jekity of now is even smaller. The poor, unskilled repairs made to the wall during Choking are still in place, and while the stores have been elevated and replenished sufficiently to meet Imperial standards, this is only on paper: The comm has done a bad job of rotating old, spoiled stores out and laying in new. Strangers have rarely asked to join Jekity over the years. Even by Antarctic standards, the comm is seen as ill-fated. Its young people usually leave to talk or marry their way into other, growing communities where jobs are more plentiful and the memory of suffering does not linger. When Schaffa found this sleepy terrace-farming comm ten years before, and convinced the then-headwoman Maite to allow him to set up a special Guardian facility within the comm’s walls, she hoped that it was the beginning of a turnaround for her home. Guardians are a healthy addition to any community, aren’t they? And indeed, there are now three Guardians in Jekity including Schaffa, along with nine children of varying ages. There were ten, but when one of the children caused a brief but powerful earthshake amid a temper tantrum one evening, the child vanished. Maite did not ask questions. It’s good to know the Guardians are doing their jobs.
Nassun and her father do not know this as they move into the comm, though others will eventually tell them. The healers—an elderly doctor and a forest herbalist—spend seven days getting Jija out of danger, because he develops a fever not long after the surgery on his wound. Nassun tends him the whole while. When it becomes clear that he’ll survive, however, Schaffa introduces them to Maite, who’s delighted to learn that Jija is a stoneknapper. The comm has not had one for several decades, so they’ve been sending orders to knappers in the comm of Deveteris, twenty miles away. There’s an old, empty house in the comm with an attached kiln, and while a forge would’ve been more useful, Jija tells her he can make it work. Maite gives it a month to be sure, and listens when her people tell her that Jija is polite and friendly and sensible. He’s physically hearty, too, since he’s recovering from that wound like a proper Resistant, and since he managed to survive the road with no companion but a little girl. Everyone notices how well behaved and devoted his daughter is, too—not at all what anyone would expect of a rogga. Thus, at the end of the month, Jija receives the name Jija Resistant Jekity. They induct him with a ceremony that most of the comm has never seen before, so long has it been since anyone new joined the comm. Maite herself had to look up the details of the ceremony in an old lore-book. Then they throw a party, which is very nice. Jija tells them he’s honored.