The Stone Sky

Inside the vehicle that will take them to Corepoint, Nassun, and Schaffa hear a voice speak to them in a language that Schaffa remembers but Nassun cannot understand. He translates and tells Nassun that what they are in is called a vehimal and that it will take them six hours to get to Corepoint. Schaffa is restless and Nassun suspects that he is in even more pain than usual.

Schaffa reveals that he has been in the vehimal before and that while he can understand the language, he doesn’t remember hearing it before. He feels that something about the journey is wrong, but he cannot remember what. As they travel deeper into the earth, Nassun notices that Schaffa’s pain is getting worse. She tries to help him by giving him some of her silver, as she has done since they left Found Moon, but it only causes the silver in him to burn even brighter.

Trying to help Schaffa alerts Nassun to a giant thread of silver running through the earth nearby. She realizes that the giant thread of silver runs between the fragments of the earth in the same way they do any other living being, meaning that all the stories she had heard about Father Earth being alive are true. More importantly, she realizes that the silver in Schaffa comes from his corestone and that the corestone comes from the heart of the earth, which they are rapidly approaching.

The vehimal pierces through the earth’s core, and Schaffa begins to writhe in agony. The earth speaks to Nassun and calls her “little enemy.” Nassun tries to remove Schaffa’s corestone, knowing it will shorten his life, but Father Earth holds it in place. Eventually, Schaffa’s mind breaks from the pain, and Nassun knows he will likely never be the same. She resolves once again to end the cycles of violence, suffering, and hatred.

Conductor Gallat shows up in the morning, upset that Kelenli is sleeping in the shed instead of the house. Gallat appears hurt and tells her he needs her at the lab. Despite this, he agrees to take the tuners to see the amethyst socket—the final thing Kelenli wanted to show them—because the conductors have already noticed positive changes in the tuners’ network since the excursion began.

As they travel to the amethyst, Gallat is questioned by the other conductors, and Houwha realizes that they disdain Gallat because he has pale skin and icewhite eyes—traits that were common among the Niess. These traits suggest that somewhere in his distant family ancestry, someone had children with a Niessperson, and as a result, the other conductors do not treat him with respect due to someone who is in charge of the entire program.

Houwha asks Gallat why he is angry at Kelenli. Gallat claims he has given her as much freedom as he can, and that it is the world that is the problem, not him. From this, the tuners understand that Kelenli wants to be a person, and wants to be free, but in Syl Anagist, this will never be possible.

When they arrive at the amethyst socket, Gallat is impatient. The tuners ask if they can get closer, and Gallat acquiesces. As they approach the socket, they begin to sense something strange that Gallat calls “sinkline feedback.” He explains that because the fragments could not begin generating magic on their own, they needed raw magic fed into them at first. The sinklines, which appear like a thicket of massive, gnarled, twisting vines around the base of the fragment, serve this purpose. However, when the tuners finally see them up close, they are horrified to discover that thousands of Niess are ensnared in the vines.

The ensnared Niess are kept just barely alive so that they continue to produce the magic that the vines siphon off into the fragment. Houwha also realizes that this must be the briar patch—the place tuners are sent to if they do not cooperate with the conductors. Gallat continues to give a technical explanation of how the sinklines work, completely oblivious to the horror of what he has shown them. When he finishes, they leave, and the tuners begin to plan their next step.

Castrima arrives at a node station on the outskirts of Rennanis. From their new position, they can see the rifting in the distance. It is a massive, black and red eruption column that spans from coast to coast, spewing lava and smoke. There is also a steady, omnipresent low rumble of tectonic plates shifting along the newly made fault line, which means that if Castrima wants to stay in Rennanis, they will need to keep the node maintainers alive and functioning. Node maintainers are powerful orogenes, usually children, who could not learn to control their abilities. Rather than being killed, the Stillness kept them alive but semi-comatose, altering their brains so that they would instinctively use their powers to counteract seismic activity. As her mentor Alabaster explained to Essun in The Fifth Season, however, they still experience terrible pain.

Essun takes Ykka to see the node maintainer, wanting to ensure that she knows the moral price she and Castrima must pay for staying in Rennanis. The node station has a fully stocked storeroom, and the comm is able to eat a full meal for the first time in months, raising everyone’s spirits. Later that night, Lerna carefully tells Essun that he thinks she is pregnant and that she has been ignoring the signs. He then asks how soon she has to go to Corepoint, knowing that when she uses the Obelisk Gate, she will likely turn to stone. He asks her to consider changing her mind. Essun points out that they will eventually die of ash lung if she does not end the Season and tells him it will be very soon.

Four days later, they reach Rennanis. It has functioning plumbing and filtered well water, and the city’s stores are so well-stocked that Castrima could eat well for at least a decade. The city is designed to hold hundreds of thousands of people, so Castrima’s population easily fits into a small complex of buildings that are still structurally sound.

There are a couple of small catches to moving into this otherwise amazing new home. First, they cannot possibly defend the massive walls of Rennanis because they do not have enough people; and second, they are forced to live among the crystalized corpses of the people that used to live here, because Essun essentially froze them in place when she used the obelisk to win the battle.

Most of Castrima gets used to this after a couple of days, but it bothers Essun that there are not more bodies around. She asks Hoa about it, and he confirms that weaker stone eaters have been opportunistically eating them, as it makes them stronger. As Hoa is already one of the most powerful stone eaters, Essun realizes that he is eating her for a different reason: because he wants to turn her into a stone eater. In turn, this makes her realize that since Alabaster has been turned into a stone eater, she could talk to him. Hoa tells her she cannot do this, as the process of him becoming himself again takes centuries, and interfering would potentially change his personality.

Hoa then asks if Essun still wants to go through with everything. She considers her friends, Castrima, Lerna, and her unborn baby, and she decides that she will do what she has to do, even though it means sacrificing a child and the life she has begun to rebuild. Hoa then tells her that they need to go to Corepoint within the next two days, or the moon will be moving away from the earth again. He also reveals that he can bring other people with them to Corepoint, and Essun decides to inform the others so that they can decide for themselves.