The Sunlit Man

Set in the Cosmere, Brandon Sanderson's interconnected universe of multiple inhabited worlds, The Sunlit Man follows a fugitive known as Nomad who has spent years "Skipping" between planets to flee the Night Brigade, a military force hunting him across worlds. His latest Skip deposits him on Canticle, a tiny world where the sun's Invested light, a form of mystical energy, is so intense it incinerates all exposed life on the surface. Societies survive by constantly flying ahead of the sunrise in hovering cities assembled from interlocking ships. Nomad arrives nearly drained of Investiture, the power that fuels his abilities. His sole companion is Auxiliary (Aux), a spren, a sentient being of Investiture who exists as a voice in Nomad's head and can manifest physically as tools or weapons.

Nomad wakes among prisoners chained to the ground as dawn approaches. Warriors called Charred, soldiers whose hearts have been replaced by burning embers of power, oversee the execution. When Nomad tries to fight, a spiritual affliction called the Torment, a scar from once carrying a Dawnshard (a weapon of unimaginable power), locks his muscles and prevents him from harming anyone. As the lethal sunrise incinerates the prisoners, Nomad summons Auxiliary as a crowbar, a tool the Torment permits, breaks free, and hooks himself to the last departing hovercycle.

Dragged to a massive floating city called Union, Nomad is examined by its ruler, the Cinder King, a tyrant whose eyes glow with stolen Investiture. Enraged when onlookers whisper a reverential title for the stranger who survived the sun, the Cinder King throws Nomad into an arena where unarmed captives are hunted by Charred. Nomad defeats an opponent using Auxiliary as a hidden weight but is knocked unconscious by freezing bracers that leech his body heat. When he wakes, he watches the Cinder King prepare to transform captives into Charred by ramming glowing spear tips into their chests. To halt the ceremony, Nomad shatters his own thumb to free a hand and hurls Auxiliary as a Shardblade, his true magical sword form, into a pillar beside the Cinder King's head.

A guerrilla force then attacks Union, bombing ships and hacking the Charred's bracers to freeze them. In the chaos, Nomad meets Rebeke Salvage, a young woman whose brother is killed rescuing their older sister Elegy, a former rebel leader transformed into a Charred. Nomad helps Rebeke escape and disables pursuing warships, absorbing enough Investiture from a stolen power cell for Auxiliary to Connect him to the local language.

Rebeke flies into perpetual darkness where a hidden city called Beacon shelters roughly 150 refugees. Auxiliary identifies the Beaconites as Threnodites, descendants of migrants from the haunted planet Threnody. The city's ruling council, three elderly women called the Greater Good (Confidence, Compassion, and Contemplation), show Nomad a stolen metal disc he recognizes as an authorization key from the Scadrian civilization, an advanced offworld society. The Beaconites believe it opens a legendary underground Refuge where they can escape the sun. Nomad suspects it opens only a small research facility but agrees to help in exchange for access to the Investiture inside.

Rebeke reveals that every ship runs on sunhearts, condensed remnants of human souls supercharged by the Invested sunlight as the person dies. The Cinder King selects victims through a lottery; even Beacon relies on volunteers. Nomad also learns that the inhabitants can transfer Investiture through skin contact, a practice governed by cultural taboos and accompanied by formal prayers. He begins to theorize that this mechanism might allow him to purge the Torment from his soul.

When the Cinder King's forces corner Beacon and drive it into a corridor blocked by mountains, Nomad designs a modification: boilers that superheat water into steam to replace atmospheric air as engine propellant, since the planet's tiny size causes the atmosphere to thin dangerously at altitude. Beacon's Chorus, shades of Threnodite dead who can fabricate machinery from raw metal, builds the necessary parts. Most ships are jettisoned, leaving 12 sealed vessels.

During the ascent, a frozen mechanism traps a deadweight ship beneath the city. Nomad climbs outside in near-vacuum, swinging past scalding engine jets to pry the latches free. When a hook slips, Auxiliary offers to burn the last of his soul to grant Nomad flight, but Nomad refuses and climbs back by hand. Beacon crests the summit, runs out of water, and crash-lands on the far side. Everyone survives.

Stranded without power, Nomad flies into the great maelstrom, a firestorm at sunset, to recover sunhearts from the ground. He is severely burned, shielding himself beneath Auxiliary until the storm passes. He retrieves five sunhearts, but the Cinder King intercepts him. Nomad races to the tyrant's ship and seizes a tiny sunheart taken from a person from Roshar, his own homeworld. He whispers the heat-transfer prayer in his native tongue, and the sunheart begins leeching corrupted Investiture from his soul, weakening the Torment enough to let him fight. He battles dozens of Charred with Auxiliary formed as a bo staff, culminating in the Chasm Kata, a spear form from his homeland, that terrifies the Charred and the watching Cinder King into retreat.

The Beaconites perform a naming ceremony, christening him Zellion, meaning "One Who Finds," and every person shares warmth through touch, formally adopting him. Armed with cannons fabricated by the Chorus, Beacon's ships blast through the Cinder King's defensive line. Zellion gambles that the insecure tyrant will rush to protect the Refuge's real location, and the ploy works: The Cinder King's squadron leads them directly to the buried door.

Inside, Zellion finds a small Scadrian science vessel, not a sanctuary. The scientists have been trading technology, including the knowledge to create Charred, to the Cinder King. A researcher reveals a transformative secret: Depleted sunhearts can be recharged by priming them with human warmth and leaving them in sunlight. This discovery, deliberately withheld, would end all human sacrifice on Canticle.

When the Cinder King strips Beacon's ships of power and abandons nearly 135 people before the advancing sunrise, Zellion cannot bring himself to flee. Auxiliary offers the last fragment of his soul to temporarily restore Zellion's Radiant armor, a magical protective shell, and the power of flight. Despite Zellion's protests, Auxiliary insists, and armor encases Zellion as he soars through the fire of dawn. He grows Auxiliary's now-lifeless body into an enormous reflective dome that shelters the Beaconites as the sun passes overhead, then tells Contemplation the secret of recharging sunhearts.

Meanwhile, the Cinder King captures Rebeke and begins transforming her into a Charred. Elegy fights into Union's Hall of Burning and interrupts the process. By absorbing the corrupting energy into her own cinderheart, Elegy saves Rebeke's mind at the cost of her last memories. Rebeke, retaining her personality and gaining a partial link to the Charred, persuades Union's officers to fly the city away, abandoning the Cinder King on the ground.

Trapped with the Cinder King as sunrise closes in, Zellion grabs the tyrant and uses the heat-transfer prayer to drain his accumulated Investiture, power gathered from thousands of consumed souls. The Cinder King's glow dies, and Zellion reaches full Skip capacity. As dawn engulfs them, the Cinder King burns to ash, and Zellion Skips away, leaving Auxiliary's body as the dome protecting the Beaconites.

In the epilogue, Rebeke assumes the role of Sunlit One, a symbol rather than a ruler, and spreads the secret of recharging sunhearts, ending the era of human sacrifice. On a distant ocean world, Zellion sits alone on a tiny atoll. Auxiliary's personality is gone forever, leaving only a silent weapon. He dismisses the dome once enough time has passed, flags down a passing ship, and prepares to resume running, carrying his grief and the quiet hope that the people of Canticle will thrive.