N. Jemisin - The Obelisk Gate

Corestone. Now she knows the name of her nemesis. The word makes no sense because it is metal, not stone, and it is not at the core of him, just in his head, but that doesn’t matter. She clenches her jaw against hate. “It hurts you.”

“As it should. I have betrayed it.” His jaw tightens briefly. “But I accepted the consequences of doing so, Nassun. I can bear them.”

This makes no sense. “It hurts you. I could stop the hurt. I can even make it stop hurting without taking it out, but only for a little while. I’d have to stay with you.” She learned this from that conversation with Steel, and watching what the stone eater did. Stone eaters are full of magic, so much more than people, but Nassun can approximate. “But if I take it out—”

“If you take it out,” Schaffa says, “I will no longer be a Guardian. Do you know what that means, Nassun?”

It means that then Schaffa can be her father. He is in every way that matters already. Nassun does not think this in so many words because there are things she is not yet prepared to confront about herself or her life. (This will change very soon.) But it is in her mind.

“It means that I will lose much of my strength and health,” he says in reply to her silent wishing. “I will no longer be able to protect you, my little one.” His eyes flick toward the Guardians’ cabin, and she understands then. Umber and Nida will kill her.

They will try , she thinks.

His head tilts; of course he is instantly aware of her defiant intent. “You couldn’t defeat them both, Nassun. Even you aren’t that powerful. They have tricks you haven’t yet seen. Skills that…” He looks troubled again. “I don’t want to remember what they’re capable of doing to you.”

Nassun tries not to let her bottom lip poke out. Her mother always said that was pouting, and that pouting and whining were things only babies did. “You shouldn’t say no because of me .” She could take care of herself.

“I’m not. I mention that only in hopes that the urge for self-preservation will help convince you. But for my own part, I do not want to grow weak and ill and die , Nassun, which is what would happen if you took the stone. I am older than you realize—” The blurry look returns for a moment. By this she knows he does not remember how old. “Older than I realize. Without the corestone to stop it, that time will catch up with me. A handful of months and I’ll be an old man, trading the pain of the stone for the pains of old age. And then I’ll die.”

“You don’t know that.” She is shaking a little. Her throat hurts.

“I do. I’ve seen it happen, little one. And it is a cruelty, not a kindness, when it does.” Schaffa’s eyes have narrowed, as if he must strain to see the memory. Then he focuses on her. “My Nassun. Have I hurt you so?”

Nassun bursts into tears. She’s not really sure why, except… except maybe because she’s been wanting this, working toward it, so much. She’s wanted to do something good with orogeny, when she has used it to do so many terrible things already—and she wanted to do it for him. He is the only person in the world who understands her, loves her for what she is, protects her despite what she is.

Schaffa sighs and pulls Nassun into his lap, where she wraps herself around him and blubbers into his shoulder for a long while, heedless of the fact that they are out in the open.

When the weeping has spent itself, though, she realizes that he is holding her just as tightly. The silver is alive and searing within him because she’s so close. His fingertips are on the back of her neck, and it would be so easy for him to push in, destroy her sessapinae, kill her with a single thrust. He hasn’t. He’s been fighting the urge, all this while. He would rather suffer this, risk this, than let her help him, and that is the worst thing in all the world.

She sets her jaw, and clenches her hands on the back of his shirt. Dance along the silver, flow with it. The sapphire is nearby. If she can make both flow together, it will be quick. A precise, surgical yank.

Schaffa tenses. “Nassun.” The blaze of silver within him suddenly goes still and dims slightly. It is as if the corestone is aware of the threat she poses.

It is for his own good.

But.

She swallows. If she hurts him because she loves him, is that still hurt? If she hurts him a lot now so that he will hurt less later, does that make her a terrible person?

“Nassun, please.”

Is that not how love should work?

But this thought makes her remember her mother, and a chilly afternoon with clouds obscuring the sun and a brisk wind making her shake as Mama’s fingers covered hers and held her hand down on a flat rock. If you can control yourself through pain, I’ll know you’re safe.

She lets go of Schaffa and sits back, chilled by who she has almost become.

He sits still for a moment longer, perhaps in relief or regret. Then he says quietly, “You’ve been gone all day. Have you eaten?”

Nassun is hungry, but she doesn’t want to admit it. All of a sudden, she feels the need of distance between them. Something that will help her love him less, so that the urge to help him against his will does not ache so within her.

She says, looking at her hands, “I… I want to go see Daddy.”

Schaffa is silent a moment longer. He disapproves. She doesn’t need to see or sess to know this. By now, Nassun has heard of what else transpired on the day that she killed Eitz. No one heard what Schaffa said to Jija, but many people saw him knock Jija down, crouch over him, and grin into his face while Jija stared back with wide, frightened eyes. She can guess why it happened. For the first time, however, Nassun tries not to care about Schaffa’s feelings.

“Shall I come with you?” he asks.

“No.” She knows how to handle her father, and she knows that Schaffa has no patience for him. “I’ll be back right after.”

“See that you are, Nassun.” It sounds kindly. It’s a warning.

But she knows how to handle Schaffa, too. “Yes, Schaffa.” She looks up at him. “Don’t be afraid. I’m strong. Like you made me.”

“As you made yourself.” His gaze is soft and terrible. Icewhite eyes can’t be anything but, though there’s love layered over the terrible. Nassun is used to the combination by now.

So Nassun climbs out of his lap. She’s tired, even though she hasn’t done anything. Emotion always makes her tired. But she heads down the hill into Jekity, nodding to people she knows whether they nod back or not, noticing the new granary the village is building since they’ve had time to increase their stores while the ashfalls and sky occlusions are still intermittent. It’s an ordinary, quiet day in this ordinary, quiet comm, and in some ways it feels much like Tirimo. If not for Found Moon and Schaffa, Nassun would hate it here the same way. She may never understand why, if Mama had the whole of the world open to her after somehow escaping her Fulcrum, she chose to live in such a placid, backwater place.

Thus it is with her mother on her mind that Nassun knocks on the door of her father’s house. (She has a room here, but it isn’t her house. This is why she knocks.)

Jija opens the door almost immediately, as if he was about to leave and go somewhere, or as if he has been waiting for her. The scent of something redolent with garlic wafts out of the house, from the little hearth near the back. Nassun thinks maybe it is fish-in-a-pot, since the Jekity comm shares have a lot of fish and vegetables in them. It’s the first time Jija has seen her in a month, and his eyes widen for a moment.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says. It’s awkward.