N.K.Jemisin

To those who have no choice but to prepare their children for the battlefield

It gives him power, but what good is power if it comes on a spiked leash?

Or maybe you can just call it Alabaster.

It’s five thirty.

“No one will kill her.” That’s Hoa. Of course he’s here now, guarding his investment.

Lerna shifts uneasily at this. But then another voice agrees, “No one will kill her,” and you flinch because it is Antimony.

And you’ve killed yet another person you loved.

“He left you a message,” she says. Her inflectionless voice is no different, and yet. Somehow. Is that pity? “‘The onyx is the key. First a network, then the Gate. Don’t rust it up, Essun. Innon and I didn’t love you for nothing.’”

How ironic. This is the first time you’ve ever seen a stone eater made of alabaster.

And then you are gone.

I will make certain of that, for you.

(But not for you.)

To those who’ve survived: Breathe. That’s it. Once more. Good. You’re good. Even if you’re not, you’re alive. That is a victory.

When a comm builds atop a fault line, do you blame its walls when they inevitably crush the people inside?