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zipping out of the city and toward the beach. Whoever was watching this place, they’d gone to great lengths to prevent them from arriving. But once that plan had been foiled, they’d probably been willing to let the expedition gather up fake gemhearts and sail away. So long as they didn’t find the real secret of the isl...
Humanlike feet formed, then legs. Cremlings crawled up, pulling together into a writhing heap that became a torso—then finally the full figure of a nude man, lacking genitals. The head came last, eyes popping into place as cremlings squeezed inside the “skull.” Lines of tattoos hid the seams in the skin. For a moment, ...
together. But the very cosmere is at stake. A few deaths now, however regrettable, will prevent catastrophe.” Cord shouted something at Nikli in Horneater, and he retorted, sounding angry, then turned to shout toward the others on the deck. “That was a distraction,” Cord whispered to Rysn, turning. “Be ready. Hold your...
Cord emerged a moment later. Rysn gasped for breath, trembling in the darkness. What had happened to the light? The spren? Suddenly it was completely dark, though the sound of their breath echoed against nearby walls. They seemed to have emerged into some kind of cavern under the island. Rysn grabbed some rocks at the ...
the same honor? “Rysn!” Cord called, her voice echoing in the tunnel. The Horneater woman appeared a short time later, panting, her eyes wide. Her figure threw crazy shadows across the walls as she waved the hand holding the sphere. “You must see!” “See what?” Rysn asked. “Treasure,” Cord said. “Plate, Rysn. Shardplate...
was divided into mostly symmetrical pieces. Four of them, each in turn broken into four smaller sections. Her spear slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. She swore she could feel the heat of that sun, burning, washing over her. It was not angry, though she knew it was being ripped apart like a person on ...
it seemed extremely heavy. Rysn turned, trying not to look at the wall, which was growing even warmer. Unfortunately, she soon heard splashes coming from the direction of the pool. Their enemy had found them. Guardian of Ancient Sins, she thought. What did that mean? Why did the idea repeat over and over in her mind? S...
deed.” “Leave that last part off,” Huio said. “It will make them easily discern that you are lying.” He breathed in, borrowing Stormlight from Lopen’s spheres. “Watch out. There are some cremlings around here that steal Stormlight.” “Is it the one the boss-lady had?” “No, smaller,” Huio said, Lashing himself so he hove...
few spears in the pile of armor, then pulled it on. “I’m young among my people, but I have lived quite a long time. I sailed with Longbrow, you know. I liked him, for all his boasting.” Storms. Longbrow was four hundred years dead. Rysn steeled herself. Oh, storms. She was swimming in water far over her head. And there...
carapace.” “We need a Shardblade!” Kstled said. “Can’t you summon one?” “Afraid not,” Lopen said. “It’s political.” Nearby, Huio was drawing the thing’s attention, but his Stormlight was waning. “Don’t get eaten again!” Lopen called. “But if you do, try not to get sneezed out! It’s awful!” “Political?” Kstled asked. “Y...
Rysn said to Nikli. “You know she isn’t the type to be easily dissuaded.” “The Mother of Machines,” Nikli said it like a distinctive title. “Yes. We are . . . aware.” “You tried to scare away her Windrunners when they investigated this island,” Rysn said, “so she sent a ship. What do you think will happen if that ship ...
didn’t reply. “That’s been your problem all along,” Rysn said. “Each lie you spin makes the mystery more entrancing. You want to protect this place. What if I could help you?” Rysn’s mouth had gone dry. But she continued holding the creature’s eyes. No, Nikli’s eyes. She had to see him as the person she knew. That was ...
was no solution. But if that were the case, why was she still alive? “Is Cord right?” Rysn said. “Are you protectors of life?” “We . . .” Nikli said. “We have seen the end of worlds, and vowed never to let such an awful event happen again. But we will kill the few to protect the many, if we must.” “What if I could prov...
things drained him too, or had he run out normally? Lopen waved for him to go, to run for it with the sailors. But he stayed firm. Stupid chull-brain—he stepped squarely between the monster and Lopen. As it reared to swing, Huio looked right at Lopen, then turned toward the oncoming spear-leg and set himself. “Huio!” L...
them is your brain?” she asked. “Many of them. We store memories in specialized hordelings bred for the purpose. Cognitive facilities are shared across many different members of the swarm.” He waved his fingers, and again the different little cremlings—no, hordelings—separated. “It took my people three hundred years of...
a spear—and hurled it. It flew straight and true, like a silvery line of light, and struck the creature in the head. Not in the eye, but with a Shardweapon that didn’t matter so much. It went right through the thick carapace and sliced out the other side. The giant grublike monster teetered, then collapsed with a crack...
her natural violet-brown colors returning. She wasn’t terribly fearsome, considering her size, but she did her best, bless her. She stood between Rysn and Nikli. Growling, snapping, and howling in challenge. “Ancient Guardian,” Nikli said to Chiri-Chiri—still speaking Veden—standing up on the other side of the table. “...
those in the cosmere who could use it for terrible acts.” Rysn glanced at the other two, noting how distressed their hordelings seemed. She heard uncertainty in Nikli’s voice now. And for the first time, she saw them as they truly were. Terrified. They were unraveling. They were failing. They clung to a secret that was...
two swarms. After a long time of buzzing back and forth, Nikli spoke. “What would it take,” he said, “to make this deal?” “Not much. I can tell the story exactly as it happened, but leave out that mural. Cord and I swam down here, found the Plate and Soulcasters. You were going to attack us, to protect these treasures,...
one will know our secret.” “I am of the Peaks,” Cord said. “Guardians of the pool. You know I can be trusted.” Nikli buzzed with the others of his kind, then he looked Cord up and down. “If we agree to this deal, we will trade the Soulcasters to Rysn for training and aid in imitating humans. That armor you wear, howeve...
ability to negate some applications of Stormlight. Yours is the third larkin we now know to have survived—but the only one that has grown mature enough to return here.” Chiri-Chiri had settled down on the table, though she watched the three Sleepless and clicked warningly. “Why . . . did you say she needed to return?” ...
hordelings—like a person who had frozen in cold Southern winds, then shattered. Cord knelt beside her. “You did well,” she whispered. “As well as anyone in the songs, when dealing with dangerous gods. But you did not trick him.” “Hopefully this is better,” Rysn whispered back. Cord nodded, but then immediately began wo...
“But Cord, you will vow upon the honor of both your mother and your father that you will bear this secret and tell no one. Not even blood relatives.” “I had not thought you knew my people that well,” Cord said. “I will take this vow.” She then spoke it in her own tongue. “Our accommodation is reached?” Rysn asked, hope...
had wanted to practice. At the beach, Kstled waited with two rowboats to take them to the Wandersail. They’d somehow transitioned from near death to leaving with a ridiculous haul. Shardplate, a mountain of gemstones—real this time—and some Soulcasters? “Remind me never to cross Brightness Rysn,” Lopen said. “I don’t k...
laughed with the sailors he met—but he slowly made his way to the small cabin he shared with Huio. For now, Huio gave him space to go in. Sit down. And stare. “Do . . . others complain about me?” Lopen asked Rua, who settled onto the table. “Do my jokes . . . actually hurt people?” The little spren shrugged. Then nodde...
who would train with her and keep watch over her. Likely for the rest of her life. But the arrangement had been made, the details hammered out. The lie was the best kind, as it required very little actual lying. Almost all of what they had to say was true, and of the crew, only Rysn and Cord knew the full secret. Chiri...
Thaylenah. For years the Alethi had possessed a near monopoly on food-creating Soulcasters, but Thaylenah would now possess two—along with one that could form metals, one that created smoke, and another focused on wood, matching the one that the city had used for ages to make the best seafaring lumber. A true wealth th...
Rysn settled back—a single gloryspren fading overhead—and thought upon those words. Mundane. Boring. She had an inkling that neither would ever accurately describe her life again. For Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson Who is the person I know that best deserves her own larkin. (For now, her cats will have to do.) THE SUNLIT MA...
Betsey Ahlstrom, and Emily Shaw-Higham. Kristy Kugler did the copyedit. The Narrative department is just Dan Wells, who is also its VP. But we let him boss Ben around to make up for it. Our COO is Emily Sanderson, and the Operations team includes Matt “Matt” Hatch, Emma Tan-Stoker, Jane Horne, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson...
after a deep sleep. A stalk emerged from the center, testing the air like a serpent’s tongue. Then it stretched left toward the dim light shining from that direction. Nomad groaned and lifted his head, mind fuzzy, muscles sore. Where had he Skipped to this time? And would it be far enough away to hide from the Night Br...
chained to the ground. This was an execution. The man holding Nomad shouted at him again, glaring through eyes a watery blue. Nomad just shook his head. That breath could have wilted flowers. The man’s companion—dressed in one of those long white coats—gestured to Nomad, arguing. Soon his two captors made a decision. O...
Aux’s voice was completely monotone. He was self-conscious about that, hence the added commentary. Nomad dodged again as the ember man slammed his baton down in another near miss—making the ground tremble at the impact. Storms. That light was getting brighter. Covering the entire horizon in a way that felt too even. Ho...
How long had the chase lasted? How long had it been since he’d stood proud? Maybe I’ll just let it end, he thought. A mercy killing. Like a man mortally wounded on the battlefield. He slumped, the soreness in his side pulsing, though he doubted anything was broken. So long as he maintained around five percent Skip capa...
it does…” Nomad whispered. Is that…what you want? No. No, even though he hated much about his life, he didn’t want to die. Even though each day he became something more feral…well, feral things knew to struggle for life. A sudden frantic desperation struck Nomad. He began pulling and flailing against the chains. The se...
have been twisted from their sockets—their skin flayed as plant detritus became like razors in the high speed—he stayed together. And even managed to heal from the burns. Down to six percent, Aux informed him. That wasn’t too bad, all things considered. But…did you feel that heat? It was unreal. There was Investiture i...
a short conversation, the hovercycles took off again. This time, they rose higher in the air, leaving Nomad to dangle. This was better, at least, because as they flew, he didn’t get slammed into anything. He assumed they stayed low earlier because they hadn’t wanted to risk rising too high into the sunlight. They flew ...
once again, though this healing was minimal compared to what he’d needed to recover from that sunlight. From this vantage, he could see lumps of barren hills and muddy pits below, like sludge and moors. The city had left a wide trail of burned, dried-out dirt behind it. Obviously, with a scar like that to follow, it wa...
the man. His black coat glowed too, along the edges, in a similar red-orange shade. Nomad thought he had one of those embers in his chest as well, though that was covered with thin clothing. It didn’t seem to have sunk as deeply into the skin as the others, as he still had the shape of his pectorals. His glow was mimic...
his glove, his eyes—like the burning light of firemoss—illuminating the front brim of his hat and the too-smooth features of his face. He might have been fifty, but it was hard to tell, as he didn’t have a single wrinkle. Seemed there were advantages to living in perpetual twilight. One of the officers from before step...
windshields and control cabs. He got the impression that this city hadn’t been built as a cohesive whole that could also be disassembled—rather, this was a hodgepodge of individual vehicles that could work together. That helped explain the city’s eclectic quality. The place was like a caravan that, for the sake of conv...
last few weeks, he figured the mud was probably trying to do him the same favor. The prisoners forced into the ring did not seem like the fighting type. The poor souls looked almost as tattered and worn as he felt. They stumbled and tripped as they tried to move through the thick sludge, which stained their clothing. N...
by the sudden appearance of his weapon, and he’d tried to hide how he’d obtained it with his roll and fall. He hoped those watching above would assume that he dug it from the sludge somehow, that it was some piece of junk left by some other passing group. Growling, the woman came scrambling for him. Behind, one of the ...
caught first are another set of condemned, Aux,” he guessed. “To be left for the sun.” So… Auxiliary said in his head. This was some elaborate game of tag? To determine who’s next in line to be executed? “That’s my best guess,” Nomad said. “Look how relieved the others are not to have been caught.” Relieved, yes, the k...
his wrists. He looked down at the bracers he’d been given. They were leeching body heat right out of him, leaving him frozen, his muscles immobilized. He exhaled, his breath misting. He glared at Glowing Eyes—who held a device with buttons on it. “B-bastard,” Nomad said through chattering teeth. Then fell face-first in...
fight and cameras that could track him. What good would it do to get a hand free in such a situation? You might be in real trouble this time, Auxiliary said. “You think?” Do I think? I’m not sure. Depends on your definition. “You know, I liked you much better when you were alive.” And who is to blame for that? Nomad sn...
a deep breath. “That might give us an opportunity. You think we could absorb whatever powers those spears? Maybe get enough BEUs to escape this planet?” No, I’d say it isn’t powerful enough for a Skip, Auxiliary said. Hard to say without more information, but I’d guess a spear like that has a couple thousand BEUs—maybe...
sides of his hand. He raised his bleeding hand above his head and to the side, then summoned Auxiliary from the mud. Holding the hilt with only his fingers against his palm, Nomad whipped his hand forward, throwing Auxiliary to spin—flashing and glorious—through the air. Aux slammed into one of the pillars on the podiu...
podium. Weapon fire—blasts with a distinctly red-white heat—rained from the sky. Glowing Eyes shouted something else, and ember people—a good two hundred of them—came running out onto the rims of ships. Then, as one, their embers dulled. Their bracers were activating. Nomad’s did as well, but in a panic, he summoned Au...
through the mud. Yes, that was a joke on my part, Auxiliary said. Proof that I’m not completely mirthless since my death. But, to be more serious, you should probably try to get out of this. That sunrise is going to arrive eventually. I tasted the strength of it earlier. Let it catch you here and you’ll be vaporized. R...
a field from only the light reflected off those rings. “There’s Investiture in the light coming from the rings,” Nomad said. “Can we absorb that?” Slowly, it seems, Auxiliary replied. There isn’t much. Maybe ten or twenty BEUs an hour? Damnation. Well, most of the ships that had formed the arena had launched into the a...
the hand didn’t pull free. Damnation! This manacle was tighter than the other, and even with a broken thumb, he couldn’t get it out. Nomad, you’re dangerously low on Investiture, Auxiliary said. You’re going to start dipping beneath five percent if you need much more healing. It will weaken you, and remove many of your...
didn’t dare dismiss the shield, but he could alter its shape—giving it long spikes at the bottom that he could ram into the earth so he no longer needed to hold it. He huddled there and—with a single hand—awkwardly moved the rifle around toward the lock. You’re going to blow your hand off, Auxiliary warned. “Eh,” Nomad...
him across his shoulders. Unable to keep Auxiliary up with his wounded hand, Nomad dropped the shield and dashed through the battlefield, the weight of forgotten oaths on his shoulders. He somehow avoided being shot as he reached the hovercycle and threw the man onto one of the seats. The back left one, across from the...
decongestant. He smiled at that thought. It was wordplay his former master would have liked. And maybe there was something to be said for the thinner air up here. Maybe he had been, after all, a little bit airsick… Nah. That was absolutely going too far. Still, he kept his shield in place and didn’t try to steal the cy...
and that is a valid point, but different technologies across different planets are more efficient than others at converting energy to Investiture or vice versa. And your own efficiency at absorption and usage is less than many. My best guess is that you’d need twenty or thirty of those to achieve Skip capacity, but we’...
jumped. It felt familiar. Wind against his tattered clothing. An infinite expanse above. Land below, looking up, aspirational. Nomad and the sky weren’t currently on speaking terms. But they’d been intimate for some time in the past, and he still knew his way around her place. He felt…stronger now. Where he’d struggled...
his shield, blocking the machetes and maces that managed to track him. Other ember people stumbled or tripped one another in their eagerness to get to him. He jumped to his feet, throwing one man back into several others, then leaped closer to the cockpit at the back of the long deck. Through the window, he saw the pil...
advanced. Completely unarmed, of course—and worse, completely unable to harm these two. But they didn’t know that. He pointed at their gun, then glared down at them. He’d noticed that people here were, on average, shorter than those of his homeworld. He’d often felt short compared to the towering Alethi, but here he wa...
then pointed at the pilot and gestured dramatically backward with as much of an ominous expression as he could form. He tried to make the implication as clear as possible: I’d better not see you following. Nomad jumped onto the hovercycle. It seemed the enemy pilot had understood Nomad’s command, because he immediately...
The sprinkle lasted less than a minute, though they soon passed through another one. He guessed that those omnipresent clouds made for near-constant scattered showers in this dark zone. “This place is quite spectacular,” he said to Auxiliary. “Sun constantly driving forward, vaporizing all of this.” He glanced at the d...
homeworld. The ember woman was a family member. Probably an older sister, based on their relative ages. He should have seen it earlier. These people had been attacked, captives taken, and some of them had been subjected to terrible torment. The driver next to him had rescued one. Dangerous business, judging by how the ...
lying or… Well, she hadn’t seen him back there. But she’d noticed him carrying a rifle after the other ships vanished. Where did she think he’d gotten that? Have you noticed the names? the knight asks curiously. “Elegy,” Nomad said in Alethi. “Divinity. Zeal. Yeah, I did notice. Do you think…” Threnodites, the knight r...
shorter arms and legs than your average person. His eyes were a dark brown, like Nomad’s own. “Rebeke,” Zeal said. “What you’ve done is dangerous.” “More dangerous than Elegy’s plan?” she said. “Did you recover it, Zeal?” Instead of responding, he thoughtfully studied Nomad. “Is this the stranger? What is his name?” “I...
them, not letting the door close. He saw it was a dimly lit small antechamber with plain flat-black walls. Adonalsium-Will-Remember-Our-Plight-Eventually crowded in after him. “My greatest repentance, Zeal,” the tall man said, chagrined. “He just…won’t go with me.” “Maybe we should present him to the Greater Good,” Reb...
wound. Another member of the raiding party. “Confidence,” Rebeke said to the first and tallest of the women. She had blue eyes. “Compassion.” This was the shortest of them, and the frailest in appearance, with light brown eyes. “Contemplation.” This was the woman of wider girth, the one with pale skin but black hair—ob...
to leave.” “Maybe he’s a killer!” the bearded man said, leaning forward. “Our own killer! Did you see how he glared at me?” That…was not how Nomad had expected this man to respond. The fellow was smiling, eager. Rebeke shook her head at the bearded man. “If he were a killer, I think I’d know it, Jeffrey Jeffrey.” Jeffr...
not lead this people in confidence without evidence.” “Sometimes,” Contemplation said, “no evidence can be found. I offer that, for a time, we must move by faith alone. Elegy—our appointed Lodestar—believed. She is the one the Greater Good trusted to guide our way in the darkness. This was her goal; that is enough for ...
for their willingness to steal it for us.” “I offer this reminder:” Confidence warned, “the Cinder King will chase us for that token.” “If it pleases you to be contradicted,” Compassion said softly, “he would chase us anyway. He desires greatly to destroy us. And that sense of purpose will have been bolstered by today’...
more than these ragged clothes, stolen from the cavern planet where he’d been last. They did little to keep off the chill. But then again, most of the cold he felt now came from within. He started down the miserable street, the metal slick beneath his boots. At least his boots were holding up. He’d learned long ago dur...
plan is fully executed. And for some reason, his dull-minded squire is now armed with a weapon he can’t fire. “They’d have disarmed me when we arrived,” he said. And again…such a clever plan…to get a weapon that one can’t use. All it took was stranding me alone in the rain, to be soaked all the way through—then doing t...
like they did there… Hey, the knight asks confusedly, what are we doing? Nomad? What’s our next step? He saw a light to his left. Farther along the rim of the city. Drawn to it, like a weary traveler drawn to a fragrant cookfire, he started walking. That…was a person standing there, wasn’t it? Holding something that gl...
“I never did get a chance to apologize for…events in Alethkar.” “Well, it’s not like you had the opportunity to,” Nomad said. “After frequently talking to my superior officer, asking him to pass messages to me. After living together in the same city for years and never stopping by. You left me to rot. And it ate you aw...
exist,” Nomad said with a sigh, stopping to look at Wit. “There are too many questions. Seeking any kind of explanation is madness.” “You’re right on the first point,” Wit said. “Remarkable to think that I discovered the secret to the stars themselves. But then found questions abounding that were even more pernicious. ...
single one reached for a weapon. Yeah, they were doomed. But maybe their desires aligned with his. He grabbed the access disc off the table, held it up, and spoke in their tongue—perfectly, without accent. “I know what this is,” he said. “It’s a key to a large metal door, probably buried somewhere, right? With similar ...
beneath the ground.” “The only way we can escape him,” Zeal said with a grunt. “He’s the most powerful man in the world now. He controls the corridor at the equator, with the most resources. He forces everyone else to the bands closer and closer to the poles, where even a stumble leads to death…” Nomad filed that infor...
to him. “Can you activate this disc? Open the door? The Cinder King has tried for years and has never managed it. He can find the door, but not pass inside.” Could he? “I’m almost one hundred percent confident I can get that door open,” Nomad said. “I’m not from the place beyond, like you think, but…I do know the peopl...
all out at once. You absolutely can take these off me.” Zeal looked away. “We have yet to discuss,” Confidence said, “how you feigned the inability to speak merely to spy upon our workings.” “Can’t be too careful,” Nomad said, “when you meet someone new. Eh, Rebeke?” She glared at him. He smiled and winked. Then he hel...
in his voice betrays him. “What did you hope would happen?” Nomad asked. “Did you think Wit would sweep in here, prop me up with one of his little morality tales, and I’d just go back to whistling?” I remember…revelations in light. Transformation. “Those were rare days,” Nomad said, shifting his gun against his shoulde...
a thump, then moved underneath the other one, working. “Thank you for the lecture, young man,” Confidence said dryly. “Perhaps, with age, you will come to realize that a balance is needed. Tyranny is awful, but not all authority is to be rejected. It is common for the young to have trouble with this concept of moderati...
was constantly on the run from superheated death. So he now wore a long brown duster coat with deep pockets, as he preferred. It was the second they’d offered him—the first had looked too much like a uniform. He was still ashamed of how he’d snapped at Rebeke for that. This one was rather nice. It had been a few worlds...
Nomad, he says with mounting exasperation. What are they? “Strange. That’s what they are.” Normally he’d have expected those sorts of formations to come from prolonged weathering. But if that were the case, these would have smooth sides, not that craggy, cratered look, like… Like molten stone, suddenly frozen, he reali...
what was really going on with the mechanics of this planet? “I assume,” he said to Rebeke, “the unstable landscape is why we have to search to find the doorway into the Refuge?” “Yes,” she said, pointing at a nearby group of five ships with round, flat bases. They swept along the ground at a low hover, moving together ...
come anyway, once their harvest is finished,” she explained. “Why would we be so foolish as to fly directly into his path? His riders usually search the far reaches of this corridor and those nearby, presuming to find us there, attempting our own harvests.” They fell silent. “You can’t flee to another corridor?” Nomad ...
eyes. “You…don’t know?” He shook his head. “It’s true?” she whispered. “There’s a place where they don’t use sunhearts?” “The power sources?” he said, rapping his knuckles on the cycle’s housing. “I mean, everyone I’ve known uses power of one sort or another, but I’ve never seen these ones. Where do you get them? Is it...
had days, she might have had years. But we had three spent sunhearts and ships that couldn’t flee. So…” She took a deep breath. “So you leave people out to die,” he said. “They become these…power sources. How do you find them again?” “The prospector ships,” she said. “It’s why we have them. Sunhearts float near the top...
can lead to heat being drawn or given—even for a normal person and even if not intended. It is rare for it to be dangerous, though.” “So, wait,” Nomad said. “If you touch, you start draining Investiture from one another?” “There are prayers to formalize it,” she said. “But…yes, a prolonged touch can cause it to begin. ...
disrupt their signals.” Nomad wondered again at their varied technologies. Then again, maybe they weren’t using actual radio waves, and his mind interpreted the word that way for convenience. Might be some kind of Connection-based communication, if it was powered by these sunhearts. “Then it’s even more important not t...
you’d want your ships to be simple to fly. The scout had taken cover beside a rock formation, like a large wave of magma that had been frozen in place. They were much closer now, but a distance still separated them—perhaps equal to what they’d already covered. Getting closer would be suspicious. “All right,” Nomad said...
than most. For now, he ignored the radio, leaned down, and enjoyed the chase. The scout flew well, staying ahead of them in the tunnel—but none of them were flying at full speed. These turns were too tight. And unfortunately the scout didn’t need to escape. He just had to get close enough to home to draw attention. So ...
into an open section of the canyonlands. Surrounded by mesas and peaks, this flatter region was essentially the floor of a large crater. That let the scout maximize his speed. Their cycles were matched in that regard, so Nomad stayed in close pursuit—but there was little he could do if he caught up. He needed to— Lava ...
the knight tells him. About the hunters. How do you do it? A lifetime of paying attention. “I don’t feel different,” Rebeke said, “but I feel like I should. Does that make sense?” Nomad shrugged. “My first time was with a spear. I had to keep fighting, didn’t even get time to pause as his blood ran down onto my fingers...
small, green-on-black indicator screen that was cracked but still flickering. “What is it?” he asked. “That shows an incoming radio signal,” she said. “The speaker is busted, so we can’t hear what they’re saying. But…” “But someone was calling this fellow when he went down,” Nomad said. “Which means we got out of range...
longitude where the Cinder King stopped each time to test his key. Several of our people have seen the opening, Nomad. It’s real. Yet our prospectors can’t find it.” “Well, what do you want us to do?” “You’re taking orders from me now?” Contemplation asked. “Depends on how stupid they are.” She grunted. “If it pleases ...
of the food, which he took. “She thinks you’re from some strange underground place, but I think you’re from somewhere more normal.” “And where would that be?” he asked. She nodded her chin up, toward the stars. “Another world is more normal?” “We came from another world,” she said around bites of her food. Odd, how the...
pushed him, Nomad’s interest had always been in engineering, the nature of Investiture, and the mechanisms one could create by manipulating it. Still, he had training from Wit about the nature of stories and the people who told them. So he recognized that these peoples’ stories were bound to be fascinating. Enough so t...
this thing was emblazoned with it—and with gold trim that must glitter fiercely in brighter conditions. The docking point was a rectangle cut out of the deck, where a small craft could slot in. Nomad carefully moved into position—but didn’t fully dock. He left the cycle hovering on its own power and stepped out onto th...
cup. He sipped it to prove it wasn’t poisoned, though Nomad’s body was Invested enough to handle any normal poison. He took the drink, had a smile about the codes he used to follow, then downed it in a single shot. It was good stuff. He wouldn’t have expected that from a planet full of religious types, but then again, ...
Until slavery had brought him low, and camaraderie finally led him to soar through the skies. But storms. Even here, how many worlds away, it chased him. A pursuit of a completely different kind from the Night Brigade’s. The Cinder King’s expression darkened. “Sorry,” Nomad said. “Just appreciating the irony of the sit...
it was refreshing. He’d faced far, far too many enemies with pictures from their kids in their pockets. Killed far too many people who never deserved it. But here was a man Nomad could run through with a hot poker and only feel bad for the poker. “What is it you want, offworlder?” the Cinder King asked, finally letting...
Rosharan.” Nomad lunged to the side as the king focused again, his gun aimed at Rebeke. At the same time, Nomad formed Auxiliary into a metal ball in his hand. The Cinder King fired. And Nomad’s thrown sphere knocked the blast from the air in a shower of sparks. NOMAD WASN’T TRULY faster than most projectiles. He misse...

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