Split (1)

train · 9.05k rows

text stringlengths 1.73k 3.83k
you’re the one. Pay attention!” Another shot came through the door. They assumed he’d somehow thrown the dead bolt and were trying to shoot the doorknob off. Nomad jumped up onto the control panel and slammed his shoulder into the windshield, completely breaking it free of the frame. Together he fell with it outside, w...
the cycle still screaming toward the ground. Then, with obvious frustration, she pulled up and shot them along the ground—leaving the other cycle behind, abandoned. The Cinder King took no further shots. Indeed, Nomad thought he saw the man stalk back to his cabin, though the distance was now too great to be sure. He h...
It’s time to pull out and retreat to the darkness.” “If we retreat,” Contemplation said, “we will be dead before we can rotate to this position again.” “If you don’t retreat, you’ll be dead a lot sooner. Doesn’t seem like a difficult decision to me.” She sighed. “I’m just…so tired of running.” “Lady,” he replied, “you ...
hadn’t expected to run into it so soon. For a few confusing minutes, chaos reigned. Both groups of ships broke up, swarming in all directions. Nomad’s stomach tried to crawl up his esophagus as Rebeke dove toward the ground. The radio became a barking frenzy of questions and orders. “To the east!” Contemplation’s voice...
Nomad shouted. “And be ready to pull me out in case I need it. Try not to get captured this time!” She nodded, pulling up in another jarring maneuver. Unfortunately a fleeing Beaconite vessel roared across their vector. Many of them were doing a good job of avoiding capture—that was something they had experience with. ...
Fortunately the Cinder King took people captive so he could use them to make sunhearts, which explained his preference for batons instead of swords. Unfortunately there were two of them, and they were fast. They descended upon him in a flurry of blows and growls, forcing him to block with a shield in a series of quick ...
share of hunting as a youth,” the old woman replied. “Haven’t held a rifle in years. Why did you kick it to me instead of grabbing it yourself?” “Personal challenge,” he said, flopping back onto the ground, eyes squeezed closed at the cumulative pain of his wounds. “I hate hogging the glory. Maybe one of you could get ...
was a sleeping dragon, dangerous to disturb. Look how they arrange their chairs, the hero exclaims. Look, see it, Nomad. They don’t dare scoot back, lest they bump you. Why don’t they hold the meeting in another location? Or…you know…move you to a bed? Nomad probably had one of his faces on. The one that said, “Don’t t...
for them? Did it matter? Even if he somehow got them to the entrance…it wouldn’t save them. Still, he found their air of defiance more intoxicating than the Cinder King’s liquor. And if there was something left of the man he’d been, it was a severe loathing for bullies—particularly those who picked on the defenseless. ...
a set of “mountains” that would barely be considered hills on his homeworld? He’d lived in a city at over fifteen thousand feet elevation, back there. And yet he wouldn’t call them fools. Naive, maybe, but not idiots… I’m lost, the knight says with an air of bafflement, commensurate with his solemn, dignity-ravaging in...
a gravitational pull and leave the planet livable. “Your atmosphere also seems to thin at an alarming rate. From my estimation, a thousand feet up, and you’re well into the death zone. No wonder you only hover your ships thirty or forty feet in the air.” He looked up to a circle of blank faces. I’m raising my hand, the...
entire point of math. Explaining stuff everyone already knows. Some days he wished he’d bonded a Cryptic. “Indeed, it tells us what we know, Confidence,” he said. “But more usefully it tells us why. Which is the first step to fixing any problem.” “And can you fix this one?” Contemplation said. “In less than ten hours? ...
up from his chair. “And I live for those, Greater Good. Even without the mountains…even if we had sunhearts…our path would be one of death without a dream. Without a dream, he will wear us down eventually and destroy us, no matter what we do. So yes, I’d prefer to trust a myth, Confidence. Instead of just stopping and ...
of her chest, where her heart should have been—flared dramatically as she fought against the chains. If she hadn’t been so Invested—the power reinforcing her very skin and muscles—she would have injured herself in her furious attempts to rip free. “This was her room, once,” Contemplation said from the doorway. “I had h...
want.” The elderly woman smiled. “I’m pleased I got to see you.” She retreated then, leaving him alone with a glowing madwoman. Well, that and his semifunctional conscience. Do you really think you can do this? the hero asks, dubious but curious. Nomad settled down at the desk, but continued watching Elegy, who had sto...
methods that had been out of reach until scientific practicality matched theoretical dreaming. “For space flight,” he said to Aux’s question, “you usually bring your own propellant. A rocket engine will often mix a fuel and an oxidizer—but the point is that the mass of those two is ejected from the back of the engine a...
he’d unconsciously reached out for any energy source he could access. The Dawnshard had found Auxiliary, a being of Investiture. It had turned Aux’s very substance into power to fuel Nomad’s abilities. The Dawnshard—the weapon—protected itself. No matter what. No matter who it killed. Nomad had barely been able to stop...
when he first took the Dawnshard all those years ago. He tossed the mirror aside, straightening the buttoned shirt they’d given him, and pulled his chair over to Elegy, who was still chained to the wall. It’s not just me, right? the knight asks. It is bizarre that you have a woman chained to your wall, isn’t it? “It is...
another through touch. And their highly Invested souls become these power sources when bombarded long enough by the sun. I’m hoping that I can find a way to siphon a little of my soul into this drained sunheart, taking some of the scar tissue with it. Follow?” Vaguely, yes. It will be like lancing a boil. “Yes, but not...
to focus your will, your Intent, and project it to the Investiture. Like the Command he’d tried with Contemplation earlier, which came from the planet Nalthis to make Investiture flow between bodies. Today he tried almost all the ones he knew, in a variety of styles, as he pressed the sunheart against Elegy’s exposed a...
table and pressed it to Elegy’s arm, drawing another growl. He said the words exactly as Rebeke had. Nothing happened. “You’re trying to transfer her heat to the sunheart?” Rebeke said. “It won’t work like you think. We’ve tried, and while we can store some heat in a depleted sunheart, it doesn’t give enough power to f...
to this hallowed ground. A rack on one wall, opposite the large aquarium, held depleted sunhearts. “Have you ever,” he asked, glancing at the tens of lifeless sunhearts, “left those out again in the sunlight?” “Of course we have,” Rebeke said. “They don’t recharge. We can’t even find them afterward most of the time, bu...
against the glass, “must be given to the sun. This is the sun’s land.” “Do this not,” the first said, “and shades will overrun the world. Such a small planet. They will take everything. They would rip and destroy you.” “As we would,” another added, “if allowed. To taste the flesh of the living. To drink their heat.” “S...
will the fabrication take?” Nomad asked. If they were building something, why was the enclosure so silent? “Depends,” Zeal said. “For something like this, under an hour. They’re faster when it’s something they’ve done before, though.” Under an hour to fabricate complicated machinery? He wasn’t going to complain—though ...
it’s not about you individually. Sometimes it’s about being a symbol. Sometimes you just adopt the name you’re given because it inspires people. I’ve seen it happen. Didn’t think it would happen to me.” Zeal returned with some snacks, and they continued waiting. Eventually, after about forty-five minutes, the glow in t...
him. Tan skinned with long black hair, she could almost have been Alethi—if not for her strikingly Threnodite name that he’d learned during the fabrication: Solemnity Divine. “This is genius,” she whispered, hand on the schematics. “Thanks,” he said. “But I think the boiler housing was too thin.” Solemnity Divine nodde...
of my heritage. I mean, I like breathing. Feels normal, lets me talk. Better to use natural processes to oxygenate the blood when possible. But I don’t strictly need it. And I can take a vacuum without much trouble. Been doing that for decades.” Sure enough, several of them muttered about the powers of the Sunlit Man. ...
on Nomad. “You can find that doorway? Have you figured out how?” “I will,” he promised. “You’ll have to rely on me to figure something out.” “We’re relying on you for a lot,” Confidence said, arms folded. “I wouldn’t want to depend on me so much either,” he agreed. “But your options are all pretty terrible right now. S...
with Elegy. HE LEFT THEM to divide the people among the chosen buildings while he went to test his realization. They’d harvest the sunhearts of the other ships, then leave the surplus hulks behind. As he’d suggested, they did keep one scout ship with a prospecting device—they picked one where he’d been living, the one ...
Connection going on there, I suspect, Auxiliary said. Looking at his cinderheart and those of the Charred, his glows even more brightly. And they seem to react to his mental commands. Have you noticed? He hadn’t, but he trusted Aux, who picked up on things he didn’t. “I still want to know what you’re doing to my sister...
too long without oil. “Let me go.” Rebeke froze, then spun, gasping. Elegy sneered at them and shook her chained arms, but the motions lacked the wild ferocity of moments earlier. More remarkably, she could speak. He’d never heard one of these Charred speak before. Her cinderheart continued to glow, but now in a purer,...
him to constant motion, to avoid sleep, to push himself to keep running. In Elegy, it was clearly of a more aggressive nature. The frenzied way these Charred acted, always attacking and enjoying the fight…that might not be the command of the Cinder King. He probably just pointed them in certain directions, kept them wo...
wrists before her nails dug into his flesh, but her momentum took them both to the floor in a writhing heap. He grunted, rolling them to the side, trying to get the upper hand. This should have been easy. He’d trained extensively in grappling over the years, while she fought with an unskilled frenzy, eyes wide and teet...
“She’s not fully cured! Do what you did before, only more.” “Won’t help,” he said. “Any more of that might kill her. I’ve drawn off the part that was letting the Cinder King control her; what you see now is everything left of your sister.” Nomad moved over to his desk and cut out the sliver of sunheart in his arm, whic...
it. We could fight. You and I. Struggle. Move. Be alive.” “Not interested. Thanks.” She’s charming, the knight says. Rebeke soon returned with Zeal in tow. Using his device, they knocked Elegy unconscious and reset her chains. Zeal watched with curiosity as Nomad dismissed Auxiliary. “How,” he asked, “do you control th...
him. They move fast? Really? The people who spend their lives outracing the sun, always one step from being vaporized in a wave of burning light? They move fast? Well, damn. Who would have thought? “You really don’t think that’s sarcasm?” Nomad said in Alethi. It’s just being extra clear. “I think maybe you go a little...
about space or vacuums, do you?” he guessed. “Uh, shades, no,” she said. “Why would we?” “You don’t need to insulate against the cold,” he said. “Though do install some heat sinks—particularly on the piping near the engines. We should be fine, as we’ll be dumping heat prodigiously. That’s kind of the point of all this....
in it, a wide deck, and a bulbous cab near the back. “It was Elegy’s ship, named the Dawnchaser. She had it reinforced, so she could try to push into the great maelstrom at the edge of night, drawing ever closer to the sun.” “Why would she want that?” “It was one of her ideas for survival,” Contemplation said. “The Cin...
happened during the days of our fifteenth emperor. The Tagarut came again, as they were like the storm itself. Regular. Every generation. Another warlord. Another invasion.” “Giants, you say?” Contemplation said, looking up at him. “Compared to you?” “Yes,” he whispered as another part of the city fell. “I’ve stood amo...
not too shocking. For some reason, many involve children who get eaten by shades.” “My master likes those kinds of stories,” Nomad said. “The kinds with points. It’s gotten so he lies and tells people there isn’t a point to anything he says, all to keep them from drifting off and ignoring him for preaching to them. But...
Contemplation said, barely keeping up. “But let me offer this reminder: you recognize the limited nature of that very time, correct? We are approaching the mountains at a frightening rate.” “We’re close to being on schedule,” he said. “Two more hours for fabrication and installation.” “An incredible pace.” “But doable,...
make sure it works. While I’m gone, you get these modifications installed on the remaining ships. Don’t forget lateral thrusting ability—we’ll need to be able to go forward, not just up.” He left them in a buzz and stepped back over to Contemplation, who watched the sky and that blazing light of a warship. He wondered ...
spent the better part of a day searching earlier, and that was when the Cinder King didn’t know what we were up to. It’s going to be far more difficult this time. “Perhaps,” Nomad said, his breath misting. “Perhaps not. Cities keep to relatively strict latitudes here. I confirmed it with their navigation team. The Cind...
it leads to some small, offworlder research facility? “Congratulations. You’ve identified the hard part.” Ah. Right. “I said I’d get Beacon’s leadership through that door,” he said. “That was my oath. I never said I’d solve their problem with the Cinder King or their bigger problem—the sad fact that it’s unlikely their...
the slope was even steeper—cutting downward in a way that would have been improbable in a normal mountain range. Weathering below would not have needed long to collapse this higher section. But here, the peaks only had to last a day until they were remade. He turned toward the stars again. They’d always seemed so frien...
with you. Even with the cost, I’m glad to be here. Something about that twisted Nomad up inside. Auxiliary was barely there, a fragment of the being he’d once been, so brilliant and capable. What kind of damaged individual would be glad to have gone through what he had? But then again, the view from atop the world…look...
in place. “That should be everything.” “What are those controls?” he asked, gesturing to a group on the left of the panel. “Those control the prospector device underneath your ship,” Jeffrey Jeffrey explained. “Not relevant now.” Right. Elegy, before becoming a Charred, had been an explorer. A woman who pushed the limi...
now, which makes you captain of this ship. That’s a command position. “Not the same thing.” It isn’t your fault, you know, what happened. Events were largely outside your control. “Never said they weren’t.” You still carry that burden. “It’s a small one.” And yet you’ve always avoided being put into a leadership positi...
free, there would be nothing for me to choose. I would fight you. I’d fight everyone on this ship.” “And then what?” “And then…” She trailed off. “Then you’d die up here in the cold,” Nomad said. “Alone. Great. What have you earned? What have you accomplished?” “I…” “You’re going to have to learn to find something else...
pushed the engines to full power, and though they started moving a little faster, the acceleration soon tapered off. Around them, the cloud cover was falling away, the mountainside coming into full view. Ringlight bathed the landscape. Are we even moving? “We are, but slowly,” he said, checking other readings. He silen...
meant to be.” “You said you used to live for your friends,” she said. “To fight for them. Because of decency?” “That and so much more,” he said. “Aux, I’m not going to be able to speak out there. You’ll have to do your best to interpret my emotions.” Understood, trusty valet. Once upon a time, their bond had been close...
couldn’t just pull free. That gave Nomad a secure anchor to climb down farther, until he dangled just below Beacon. He looked out across the underside of the composite ship, where eight jets had been spaced equidistantly around the larger one underneath the hub. The tenth ship was being used for lateral motion, its jet...
they didn’t fatigue and drop him. He used this arm-under-arm swing to maneuver slowly around the nearest of the jets—a blinding column of superheated steam and light, violent and powerful, that could be felt as infrared radiation in the vacuum. The fact that he felt anything from this jet was an indication of just how ...
secure position. He dangled there as sweat beaded on his face and instantly vanished, fleeting kisses of cool. Thank you, Auxiliary said, for caring. Nomad tried to send an impression of anger—of insistence that Auxiliary never bring up this topic again. He swung once more to reach the proper lock, then unwound the tow...
climbed onto the metal deck. He stood tall, looking toward that terrible horizon. Sunlight trying to break free as the ship rose to meet it. Higher. Higher. The right side of the ship ground against stone, sending tremors through the entire structure. Nomad fell to his knees, still looking west at that terrible light. ...
his absence, the cabin had depressurized completely. He pulled himself through the room, now fully in free fall, gravity meaningless for the next few moments. Engines. He had to get the regular engines going. He was starting to hear wind whistling outside the still-open door. Once they got back into thicker air, the re...
beings. Ghosts. Shades. Whatever one wanted to call them, they were among the most dangerous entities in the cosmere. He’d just crashed their enclosure to the ground, then hit the door release button without a second thought. He hesitated on the threshold of his ship, wondering if he’d have time to get the vessel disen...
by the crash. I’d suggest we fly separately from here on out, as I can’t guarantee the integrity of the whole.” “That’s not…too bad,” Jeffrey Jeffrey said. “Is it?” “Depends,” Solemnity Divine said, spreading her hands wide. “My team can fix this. We might even be able to do it before the sun rises.” “We have extra tim...
the entire ship—as if he had the power to shield them all from the sunlight somehow. You know, the knight says with a wry sense of amusement, you always complain about the legends you start. Then you say things like this… “Regardless,” Nomad said, forging forward, “the Cinder King created a whole big group of new sunhe...
What if we were to fly ahead of him and steal them right out of the ground before he gets to them? Inside the storm?” Collectively they gaped at him. All right, the knight says, that’s fun. I like the way you make their brains melt. It’s cute. Confidence sputtered. “Survive the great maelstrom? It’s impossible.” “Nobod...
the word “blessed” as…as a curse? “It’s a conservative religious society,” Nomad said in Alethi. “You use the tools you’re given.” Then, before any of the others could interject, he spoke in their language. “I’ll be going out into the storm, not any of you. We brought you because Zeal insisted that I have you here for ...
requires skill. The other…” “No conscience?” she asked softly. “It’s the existence of a conscience that makes it difficult. Combat training is about preparing you to act regardless of conscience—usually via repetition. We make it so that your body knows what to do before you actively consider what it will mean. Or what...
sliver with his fingernail, “worked on Elegy because everyone on this planet is Connected. I’m not sure how or why, but their souls see one another as the same. They can share heat with one another. It’s become deeply embedded in their culture. But they couldn’t do it with me, even when I wanted to. So…” So this sunhea...
he could see the stars. “I don’t particularly like who I am, but I cherish what I’ve learned about myself. It lets me trust in certain truths.” “I don’t know what to trust or believe,” she said. “The voice in my head was so confident…” “Do you think it knew you?” he asked. “Who will you follow, Elegy? The person who de...
Nomad said. “Why is it on fire?” “It’s the great maelstrom beyond sunset!” Zeal said, crowding up into the cabin beside him. “You said you’d been in one before.” “Storms shouldn’t be on fire!” Nomad exclaimed. “They’re wet! Full of wind and rain.” “You suggested this plan,” Rebeke said, frowning, “and you didn’t know i...
always reminded him of Roshar in the best ways. There was something comforting about the sound of water on metal or stone; it had a primal, rhythmic quality. The sound of a world’s heartbeat, racing fast with excitement. His friends from back then had loved the wind, and he couldn’t blame them. But for Nomad, the rain ...
fast as she could toward the cooler air of the shadow. Mission, in the sudden suffocating heat, forgotten. Still, she swerved the ship back. As they hovered over a certain spot, the faintest of pings came from the dash—nearly inaudible over the sounds of the tempest outside and the groaning of the ship’s hull. “Shades,...
him into a thoughtless abyss that—in his current state—might be the end. He fought it by forcing himself to analyze the land around him. He focused, thinking, not letting himself fade away. As always, that questioning brain—that mind that had driven him to always ask, that cursed part of him that had led him to become ...
his particular talents. Terrible burns didn’t directly impact his core organs or his skeletal structure. The body knew what to do, and his warped soul—for all he hated the part that prevented him from defending himself—fed on Investiture to restore him, bit by bit. His master, who had held the Dawnshard far longer, cou...
out into the rain? “He knows I’ll try something,” Nomad whispered. “He’s expecting a fight.” How? How would he know? Well, perhaps “know” was the wrong word. But the Cinder King obviously anticipated the worst. In this case, that meant making sure that Nomad—the wild card from another world—wasn’t coming for these sunh...
the chamber. Nomad stood up from his hiding place and dismissed Auxiliary. That thump had been the vault door closing. He rushed to the drawers, and though they were locked individually, a crowbar made quick work of that. The sunhearts were inside. One per drawer. He collected all he could find—five in total. That woul...
to stop in place, squint—then let out a huge sigh of relief. “Sunlit?” he asked. “You blessed man. You survived?” “I did,” Nomad said, stepping forward with the sack of sunhearts. “Looks like you and I had the same plan.” Zeal peered into the sack, then up at Nomad with a grin on his face. “I…I can’t believe you.” He p...
Nomad stepped forward, as if to face off with the Cinder King right there. And he really wished he could. He’d stuff those burning eyes into the muddy water until they went out. Instead he tried to keep the man talking, figure out his fatal flaw—something Nomad could use against him. Charred rushed by on both sides, ch...
he’d hoped, but he wasn’t ready yet. So Nomad gave the king a grin, then leaped back into the pilot’s cab and smashed out the front windshield—recently replaced from his last escape. Fortunately for him, they had done a poor job of it. “Fine!” the Cinder King shouted at him. “A coward, then? If my Charred kill you, tha...
metal six feet long. For some reason, leaving the spearhead off made it work, and he cocked a smile—remembering a similar story told to him by a friend from long ago. He made a hole in the haft the proper size, then slid the offworlder’s sunheart inside so he could touch it while holding the weapon. As he did, Auxiliar...
freed from the cloud and cast into the sky. He was the lightning, so eager to move that it jumped through empty space with frenzied splintering. He was the thunder that hit when you weren’t expecting it, warping the air with its rhythms. He was the storm. Falling on foreign lands, but still the same as it had always be...
ready. Then, to the beat of thunder and the applause of lightning, he began spinning and twisting, moving his spear through an intimidating set of training maneuvers. They called it the Chasm Kata. The very first he’d ever seen, and he knew firsthand how intimidating it looked. Stepping forward with each twist of the s...
a cinderheart glowing there. It was wrong that he didn’t. One did not fight as he did without a cinderheart. Yet he had. And far, far better than the Charred. She wanted that. He had told her she should live for something. She had just seen that he was right. The rest of the Charred, they’d fought like children, like b...
said. “Have everyone ready to go. We’ll be there in…a little over half an hour. Hopefully.” “May you outrun the sun, Zeal,” the old woman whispered. Rebeke took out her knife to divide the sunhearts, and the killer stepped up to her. “Can you spare one of those for me?” he asked. She stared at him, then at the stolen s...
learn from my mistakes in a way that is exceptionally difficult to do as a soldier. Normally you end up dead, and all your learning evaporates like rainwater in the sunlight. “But I could learn, keep growing, until…” He held his hands out to the sides. “Until I became what you see. A mess of a man sometimes, but one wi...
his scalp. His hair wouldn’t grow back until he had more Investiture to spare. At least he’d been given some trousers, a belt, and a buttoned shirt. He’d left the collar undone. He leaned out, hands on the railing, watching the other eight ships lift off—leaving two broken ones at the foot of the mountain. Together, th...
dead!” I thought they were gone, consumed. Why was it back now? What had happened? Was it because he fought again? Was it because of why he had fought again? He turned back down the line of terrified ships. That last one had fallen farther behind. “Aux,” he asked. “How much do we have?” Roughly six percent Skip capacit...
shouldn’t push like that, Nomad. “It was being pulled into the ground,” Nomad whispered. “Like…an electric current. Like lightning, forming a current between cloud and ground—only this time, between sunlight and the core of the planet.” Storms. That was it. That’s why he could stand on the deck up high and not be aflam...
feeling strangely self-conscious with everyone watching him. “I’d rather be known for what I’ve done, not for some prophecy.” “You go by the name Nomad. Why?” Confidence asked, squeezing his hand. “It is the name I deserve. And it sounds a little like my birth name, in my own language.” “Which is?” “Sigzil,” he whisper...
every moment we have, from now until we are given to the sun. Please, take some for yourself.” HE DIDN’T WANT to go back to his room because Elegy was there. He wanted to be alone. So he strolled away from the group of ships, looking toward the sky. He’d seen rings on other planets, but never ones so vivid, so colorful...
you might want to give something more than they did,” he replied. She met his eyes briefly, like the fleeting bob of a lifespren, then glanced away, blushing. “Why not?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t we find a little comfort in the few hours remaining before we fly back out? They might be the last hours we have.” “I don’t ...
knight,” he said, “of a very exclusive order. Two different orders actually, at two different times. For the first, I was one of their leaders, with oaths that were supposed to turn what I did from terrible into—if not beautiful—honorable. But then…” How to explain this next part? A part he didn’t fully understand hims...
that a place exists where we can find safety?” Storms, he wasn’t certain he could maintain that lie. This was almost certainly a Scadrian research facility, by that key. A place to house a small group of scientists come to study the way Canticle’s sun worked. They would have watched this people with the cold detachment...
man’s leg cut the twilight sky, shot from the cannons, ripping apart the Cinder King’s forces like they were twigs before a highstorm. Ships went blazing to the ground, and Charred howled as they were blasted free from exploding decks. The initial barrage—and the shock it prompted—was the primary thing Zellion was coun...
secret, but only by a little. Like how a magician might focus everyone’s attention on one hand, while the other secretly stacked the deck. They knew the Cinder King’s city always traveled in a straight line, periodically stopping to farm. Somewhere along that path, he tried to open the door to the Refuge. But Zellion w...
undid her manacle. She immediately leaped to her feet, pushing toward him aggressively. He locked eyes with her and waited for the punch. Which…through a battle conveyed by the twisting of expressions on her face…never came. Something thumped from outside—a Charred jumping onto their deck. He had little hope they’d be ...
to take out the gunships. People often aimed for the defenses first, as if there was a kind of hierarchy you were supposed to follow. He wasn’t going to complain. Rebeke, following his instructions, swung the Dawnchaser in close to Zeal’s gunship—which had five Charred swarming its deck. Once close, Zellion jumped. He ...
to the deck of the third of the four gunships. Rebeke pushed them forward, and he leaped, using the momentum to carry him through the rushing air to land on the ship. A Charred here was charging something against her cinderheart—one of the bombs. It seemed they needed to be primed, which gave him a few moments to break...
he could see only Jeffrey Jeffrey, trying frantically to control the ship. Zellion summoned Auxiliary as a full-sized Shardblade, as long as a man was tall, then used it to slice off the top of the ship’s cab like he was opening a can of food. He saw no sign of the copilot; perhaps they’d been thrown free. Zellion pull...
off the railing and made dents in the hull, but didn’t penetrate the thicker armor of Elegy’s vessel. Rebeke surveyed the spot, then met his eyes through the glass. She nodded once, firmly. The ship’s prospector scanners had identified a large power source below—as he’d hoped, the Cinder King had led them straight to t...
rarely stay in one place long… Well, just watch.” Elegy leaned forward and watched through the windshield as one of the gunships broke out of their formation. It swung around, then dipped, so its large anti-ship guns were pointed at an angle toward the ground. Then it swooped past the Cinder King’s position, firing. Tu...
“I seek asylum under the—” “Yes, yes. Fine. You can negotiate.” “These will need protection while we discuss,” he said, gesturing to the others. Silence. Elegy watched the sky, trying to feel the fear the others obviously did from their postures. It was difficult for her because the Cinder King was no longer afraid. He...
the place to the walls, strain their life support. But…maybe there was another way. Two people, a man and a woman, stepped up to meet him. They wore small metal ornaments at the sides of their faces, triangular, with red enamel. These were TimeTellers, one faction among the many Scadrian political movements. Theoretica...
two more, I suppose, but that’s it. Really, what we need are those sunhearts, but we already have a supplier of those.” “Supplier?” Zellion asked. “How did you…” It clicked. “The Cinder King. Guy with the glowing eyes. He’s been meeting with you?” “Delivers us things we need now and then,” the woman said. “And we give ...
a physical fight earlier, he doubted he could take this entire group. If he even had the heart to try. Which right now…he just didn’t. “You were right, Zellion,” Rebeke whispered, still kneeling. “You tried to warn us. There is no refuge here.” “I…” He looked back to them, expecting to see anger and dismay at this betr...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.