The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

Author:N.K. Jemisin
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316229241
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2017-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“I agree that Danel should come with us,” Lerna says, later that night when you tell him about the conversation. “She’s a good fighter. Knows the road. And she’s right: she has no reason to betray us.”

You’re half-asleep, because of the sex. It’s an anticlimactic thing now that it’s finally happened. What you feel for Lerna will never be intense, or guilt-free. You’ll always feel too old for him. But, well. He asked you to show him the truncated breast and you did, thinking that would mark the end of his interest in you. The sandy patch is crusty and rough amid the smoother brown of your torso—like a scab, though the wrong color and texture. His hands were gentle as he examined the spot and pronounced it sound enough to need no further bandaging. You told him that it didn’t hurt. You didn’t say that you were afraid you couldn’t feel anything anymore. That you were changing, hardening in more ways than one, becoming nothing but the weapon everyone keeps trying to make of you. You didn’t say, Maybe you’re better off with unrequited love.

But even though you didn’t say any of these things, after the examination he looked at you and replied, “You’re still beautiful.” You apparently needed to hear that a lot more than you realized. And now here you are.

So you process his words slowly because he’s made you feel relaxed and boneless and human again, and it’s a good ten seconds before you blurt, “‘Us’?”

He just looks at you.

“Shit,” you say, and drape an arm over your eyes.

The next day, Castrima enters the desert.

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