Page 68 of The Sunlit Man

And you’re a very ineffective one, I must say. Rarely ever do what I tell you. Maybe we should get you one of those cinderhearts. Then perhaps you’d be more pliant.

“Why don’t you fight?” Elegy asked.

“Who?”

“Everyone,” she said. “The voice held me back, most of the time, then let me loose when there was someone to fight. Now…I want to fight everyone. You said you feel it. I can see you feel it. So why don’t you fight?”

“I choose my fights,” Nomad replied. Outside, the air was thinning. He didn’t need to check the pressure gauge when the engines were so obviously laboring. He gave the order, and the people sealed themselves into their cabins, closing the vents.

He had about two hours, from this point, until they started to run out of oxygen.

“I don’t understand,” Elegy said. “Choose what fights? How?”

Can’t you just explain to her that there’s more than fighting, the hero asks.

He could. But if there was one thing his master had taught him, it was how to lead a conversation. He still did it as naturally as he performed a spear kata.

“I don’t want to fight the people here,” Nomad said. “There’s no challenge to it, for one thing. For another, I want nothing from them.”

“I want the fight from them,” Elegy said. “If you let me 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 to live for, Elegy.”

“Something…else…?”

“A reason,” Nomad said. “A purpose. Once you have that, you’ll know when to fight, and why. You’ll fightforsomething.” He met her eyes again. “You aren’t going to be able to recover who you once were. I’m reasonably certain she is gone, like a book burned to ashes.

“But you can’t merely be what you are now. If you keep on this way, you’ll end up dead. Probably fast. You’ll howl in rage to the sun, unsatisfied, because the fight was short and pointless. But that fire inside of you isn’t going to go away either. So find something to care about, a reason to channel it. That’s my best advice to you.”

“Then what is your purpose? Why doyoulive?”

Damnation. He’d walked right into that. Perhaps he hadn’t digested Wit’s lessons as well as he’d thought.

“I used to live for my friends,” Nomad said softly. “But those days are gone. Then I lived to protect the cosmere—for a brief time harboring one of its most dangerous secrets. Now…now I live to run.”

She frowned. “And that’s…satisfying, why?”

“It isn’t,” he admitted. “I guess I’m still trying to learn the same lesson.”

“So that’s why you understand,” she said and settled back, closing her eyes. “I see. Yes, I see. Thank you.”

Storming woman. He had the sense that, before all of this, she’d probably beenoutrageouslyself-righteous. Her memories might not have survived, but some of that attitude did.

I’m embarrassed, the knight admits, how much better she just did my job than I have lately.

“Your job?” he asked in Alethi. “Since when has it been your job to moralize at me?”

Since forever, Nomad. You threw out your conscience years ago, I know, though I never had a chance to meet her. That left the position vacant, regardless, so I appointed myself to fill it. I’d ask how I’m doing, but…well, you are clear evidence of how much of a rookie I still am.

Nomad grunted, smiling despite himself, and checked the elevation. They were barely moving now. So he took a deep breath and engaged the new engines. The entire cityjoltedas if it had been struck by a giant hammer. Then it started upward again.

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