Page 99 of The Sunlit Man

“Not yet. Soon.”

“Hey!” a voice said from another part of the room. “That Rosharan was right—thisisinteresting. We should have been watching.”

He let his eyes flutter open. A worker sipping tea had turned on one of the large wall screens, displaying an overhead view of the landscape outside. So theydidhave a satellite system in place? Or perhaps drones?

The view zoomed in on the Beaconite ships flying for the shadow with all they had. Which wasn’t much. Two gunships down, the last two trying—awkwardly—to dogfight.

“Are those ship-to-ship guns?” a woman asked. “When did theydiscover those? I thought we were withholding that technology until later.”

Nomad stood up, entranced. Maybe…maybe they…

One gunship went down. Another pilot—maybe Zeal—dead. And the rest…even from the distant perspective, he saw Charred dropping from approaching enemy ships onto the transports. He couldn’t hear the ultimatum, but he wasn’t surprised when the surviving ships executed a landing.

Surrender. The people of Beacon had, at long last, given up.

It was a death sentence. But what choice did they have?

He stumbled against a desk, realizing he’d been walking forward unconsciously, hands making fists. Was this really who he was? The man who ranaway? Was that what he’d been trained to be? Was that who hewantedto be?

He couldn’t help it. He whispered the words, the old words of his oaths.

Nothing happened.

He slunk back to his wall, where he dropped to sit, then huddled down, cheek to the floor. Exhausted.

Wait,Auxiliary said.Wait. I thought that would work. I thought…if you wanted it back…

“You wanted a revelation in light.” Nomad squeezed his eyes shut.

Well, yes. Why…

“Consequences,” he whispered. “I walked away from my oaths. I made the decision. And now…now there are consequences.”

Why, though? You’ve never told me why you walked away after leaving Roshar. After all we’d been through together. You abandoned all you’d followed. Why would you do that?

Was it time? Time for the deepest, hardest truth—the answer that felt like teeth on pavement to acknowledge?

“I don’t know,” he said.

Liar.

“Not this time,” Nomad whispered. “Idon’t know, Auxiliary. I just…did it. I can’t explain my mindset. I can’t justify it. I disavowed my oaths. It’s the choice I made. But I didn’t have a reason.”

You have to. Everything has a reason.

Here was why he’d never tried to explain. For all his apparent humanity, Auxiliary was a creature of Investiture. Immortal. Slow to change.

Nomad huddled down further, pulling into a ball against the cold steel as he heard others in the room discussing the Cinder King’s capture of the rogue city. He heard them noting how ominous it must feel to have an entirecitydescend upon you. Union had arrived.

Nomad… Sigzil. I don’t understand.

“Humans,” Nomad whispered, “are…inconsistent sometimes. We do what we feel. We can’t explain it. I look back on the choice I made, and it feels entirely unlike me. But I did it;Imade the choice. In the heat of a moment.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s what I wanted to do or what—logically—I should have done. The consequences stand. This…this is who I am.”

He couldn’t go back. He had to move forward. Keep going. He’d gottenso goodat staying ahead, at moving, at…at running.

Why, then, was he in theexact same place?

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