Page 44 of The Sunlit Man

“We’re dead,” Confidence said, rising to speak. He could identify the tallest of the Greater Good from her voice, and pictured the spindly woman glaring at them all. “It is time to make our peace with Adonalsium.”

“Pardon my brusqueness,” a man Nomad hadn’t met said, “but you are supposed to be the optimistic one! If it pleases you, give us hope.”

“My title is Confidence,” she replied. “My duty is to express what I know to be true with utmost energy of heart. It is not my duty to lie. I see no way out.”

“We’ve been forced into an untenable corridor,” Compassion agreed quietly. “This region has seen mountains for the last five years. We will soon encounter the heights. Beyond that, we haven’t enough heat in our sunhearts to fly for much longer. We’ve divided them, shared them, and stretched the limits of our rationing.”

“Even if we all gathered onto a few ships,” Confidence said, “wewon’t last another rotation. We’ve gone too long without harvesting. After being driven off from one attempt, then abandoning the next, we’re running on cold souls.”

“Must we…surrender to the Cinder King?” Jeffrey Jeffrey asked softly.

Zeal pounded the table. “I’d rather die a cold death and leave my soul to light only the mud than give myself tohim. Our souls would just further enforce his tyranny.”

“Then what?” Compassion asked.

The entire room seemed to look toward Contemplation. Nomad cracked an eye to study her. With no hat and her hair back up in a black bun, she stood out even in a room full of people in similar clothing.

“Contemplation?” Compassion asked again. “You have a plan, surely?”

“I…can think of no plan,” Contemplation admitted, “other than to die with pride, knowing we separated ourselves from that monster and fought him until the end. Elegy wouldbe…proud to know that we never folded.”

The room fell absolutely silent. Nomad decided it was time to make his entrance. Er, his, already-here-ance. He planned one of his master’s grand speeches, the type that really roused people. But before he could rise and make it, the people in the room started standing.

“We go on,” one said.

“We go on,” another replied.

Nomad sat up, watching them each stand, gathering strength from the others. They didn’t need his speech, he realized. This group was tough as carapace. They didn’t need something torally or galvanize them. And today…they didn’t even need a soldier.

They needed something he had once been. They needed someone who could fix problems.

Storms. Could he be that man 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.

So he stood up, joining them all. They turned, looking up at him, making way for him to approach the Greater Good’s table. There, he pressed his hands down flat on the wood. “That bastard,” he said, “broke his oath to me.”

The three gawked at him.

“…And?” Contemplation said. “He’s a murderer and a tyrant. Ofcoursehe is an oath breaker too.”

“I don’t really care about the rest,” Nomad said. “But the Cinder King made it personal…so I’m going to kill him. I’d prefer to topple his kingdom before I go—as a parting gift.”

“We would love to hand you that opportunity,” Confidence said. “But I don’t think you understand the seriousness of our problem. We’ve been forced into an untenable corridor—one with blockages preventing forward motion.”

“We fly back out,” Nomad said. “Hide in the darkness again.”

“We’ve sent scouts,” Zeal said from behind. “The Cinder King has posted guards and scoutsall alongour northern flank—he must have called up all of his subjects to send him ships! If we try to go back to the north, he will catch us.”

“We’re trapped here,” Compassion whispered. “Enemies to the north, and mountains to the south and to the east.”

“Mountains?” Nomad frowned. “Rebeke said something about this…but remind me. I thought the landscape rearranged each rotation. How are there mountains?”

“Some larger features remain,” Zeal explained. “There are always mountains at the poles, and those regions cannot be traveled. Sometimes they form in other places—and the ones in this region have been here for years now.” He looked to the others, and his voice softened. “When they first rose, two entire cities were destroyed. I’ve scouted and tried to get through several times—to no avail. Originally Elegy thought that maybe if we could make this corridor tenable, we’d be able to escape the Cinder King.”

“The mountains do melt and reform,” Contemplation added. “But I offer this truth, Sunlit. Something about the core of our planet creates highlands here, and they are utterly impassable.”

“I mean, we have flying ships,” Nomad said. “We could gooverthem.”

“Oh,overthem!” Zeal said, smacking his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

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