Page 46 of The Sunlit Man

“Yes and no,” he said. “You fly using engines powered by sunhearts as a fuel source—you could be running oncoaland stay aloft, if you could somehow compensate for the weight of such a large furnace and heavy fuel. What makes ships like this move, though, is propellant and not fuel. You know, pushing something out to give you thrust upward? Air in this case? No?”

They gave him blank stares.

“How,” he said, “can you fly advanced ships like these and have no grasp of basic aviation science? Fluid dynamics? The law of motion and countermotion?”

More blank stares. Except for one woman at the side. A few looked to her. A mechanic or an engineer, he guessed. She dressed like the others, but had oil stains on her gloves.

“I can graspsomeof this, Sunlit,” she said, staring at the numbers he’d written. “But you’ve got to understand. We’re refugees among refugees. The Cinder King has scientists who might be able to understand what you’re saying, but even they focus on keeping the cities moving.

“We don’t have the time, the resources, thelivesto waste in theorizing. We use what works. We can keep it running, replicate it, but…” She shrugged. “We just can’t afford to think lofty thoughts when mortality looms on the horizon.”

He could respect that. Storms, hefeltit himself. How much time hadhehad for dreaming since he’d been on the run?

“All of this,” Confidence said, waving at the equations he’d written out, “confirms what we already knew—that if we go too high, the engines stop working and we suffocate?”

You should tell her, the knight interjects, that is basically 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 uswhy. Which is the first step to fixing any problem.”

“And can you fix this one?” Contemplation said. “In less than ten hours? Because that’s when we’re going to encounter those highlands.”

Ten of their hours. Could he fix a problem like this in that amount of time?

Impossible.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I’ll need some things, not the least of which being access to whatever fabrication machines you have. Rebeke said you can make new ship parts from raw materials?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey Jeffrey said. “We can.”

“Good. I need access to that, a quiet room, some tools, and…the Charred we captured. Rebeke’s sister. For certain tests of a relevant nature.”

They didn’t question him. Good. He was still working on a way to escape his Torment, and he wanted a test subject to try out his theories on. Smart scientists didnotexperiment on themselves.

“Wait,” Confidence said. “Even if a miracle occurs and we get over the mountain, we’re still as good as dead. What about our dwindling power supply?”

“We’ll find a way to get more,” Nomad said.

“And the Cinder King?” she demanded. “The overwhelming forces we’re facing? The fact that we keep losing people to his attacks, day after day? What is our objective here? What are you trying to accomplish, other than kill him? What isourfinal objective?”

“That’s up to you,” Nomad said. “I want to find that door. I’ll do what I can to get you over those mountains, then get power to keep you going another day. Then we’ll be back in this area and we can search again.” He shrugged.

“That again?” Confidence said. “You yourself said that door wouldn’t help us.”

“I…” He trailed off.

She had a point.

“Peace, Confidence,” Compassion said. The old woman, with ebony skin and tight curls of white hair, seemed so frail in her seat. She needed help to walk, and her voice wavered as she spoke. And yet there was a strength to her. The strength of someone who had bowed to the years, but not yet surrendered to them. A strength he understood, and respected.

“We were just,” Compassion continued, “making our affirmations to die rather than return to the Cinder King. Is this not at least a tiny hope more than that? Our ancestors came to this land and survived against all reason and possibility. Do we not owe it to them to attempt whatever survival we can imagine, no matter how dim?”

“We searched the entire region,” Confidence said, “and didn’t find the door.”

“It’s near the place we looked,” Compassion said. “It must be. We will find out where, and search there instead.”

“And if the Refuge truly is just a myth?” Confidence asked. “If it’s not real and never has been, as this man implies?”

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