Page 86 of The Sunlit Man

“I’m not her,” Elegy cut in. “I can neverbeher. I want to learn battle like you do it. You said that I need to focus on something, deliberately. I have chosen.”

“You’ll need control,” he said, “for my kind of fighting.”

“I figured that out already,” she said. “I know it. But how? How did you learn?”

“Slowly,” he said, leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. “Step by step, Elegy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When I was first given a spear,” he said, “I didn’t know how to hold it. I didn’t even know how tostand. Each time I sparred, Ihad to dedicate all my thoughts to standing correctly. The more I did it, the more natural that stance became. It’s like…I didn’t just learn the lesson, I internalized it. That left my conscious mind free to think about something else. Since my body now stood properly on its own, I could wonder about how I held the spear.

“Thenthatgrip became natural, so I could focus on thrusting with precision. I could learn to change my grip, resetting my stance so that I was oriented toward the enemy. Each of these things slowly became instinct. Through deliberate practice—to learn thatspecificthing. And each time, once internalized, that left my mind free to try something else. To be honest, though, I had a huge advantage over most people on this path.”

“You had teachers?” she asked.

“No. I could survive mistakes.” Looking weary, he opened his eyes. “I got Invested, like you. It came to me via some oaths I made and a bond to a being of pure Investiture. Like that rock at your core, but with a worse sense of humor.”

She thought she heard something then, as she sometimes did around him. A different voice that seemed to say…a joke?

“My Investiture let me survive wounds I shouldn’t have,” he continued, “and learn from my mistakes in a way that is exceptionally difficult to do as a soldier. Normally you end up dead, and all your learning evaporates like rainwater in the sunlight.

“ButIcould learn, keep growing, until…” He held his hands out to the sides. “Until I became what you see. A mess of a man sometimes, but one with instincts for battle honed over decades.”

“I want it,” she whispered.

“I suppose that will do,” he said, then reached up—as if to let her out of her last manacle.

She immediately felt her eagerness growing. The heat from inside her cinderheart spreading through her body. The thirst for the fight energizing her.

“No,” she forced herself to say, making him hesitate.

“Why?” he asked.

“If you set me free,” she said, “Iwillattack you. All of you. I feel it.” She paused though, feeling…Feeling.Feeling something other than the heat. “But that is progress, isn’t it? That I spoke to you of it?”

“I’ll take it as such,” he said, nodding and leaning away from her bond. “Thanks for the warning. But you’re going to have to learn to control it. If you don’t, you’ll never learn anything else.”

“I can fight,” she said, “even with that heat.”

He shook his head. “It’s not enough just to fight, Elegy. Those other Charred, they could be left in a pit to fight for centuries, and they’d barely learn anything. You must choose to practice. Choose to learn.” He met her eyes. “Choose to control it.”

She nodded slowly, then settled back, thinking. Until they neared the place where the ships had crashed.

Where it was growing dangerously bright.

Eight people mettheDawnchaser, one for each of the remaining ships of Beacon. They went running as soon as they were tossed their chunk of sunheart.

Nomad stood on the deck, looking up, sweat running down his brow. The peaks of the mountains above looked aflame. Indeed, they probablywereon fire. The pounding sunlight just on the other side of those peaks was liquifying the stone.

He stepped back as he saw something shoot up on the other side, visible even at this great distance. A jet of magma, reaching high past the atmosphere. Like a sunspot.

Storms. He’d thought he possessed a basic understanding of geology, despite needing a crash course in tectonics after leaving his homeworld. But he hadno ideawhat would cause mountains to spring up anew with each passing of the sun, after they were melted down into nothing.

Rebeke dashed up to the ship and nodded to him before climbing into the cockpit. She had to shove past the people they’d crammed in there, now that two more ships had to be left behind.

Rebeke’s return meant that the convoy was ready. She lifted theDawnchaseroff, looking out through a windshield that still had a spear hole in it.

Nomad remained on the deck, not wanting to deal with the packed interior. Plus, out here, he could feel the wind, cold against his scalp. His hair wouldn’t grow back until he had more Investiture to spare. At least he’d been given some trousers, a belt, and a buttoned shirt. He’d left the collar undone.

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