Page 87 of The Sunlit Man

He leaned out, hands on the railing, watching the other eight ships lift off—leaving two broken ones at the foot of the mountain. Together, they fled with everything they had left. He turned, glancing toward the other horizon. He thought he could see the darkness of the shadow ahead—the dark side of the planet—but he wasn’t certain.

It was a race of a very specific kind. They could move far faster than the sun would rise, but they weren’t just trying to outrun it. Right now, they were within a pool of darkness in the shape of a mountain. Like the shadow of a tree on a sunny morning, stretching long at first—but shrinking as the sun climbed the sky.

Would they be able to run the length of that shadow and escape into the night? Or would they get to the edge, only to find a fiery gap between them and safety? Ever widening, driving them back, until they were destroyed as the last shade vanished?

It was going to be close. He could read it in the way the convoy pushed their engines to their utmost, despite the recent slapdash repairs. There wasn’t time to coddle the machines. Ifsomething went wrong, they died. They might die anyway. So they pushed, burning away the very souls of their deceased loved ones in a mad rush toward safety.

He witnessed it from the lead ship. Elegy’s vessel, though a bulbous exploring machine, was still faster than the large transports behind. Rebeke slowed her ship to stay with the others—but then sped up, likely after being chewed out for delaying. Compassion herself had insisted all the ships fly at their best speed and not slow if others had troubles.

Right now, they had to pray, flee, and hold firm. Compassion, in this context, had to be about the survival of their people.

That last one, the knight says, is a lot slower than the rest…

Nomad could just barely make out what he meant. Far down the line, the final ship was struggling. It wasn’t the one with the Chorus; that was near the middle of the pack. Instead it was the bulky water tower ship, now packed with people—a number of them huddled outside, on the deck.

Nomad looked up at the ridge, which glowed like a crown. Then the tips of the peaks began to melt, magma pouring down the back side.

Nomad, I feel something,Auxiliary said.Do you feel that? What is it?

“I don’t know what you…”

He trailed off as he saw it in the air beside him. A small fracture, a misalignment—like how a broken mirror might reflect a disjointed image. It floated beside his head, the size of a fingernail. There was something familiar about it.

“It’s one of my fragments,” he whispered. “A piece of my armor. You said those were dead!”

I thought they were gone, consumed.

Why was it back now? What had happened?

Was it because he fought again?

Was it because ofwhyhe had fought again?

He turned back down the line of terrified ships. That last one had fallen farther behind.

“Aux,” he asked. “How much do we have?”

Roughly six percent Skip capacity. Just over your strength threshold.

“Enough, though,” he whispered. “Maybe enough?”

For what?

Nomad dashed forward and leaped. He soared above a washed-out mudscape, air tugging at him—as if to cradle him—until he slammed down on the deck of the ship next in line. He ran across this as the people at the sides cried out.

Ahead, light began to break around the peaks, like floodwaters through a failing dam. He vaulted himself again, into the arms of the wind, and landed on the top of the Chorus’s ship.

He ran. Rantowardthe sun, soaring, landing, bounding along the line of ships until he reached the next to last one—and looked across a much wider gap between it and the final straggler. People on deck backed away, watching him with awe as he took a breath, thenranfor everything he had and threw himself into the sky.

He hung there, locking gaze with the looming dawn, until he hit the final deck and rolled. He came up with gritted teeth, dashing for the back of the ship, passing terrified people. As he arrived, he manifested Auxiliary as a shield.

“Bigger, Aux,” he growled.

How big?

“Bigger! Use it all!”

The sun finally crested the rise. And Auxiliary burned away Nomad’s Investiture, growing.

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