Chapter Forty

He didn't want to go back to his room because Elegy was there. He wanted to be alone. So he strolled away from the group of ships, looking toward the sky. He'd seen rings on other planets, but never ones so vivid, so colorful, and so bright.

But like so many things in life, it was a trade-off. Vibrant rings. Terrible sun. Hand in hand, dreads and beauties. Same as they were inside a person like him. If he hadn't been through the terrible experiences that had scarred him, he'd never have been able to fight to rescue Rebeke and Zeal.

But if he hadn't been through those horrors, he also wouldn't have been broken.

He stepped up onto a rise. The earth was springy underfoot, and as he stood on the hill, plants grew up around his feet, tickling his shins. His shoes—not proper boots, as he liked, but they were all the Beaconites had been able to provide—were too new, unbroken. They hadn't seen horrors yet, and so they were inflexible.

But once they got worn in, they also would start to wear out. Could a soul wear out, likewise? In his youth, he'd have said that was impossible. That souls weren't like pieces of cloth or leather; that people were too valuable to ever be "worn out." Yet here he was. Taking this people's offered warmth and love, all while leading them toward a lie.

That was beautiful, what they did, Auxiliary said. You're Connected fully to this place, somehow. You're a man of two homeworlds now.

"And we'll have to leave this one too," he said, voice hoarse. "We'll have to keep running. Like always."

Yes, that is true. Perhaps we can enjoy it for a time first, though?

Zellion hissed softly, frustration spoiling the moment. What was there to enjoy? The knowledge that these people were doomed? That he'd saved them not to bring them to salvation, but so they could help him get to safety?

Beside him, a tree was growing—a long, thin shoot, sprouting leaves that trembled like the legs of a toddler taking her first steps. He watched it, then turned away—coming face-to-face with Rebeke, who was striding up the small hill, holding a new coat for him made of the same brown leather as before.

Auxiliary would have noticed her coming, but hadn't said anything. Traitor. And as she joined him—pale face cast in ringlight, holding out that jacket—he realized she hadn't been there earlier. When everyone had presented him with heat. She'd been with the Chorus, having this jacket fabricated for him. He took it, hesitant, worried about that look in her eyes.

She slipped off her glove, then held out her hand. "I didn't get a chance," she said, "to thank you."

He caught her hand by the clothed portion of her wrist as she reached for him. Stopping her from touching his face.

"Why?" she asked. "You let the others."

"I think you might want to give something more than they did," he replied.

She met his eyes briefly, like the fleeting bob of a lifespren, then glanced away, blushing. "Why not?" she asked. "Why shouldn't we find a little comfort in the few hours remaining before we fly back out? They might be the last hours we have."

"I don't begrudge you comfort, Rebeke," he said. "You deserve it. But not with me. I'm too old for you."

"Old? I'm of age. What is a decade or so difference considering what we've been through?"

"A decade or so?" he asked, smiling. He nodded his chin toward the ring of ships. "You see those old women who lead your folk? I'm older than they are."

She turned toward him, jaw dropping.

He nodded in response.

"Well," she eventually said, "I don't care."

"I do," he said gently. "Even if I didn't, Rebeke, I'm going to leave soon. Whatever happens, I must walk away, abandon you all. I can't stay.

"Before you object and say you wouldn't care about that either, you're wrong. My years haven't given me wisdom, but they have given me knowledge. And I know, I know, the hurt it causes when I leave. Assuming I've made mistakes. Assuming I've let attachments grow."

She glanced to the side, where he'd rested his hand on the fledgling bough of the growing tree—where little snaking vines had wound around his fingers. Though he tried to pull back gently, he ended up snapping them anyway.

"You could stay," she whispered. "We could fight whatever is hunting you."

"You don't know what you're saying," he told her, smiling gently. "You have no idea."

"We thought cresting a mountain was impossible, yet here we are," she said. "We could climb your mountain too, Zellion."

Zellion. He did like how the word sounded. Perhaps that was his now-reinforced Connection to their land, and this people. Such an odd thing, Spiritual Connection. He couldn't even rightly say what it would do to him. Some uses of Investiture were easily quantified, others were…well, as arcane as the human soul itself.

"I'm sorry," he told Rebeke. "But no. I can't be this person you're looking for."

She looked away sharply, then slid her glove back on. She didn't run away in shame or embarrassment, which made him feel slightly better. But she also didn't meet his eyes as she stood there, on the top of the hill, looking up at the rings.

"I no longer want to learn to kill like you do," she finally said, voice soft. "I don't want to be that terrible." She blushed again. "Not that you are…I mean—"

"It's all right," he said. "It is terrible."

"Beautiful too."

"I used to believe that," he said. "Though…"

She cocked her head, glancing at him.

"There was a time," he said, "when I could stand tall even when fighting. A time before my Torment seized me." He took in her confused stare, and felt moved to give her something. An explanation, to soften his rejection. "I was a knight," he said, "of a very exclusive order. Two different orders actually, at two different times. For the first, I was one of their leaders, with oaths that were supposed to turn what I did from terrible into—if not beautiful—honorable. But then…"

How to explain this next part? A part he didn't fully understand himself. "I was given charge over an extremely dangerous item. Capable of killing gods. Laying waste to planets. I carried that burden, found new bonds, but the weapon consumed important parts of me. Shredded the soul of one of my dearest friends. Stole my armor. I was left a husk of what I'd once been. Not just because of what the weapon had done to me—but because of the things I'd done."

He clasped his hands behind his back, remembering what it felt like to wear that uniform, bear that armor, carry those oaths. "I had to ask myself, once it was all done, if honor was a sham. If it was a ruse used to make men kill one another—to let them pretend there was a purpose to it. If that concept—the very idea of an honorable soldier—was not the most pernicious evil that had ever blighted the cosmere."

"And what you did in protecting us?" she said softly. "Was that a blight? A pernicious evil?"

Storms, he didn't want to have to make that call. Judge between evil and honor. He just wanted to keep running. Why did questions like this always bubble up if he stayed in one place too long?

How many excuses would he make for walking away? And would he ever be able to dig down within himself and find the actual reason he'd done it? Not the surface-level, easy explanation. But the core of what made him, of all people, capable of turning his back on everyone he'd loved?

Rebeke was waiting for an answer to her question. She looked at him, bright-eyed and curious.

"No," he told her. "Protecting your people by fighting the Charred was not evil, Rebeke. But I don't think I can ever call it beautiful again." He shook his head. "You wouldn't say so either. Not if you could look inside me and see how much fun I was having during that fight."

She paled visibly. "I still want to find a way to help my people," she said, looking away from him. "If not by fighting, then by leading. But there will be time, I suppose, to figure that out once we've found the Refuge."

He grimaced. She'd storming handed him the opportunity, hadn't she? Even if she didn't know it. He couldn't just saunter past that one and pretend nothing was wrong.

"Rebeke," he forced himself to say. "I have to say it again. This sanctuary you're looking for. It doesn't—"

"Stop," she said, spinning on him. "Don't say it."

"You should know what it actually is. A place created by outsiders to protect themselves. A—"

"You told us earlier there was a chance," she said. "Is that still true? Is there any hope that a place exists where we can find safety?"

Storms, he wasn't certain he could maintain that lie. This was almost certainly a Scadrian research facility, by that key. A place to house a small group of scientists come to study the way Canticle's sun worked.

They would have watched this people with the cold detachment of researchers with subjects. He'd been there. He'd seen that kind of attitude. It wasn't universal among scientists, but this would be a self-selecting group. And as proof, he knew they had done nothing to help so far, despite the terrible lives this people lived.

"Don't say anything," she said. "I see it in your eyes."

"But—"

"We have a story," she said, "about an ancient man who asked to know his fate. In it, hope was extinguished forever. For he knew the answer."

"It's…a common variety of myth," he said. "I know a dozen variations from a dozen different planets."

"I will not be that man," she said. "I will maintain hope."

"Then maintain hope in something real," he said. "If the Refuge proves to not be real, you need to find another path to safety. The one your sister envisioned, Rebeke. Throwing off the rule of the Cinder King."

"Where has that gotten us?"

"It's made you into a beacon," he said. "Others will see. There comes a time when every tyrant is weak or exposed. Given the chance, his people will topple him themselves."

"Are you sure?"

"Certain," he said.

She thought a moment, but shook her head. "Elegy could have persuaded the people of Union to overthrow the Cinder King, but we don't have that Elegy anymore. And we can't survive any longer out here. We have ditched our farming equipment. We have a single prospector. We don't have food, living space, supplies.

"Our only real hope is to find the Refuge. It's what the Greater Good wants, and it's what our people want. So keep your concerns to yourself. And leave us with hope."

He took a deep breath, then nodded.

"All right, then," she said. "What do we do next? How do we find the entrance and how do we get through the Cinder King's forces to reach it? He knows we've survived. He's going to array everything he has to stop us."

"Well, this is where you're fortunate to have a killer among you," Zellion said. "Because it's time to show the Cinder King what an actual battle looks like."