Chapter Forty-Seven

As Zellion emerged from the dawn, he found himself whole and unburned. The suit of armor, designed to maintain temperature and life support for the person it protected, had been able to withstand even the sunlight's terrible heat.

That gave him hope as he directed his flight toward the patch of huddled people who were perilously close to the advancing dawn. He soared, and part of him enjoyed this moment out of his former life, when he'd been a man who had deserved the skies.

But today's cost weighed him down, no matter how high he soared. "Aux," he whispered. "It worked."

There was no response. His companion all these years, the one who had started this journey with him, was dead. Well and truly gone. All Zellion had was Aux's corpse—in the form of a tool and a weapon. Storms, how that crushed him inside.

Zellion's failure was sealed now. Yet, for a moment, he was someone else. Someone who would do everything he could to respect his friend's dying command.

Defend those people.

He landed in an explosion of dirt, hitting with the force of a small meteor, and felt the power that Aux had given him run out. As he'd been warned, only a tiny bit had remained. Barely enough to contain Aux's personality. Dreams, ideas, and honor. Burned away in a moment. Zellion summoned Aux's body as a shield, and that still worked, as hoped.

He jogged through the middle of the crowd of awed people, and dismissed his helm—revealing his face to the chilly open air. Still, he knew—despite his armor being relatively sleek compared to some—he'd look like a hulking monster. They made way for him as he stomped to their perimeter.

"Is Solemnity Divine still here?" he shouted, stopping at the edge of the group, sweat trickling down his neck as he glanced at the sunlight. It was storming close—again.

"Zellion?" Solemnity Divine asked, breaking from the crowd. "It's true? You're—"

"Shave off a sliver of that," he said, tossing her the sunheart he'd taken from the Scadrians. "Then get it installed in the Dawnchaser and give the rest back to me. Soon."

"Zellion?" Contemplation said, pushing forward, her black dyed locks spilling across her shoulders. "Is that a sunheart? We can fly to safety!"

He shook his head. "You fancy trying to get all these people on ships in the next minute or two? And even if you do, then what? The Cinder King will just stop them again. You're far too vulnerable."

"Then what?" she demanded. "If it pleases you, tell us your plan!"

Solemnity Divine tossed back the rest of the sunheart, then went running to install the sliver as asked. Zellion slotted the sunheart into a place he'd made on the back of the shield.

Please work, he thought. Please let this be enough. Please.

Power surged through the shield. Zellion planted it into the ground, then gave the command. It started to grow, expanding into a dome. Not transparent this time, as that would defeat the purpose. A large piece of metal, reflective on the outside. When he'd encased himself in this in the maelstrom, he'd been protected from the bulk of the heat. In this form, Auxiliary's corpse should be able to provide some of the same protections as his armor.

"What…" Contemplation stepped closer to him as the dome continued to grow. "Could it always do this?"

"No," he said, then tapped the sunheart embedded into it. "It needs Investiture on a grand scale. This is a superpowered sunheart, recharged by the people inside the Refuge."

She stared at it, then at him. "You can recharge them?" she whispered. "How?"

"There's very little time. You know the invocation that takes heat and puts it into a sunheart?"

"Bold one on the threshold of death, take into your sunheart my heat, that I may bless those who still live," she said. "It's a prayer."

"Yes," he said. "Fill a sunheart with some of your heat as a seed, then leave it in the sun. It will respond like a person's soul, burned away in a flash of power—and that will recharge the sunheart."

"This means… This changes everything."

"Take it to everyone, Contemplation," he said. "Tell them this truth and change the world."

"So simple…" she said. "How did we never see it?"

"Many of the greatest technological advances are simple at their core," Zellion said.

The shield began to grow to cover the ground, forcing everyone to step up onto it, to protect them from the impending magma below. Storms, he hoped it wouldn't be so violent that they were tossed about and harmed. There wasn't much he could do about that right now. He watched the dome near completion, bringing darkness upon them, save for a hole at the far end. He'd leave through that, then seal it.

"We will survive this," Contemplation whispered. "Thank you. I knew you would come back."

"That's odd," he said, "because I didn't."

"Adonalsium did," she replied. "I prayed to him for this to happen."

He grimaced, and Contemplation regarded him, their faces visible by the light of the nearby sunheart. His armor was glowing too, though not in either of its customary shades of blue. Instead it glowed with the light of embers—the sunlight might have damaged it, because little flecks of red-orange light continued to burn all across it—and when he moved, he trailed smoke.

"I've noticed your expression when we mention Adonalsium."

"Contemplation," he said. "I don't mean to be contrary, but Adonalsium? He—"

"He's dead?" she asked. "Yes, we know. Did you think we had no idea of the story? The Shattering? The Shards?"

"I…yes. So I assumed. Since you still talk about him and…well, you know, pray."

"Our faith," she said, "is that this is all part of some plan. It's not about everything happening the way we want—but trusting that it is happening the way someone wants."

"I find that a little naive."

"And yet," the old woman said, "here you are. Saving us."

"That was because of Auxiliary," he said. "My shield here, who gave up his last vestige of life so I could come to you in time."

"And what was Auxiliary?"

"My spren. A…quantum of power, Investiture, come to life."

"And where did that being come from?"

From…a Shard of Adonalsium. Storms.

Well, a part of him still believed in Yaezir and the emperor, despite all that had happened. He told himself that he'd never seen them as infallible, and that was the difference that kept him from being a blind zealot compared to many religious people he met. But then, that might just be rationalization.

He nodded to Contemplation as the dome's floor finished near his exit.

"They took Rebeke," Contemplation said. "And Elegy."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," Contemplation said. "I know you don't want the title I tried to give you. But today you came to us when we needed it most. By choice. Thank you, Zellion. Sunlit Man."

"It is time to start moving forward again," he said, standing up straight. "Teach everyone how to recharge sunhearts. Make sure the news spreads."

"We will," she said. "Unless the Cinder King stops us."

"Oh, don't worry," Zellion said. "I'll deal with him."

He took off running for the ship as Solemnity Divine flew it over for him. A few moments later, he zipped out—leaving the dome sealed behind him, hoping it would maintain life support inside—and flew toward Union.

Sunlight enveloped the dome, respecting Auxiliary's last wish as he literally became the wall that held back destruction from the Beaconites. There was nothing else Zellion could do for them directly, but they did still need him. Not for salvation, but for something he knew far more intimately.

Killing.