The Obelisk Gate

I will make certain of that, for you.

(But not for you.)

How ironic. This is the first time you’ve ever seen a stone eater made of alabaster.

And then you are gone.

“He left you a message,” she says. Her inflectionless voice is no different, and yet. Somehow. Is that pity? “‘The onyx is the key. First a network, then the Gate. Don’t rust it up, Essun. Innon and I didn’t love you for nothing.’”

And you’ve killed yet another person you loved.

“No one will kill her.” That’s Hoa. Of course he’s here now, guarding his investment.

Lerna shifts uneasily at this. But then another voice agrees, “No one will kill her,” and you flinch because it is Antimony.

Or maybe you can just call it Alabaster.

It’s five thirty.

It gives him power, but what good is power if it comes on a spiked leash?

To those who have no choice but to prepare their children for the battlefield

But in the moment, in the pent seconds after this happens, as Nassun writhes and tries to drag her mind back from falling, falling upward through watery blue light,

she turns Eitz to stone.