{"id":5303,"date":"2020-11-11T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5303"},"modified":"2020-11-02T17:31:26","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T01:31:26","slug":"mark-reads-the-stone-sky-chapter-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/11\/mark-reads-the-stone-sky-chapter-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Stone Sky’: Chapter 14"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fourteenth and penultimate chapter of The Stone Sky<\/i>, Hoa witnesses the end. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of trauma, death, grief<\/b><\/p>\n

Three points of view in one chapter. First, second, and first person.<\/p>\n

The end of days.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Look, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect that Nassun and Essun would have a hug-filled, tear-jerking reunion. The two of them were too ideologically opposed in their current state; there was too much each of them did not know about the other; time was not on their side. Still, Jemisin crafts a painful, stressful, and electrifying finale to this three-book struggle, one that has worldwide, systemic implications for the Stillness, yet is deeply, deeply personal. It had<\/i> to be these two at the end of the world, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, whatever that end might be.<\/p>\n

And I really thought Nassun was going to do what she set out to do.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a generational commentary here, too, because Nassun isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just younger, her experiences were nothing like her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also how the end comes about, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that in a moment. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore how this reunion was complicated not just by their time apart, not just by what had happened in the past two years, but by the simple fact that Essun was now seeing her daughter fully come into her power. It is an awe-inspiring thing, of course, but it broke my heart. So much of this did. Essun was proud<\/i>. Her daughter was more powerful than Essun ever ended up being. She learned to stand up for herself and what she thought was right. This part specifically felt like a dagger to my heart:\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest changes are immaterial, though. The wariness in her gaze, nothing like the shy diffidence you remember. Her posture: shoulders back, feet braced and square. You told her to stop slouching a million times, and yes, she looks so tall and strong now that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standing up straight. So beautifully strong.<\/p>\n

Her orogeny sits on your awareness like a weight upon the world, rock-steady and precise as a diamond drill. Evil Earth, you think. She sesses just like you.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legacy standing before her. This was the product of her parenting style. This was the end result of Nassun spending time with Schaffa, growing close to him and coming to see him as a father. It is a conclusion that Essun both hoped for and never could have ever dreamed of.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 goddamn. When the fight began, it was hard. Point blank. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to be. And to Jemisin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s credit, not a single thing happens here that is out-of-character for Essun or Nassun. Even though Nassun understands that Schaffa was literally a different person to Essun, she obviously wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to budge on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153saving\u00e2\u20ac\u009d him. I also knew that Nassun wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to take a single order from her mother. Functionally, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d given up on her parents; Schaffa now filled that role. There was a moment where I thought the tide might turn: Essun telling her daughter that she wanted to help. I really thought it might bridge the chasm between the two of them, but then, this is followed by a miscalculation. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t catch it the first time around, but y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all: ESSUN DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T REALIZE THAT NASSUN KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO DIE. Thus, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier to understand why Essun relentlessly pursues her daughter and makes the choices that she does. She was trying to save her; she believed that Nassun needed<\/i> her.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But like I said, after all this time apart, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re different people. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know or understand each other like they once did. A great example of that: Nassun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s powers have more or less eclipsed Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. She can blend magic and orogeny\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Like the tuners used to.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Essun doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what her daughter is using the Obelisk Gate for! Her concern is the death of her daughter:<\/p>\n

She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to die right in front of you if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do something.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lord. Reading that again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 jesus. It was a clue. It was the key to what Essun would eventually do. Because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already lost two children<\/i>. And this singular grief of hers has guided her, pushed her, challenged her, held her back\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 of course it would matter in the end. So that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s focus becomes: stopping her daughter not<\/i> because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concerned about what Nassun is doing, but because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worried what will happen to her after<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Hoa warned me. Warrant was important. I DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T FUCKING EXPECT THAT ESSUN WOULD USE THE CORESTONES IN LITERALLY ALL THE GUARDIANS<\/i> TO GRAB ENOUGH POWER IN ORDER TO CALL THE ONYX TO HER. HOLY SHIT. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL!!! The Guardians were crystallized and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gone<\/i>. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it. Forever gone, at least as long as Earth doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make anymore of them. So, look, I have no idea what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in this final chapter, but isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this a good thing? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this a step towards making the world better<\/i>?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All of this builds to the finale. All of it has<\/i> been. Because it matters that Essun wanted to rewrite the world, to give it a fighting chance to be<\/i> better, but not with an instantaneous solution. As outlined in the last chapter, humans will still have to do work<\/i>. It required of them a substantial, soul-shifting change, particularly those in power who have coasted by on top of this rotting, vicious system.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nassun, however, wanted to destroy it all. Her solution was complete. All-encompassing. And at the end, as Essun crawls towards her daughter, Jemisin introduces one tiny thing into Nassun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind: doubt.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is nothing more than that. Barely even a thought. But it whispers, Do you really have nothing else?<\/i><\/p>\n

Is there not <\/i>one person in this world besides Schaffa who cares about you?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because what we have here is a struggle of wills based in love: Essun loves her daughter and wants to save her. Nassun loves Schaffa and wants to save him.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hoa:<\/p>\n

I love you both. How can I not, after all this? I am still human, after all, and this is a battle for the fate of the world. Such a terrible and magnificent thing to witness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This unfolding poetry is part of the gorgeous prose, too. I really cannot praise the writing more, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Like I said: There is nothing like this. Jemisin is writing CIRCLES around everyone else in the filed. Look at this set of sentences!!!<\/p>\n

It is<\/i> a battle, though, line by line, tendril by tendril of magic. The titanic energies of the Gate, of the Rifting, whip and shiver around you both in a cylindrical aurora borealis of energies and colors, visible light ranging to wavelengths beyond the spectrum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This whole scene is breathtaking. On a character level; on a line level; on a story level.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto save her daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u201dclicks into place as she watches the start of Nassun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crystallization, and y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this whole sequence broke me. It is one of the saddest things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever read, and I immediately started crying:<\/p>\n

She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aware of it, you know somehow. She made this choice. She is prepared for the inevitability of her own death.<\/p>\n

You aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Oh, Earth, you just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t watch another of your children die.<\/p>\n

So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you give up.<\/p>\n

I ache with the look on your face, because I know what it costs you to give up Alabaster\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dream\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand your own. You so wanted to make a better world for Nassun. But more than anything else, you want this last child of yours to live<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and so you make a choice. To keep fighting will kill you both. The only way to win, then, is not to fight anymore.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sorry, Essun. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so sorry. Goodbye.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I knew that if Essun succeeded, she would die. I guess I never thought that if she lost<\/i>, she would die, too. But she does, uttering her daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name with her final breath, turning her face up and into a smile:<\/p>\n

So rusting amazing, your little girl. You are proud to lose to her strength.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m crying again. Because this is what it took for Nassun to realize something Essun just<\/i> realized herself: She isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t alone. There are other people in the world who care about her. But her mother dies\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecause of her\u00e2\u20ac\u201din order to save the world, to fix<\/i> it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because the world took and took and took from you, too, after all. She knows this. And yet, for some reason that she does not think she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever understand\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 even as you died, you were reaching for the Moon.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And for her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An option appears. An ending manifests. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t guess it, and I certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t anticipate it. Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will is in the onyx because the onyx touched her, knew<\/i> what she wanted, and then, Nassun does, too.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The end is here:<\/p>\n

Open the Gate, pour the Rifting\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s power through it, catch the Moon. End the Seasons. Fix the world. This, Nassun sesses-feels-knows, was your last wish.<\/p>\n

The onyx says, in its ponderous, wordless way: Execute Y\/N?<\/i><\/p>\n

And in the cold stone silence, alone, Nassun chooses.<\/p>\n

YES<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alone.<\/p>\n

She was alone when she finally realized that she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n

Just bury me right here, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n

NOTES<\/b><\/p>\n