The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

immediately. “It isn’t your fault. Without training you’re like… dry tinder, and right now we’re traveling past a roaring fire that’s kicking up sparks.” He seems to think. “Would a story help?”
    A story would be wonderful. She nods, trying not to seem too eager. “All right,” Schaffa says. “Have you heard of Shemshena?”
    “Who?”
    He shakes his head. “Earthfires, these little midlatter comms. Didn’t they teach you anything in that creche of yours? Nothing but lore and figuring, I imagine, and the latter only so you could time crop plantings and such.”
    “There’s no time for more than that,” Damaya says, feeling oddly compelled to defend Palela. “Kids in Equatorial comms probably don’t need to help with the harvest—”
    “I know, I know. But it’s still a shame.” He shifts, getting more comfortable in his saddle. “Very well; I’m no lorist, but I’ll tell you of Shemshena. Long ago, during the Season of Teeth—that’s, hmm, the third Season after Sanze’s founding, maybe twelve hundred years ago?—an orogene named Misalem decided to try to kill the emperor. This was back when the emperor actually did things, mind, and long before the Fulcrum was established. Most orogenes had no proper training in those days; like you, they acted purely on emotion and instinct, onthe rare occasions that they managed to survive childhood. Misalem had somehow managed to not only survive, but to train himself. He had superb control, perhaps to the fourth or fifth ring-level—”
    “What?”
    He nudges her leg again. “Rankings used by the Fulcrum. Stop interrupting.” Damaya blushes and obeys.
    “Superb control,” Schaffa continues, “which Misalem promptly used to kill every living soul in several towns and cities, and even a few commless warrens. Thousands of people, in all.”
    Damaya inhales, horrified. It has never occurred to her that roggas—she stops herself. She. She is a rogga. All at once she does not like this word, which she has heard most of her life. It’s a bad word she’s not supposed to say, even though the grown-ups toss it around freely, and suddenly it seems uglier than it already did.
    Orogenes, then. It is terrible to know that orogenes can kill so many, so easily. But then, she supposes that is why people hate them.
    Her. That is why people hate her .
    “Why did he do that?” she asks, forgetting that she should not interrupt.
    “Why, indeed? Perhaps he was a bit mad.” Schaffa leans down so that she can see his face, crossing his eyes and waggling his eyebrows. This is so hilarious and unexpected that Damaya giggles, and Schaffa gives her a conspiratorial smile. “Or perhaps Misalem was simply evil. Regardless, as he approached Yumenes he sent word ahead, threatening to shatter the entire city if its people did not send the Emperor out to meet him, and die.The people were saddened when the Emperor announced that he would meet Misalem’s terms—but they were relieved, too, because what else could they do? They had no idea how to fight an orogene with such power.” He sighs. “But when the Emperor arrived, he was not alone: with him was a single woman. His bodyguard, Shemshena.”
    Damaya squirms a little, in excitement. “She must have been really good, if she was the Emperor’s bodyguard.”
    “Oh, she was—a renowned fighter of the finest Sanzed lineages. Moreover, she was an Innovator in use-caste, and thus she had studied orogenes and understood something of how their power worked. So before Misalem’s arrival, she had every citizen of Yumenes leave town. With them they took all the livestock, all the crops. They even cut down the trees and shrubs and burned them, burned their houses, then doused the fires to leave only cold wet ash. That is the nature of your power, you see: kinetic transferrence, sesunal catalysis. One does not move a mountain by will alone.”
    “What is—”
    “No, no.” Schaffa cuts her off gently. “There are