The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin Page A

many things I must teach you, little one, but that part you will learn at the Fulcrum. Let me finish.” Reluctantly, Damaya subsides.
    “I will say this much. Some of the strength you need, when you finally learn how to use your power properly, will come from within you.” Schaffa touches the back of her head as he did that time in the barn, two fingers just above the line of her hair, and she jumps a little because there is a sort of spark when he does this, like static. “Most of it, however, must come from elsewhere. If the earth is already moving, or if the fire under the earth isat or near the surface, you may use that strength. You are meant to use that strength. When Father Earth stirs, he unleashes so much raw power that taking some of it does no harm to you or anyone else.”
    “The air doesn’t turn cold?” Damaya tries, really tries, to restrain her curiosity, but the story is too good. And the idea of using orogeny in a safe way, a way that will cause no harm, is too intriguing. “No one dies?”
    She feels him nod. “Not when you use earth-power, no. But of course, Father Earth never moves when one wishes. When there is no earth-power nearby, an orogene can still make the earth move, but only by taking the necessary heat and force and motion from the things around her. Anything that moves or has warmth—campfires, water, the air, even rocks. And, of course, living things. Shemshena could not take away the ground or the air, but she most certainly could, and did, take away everything else. When she and the Emperor met Misalem at the obsidian gates of Yumenes, they were the only living things in the city, and there was nothing left of the city but its walls.”
    Damaya inhales in awe, trying to imagine Palela empty and denuded of every shrub and backyard goat, and failing. “And everybody just… went? Because she said?”
    “Well, because the emperor said, but yes. Yumenes was much smaller in those days, but it was still a vast undertaking. Yet it was either that or allow a monster to make hostages of them.” Schaffa shrugs. “Misalem claimed he had no desire to rule in the Emperor’s stead, but who could believe that? A man willing to threaten a city to get what he wants will stop at nothing.”
    That makes sense. “And he didn’t know what Shemshena had done until he got to Yumenes?”
    “No, he didn’t know. The burning was done by the time he arrived; the people had traveled away in a different direction. So as Misalem faced the Emperor and Shemshena, he reached for the power to destroy the city—and found almost nothing. No power, no city to destroy. In that moment, while Misalem floundered and tried to use what little warmth he could drag from the soil and air, Shemshena flung a glassknife over and into the torus of his power. It didn’t kill him, but it distracted him enough to break his orogeny, and Shemshena took care of the rest with her other knife. Thus was ended the Old Sanze Empire’s—pardon; the Sanzed Equatorial Affiliation’s —greatest threat.”
    Damaya shivers in delight. She has not heard such a good story in a long time. And it’s true? Even better. Shyly she grins up at Schaffa. “I liked that story.” He’s good at telling them, too. His voice is so deep and velvety. She could see all of it in her head as he talked.
    “I thought you might. That was the origin of the Guardians, you know. As the Fulcrum is an order of orogenes, we are the order that watches the Fulcrum. For we know, as Shemshena did, that despite all your terrible power, you are not invincible. You can be beaten.”
    He pats Damaya’s hands on the saddle-pommel, and she doesn’t squirm anymore, no longer liking the story quite as much. While he told it, she imagined herself as Shemshena, bravely facing a terrible foe and defeating him with cleverness and skill. With every you and your that Schaffa speaks, however,she begins to understand: He does not see her as a potential Shemshena.
    “And so