The Broken Earth

Going into the next book, remember that Essun, Damaya, and Syenite are all the same woman, Essun, seen at three points in her life — a child discovered as an orogene and taken to train at the Fulcrum (as Damaya), a rising Fulcrum orogene forced into a partnership with the incredibly powerful orogene Alabaster (as Syenite), and the older woman hiding her orogeny in the small comm of Tirimo (as Essun).

The book opens with an unnamed, extraordinarily powerful orogene tearing the continent open along a Great Rift, an act that plunges the world into what looks to be the worst Fifth Season ever recorded. In Tirimo, Essun's young son Uche is beaten to death by her husband Jija after his orogenic powers accidentally show; Jija flees with their daughter Nassun. Essun unconsciously redirects an incoming earthquake around Tirimo, exposing herself as an orogene, and when a mob turns on her she kills many townspeople and destroys the comm's water supply before fleeing to find her husband and daughter. On the road she's joined by Hoa, a mysterious boy who is actually a stone eater, and by Tonkee, a commless woman with unusual knowledge. The three journey through a devastated, ash-choked landscape to Castrima, a hidden comm built inside an underground geode.

Interwoven with Essun's journey are her earlier lives: as Damaya, trained brutally by the Guardian Schaffa at the Fulcrum, where orogenes are controlled and used as tools; and as Syenite, paired with Alabaster on a mission that reveals the Fulcrum's node stations are staffed by mutilated, lobotomized orogene children kept alive only to instinctively quell earthquakes. Syenite and Alabaster discover that the giant floating obelisks are not inert relics but responsive, powerful objects. After an obelisk destroys a coastal town, the pair are rescued by the stone eater Antimony and taken to an island run by Innon, an untrained orogene, where Syenite, Alabaster, and Innon form a relationship and Syenite has a son with Alabaster. When the Fulcrum's Guardians find them, Innon is killed and Syenite smothers her own child rather than let the Fulcrum take him; in her grief she destroys the Guardians' ship using an obelisk, then flees and eventually becomes Essun.

At Castrima, Essun reunites with Alabaster, who has been living among the stone eaters, and learns that he was the one who caused the Rift, driven by some larger, still-unexplained plan to end Fifth Seasons permanently. Tonkee is revealed to be the same curious girl who once trespassed in the Fulcrum as a child. The book ends with Alabaster asking Essun if she's heard of the moon, and the following threads remain open for the next book: Nassun's whereabouts and fate are unknown, Alabaster's true plan (and its connection to the obelisks and the moon) is unrevealed, the fledgling comm of Castrima's fate amid the growing Fifth Season is uncertain, and Essun's next steps — whether to search for her daughter or stay and help Alabaster — are undecided.

Essun — the powerful orogene protagonist, formerly known as Damaya and Syenite — spent this book in Castrima, an underground comm run by the orogene leader Ykka, who allows orogenes to live openly. There she reunited with Alabaster, her former Fulcrum mentor and lover, whose body was slowly turning to stone from the magical toll of having fractured the continent at the climax of the first book, triggering the current Fifth Season. Alabaster taught Essun about obelisks and about magic — the silver, life-derived energy underlying orogeny — and revealed that his ultimate goal is to use the Obelisk Gate to pull the long-lost Moon back into orbit, which he believes would end Fifth Seasons permanently. He died by the book's end, turned fully to stone, after using his last strength to stop Essun from losing control of obelisk power and killing everyone in Castrima. Traveling with Essun is Hoa, who appeared as a mysterious "child" since the first book and is now confirmed to be a stone eater; another stone eater, Antimony, was loyal to Alabaster and seemed at odds with Hoa and with a rival faction of stone eaters allied with the enemy comm Rennanis. Castrima was attacked by a Rennanis raiding army late in the book; Essun, using Alabaster's teaching, opened the full Obelisk Gate and turned the entire attacking force to stone, saving the comm — but the fight destroyed the geode's magical life-support systems, so as the book ends Castrima's people are preparing to abandon their home and search for a new settlement amid the worsening Season.

Meanwhile Essun's ten-year-old daughter Nassun has been on a separate, unconnected journey. Her father Jija discovered her older brother Uche was an orogene and beat him to death, then, suspecting Nassun was orogenic too, abducted her and fled their hometown of Tirimo, seeking a rumored group of Guardians who could "cure" orogeny. They ended up at Found Moon, a Guardian-run settlement led by Schaffa — Essun's own former Guardian, who survived her attack in book one but suffered severe memory loss and has only partially regained his sense of purpose. Nassun grew close to Schaffa, who became a protective father figure to her, and she rapidly developed her orogenic and magical abilities, learning to draw on obelisk power, though she accidentally killed a fellow student with it during a nightmare. When Jija realized she had not been "cured" and was growing more powerful, he confronted Schaffa and then attacked Nassun directly; she turned him to stone to defend herself. As the book ends, Nassun is left at Found Moon under Schaffa's care, her power and understanding of magic still rapidly growing, having lost her brother and now her father.

Going into the next book: Essun and Nassun remain unaware of each other's exact circumstances and have not reunited; Essun's group is setting out from a ruined Castrima to find a new home; Nassun's abilities are advancing dangerously fast under Schaffa's guidance at Found Moon; Alabaster is dead but his knowledge and goal — using the Obelisk Gate to capture the Moon and end Seasons for good — has passed to Essun; and the true nature and loyalties of stone eaters like Hoa and Antimony, as well as the rival stone-eater faction, remain open and unresolved.