Cover of The Sunlit Man

The Sunlit Man

by Brandon Sanderson


Genre
Fantasy, Science Fiction
Year
2023
Pages
400
Contents

199

Overview

Nomad, guided by Rebeke and Zeal, visits Beacon’s central hub and discovers the Reliquary: an aquarium-like enclosure housing Threnodite shades. The ghosts, calling themselves the Chorus, reveal they fled the Evil and came to Canticle’s twilight rings. Nomad confirms sunhearts cannot be recharged by sunlight, sharpening Beacon’s energy crisis.

Summary

Beacon houses Nomad aboard its largest cylindrical ship, a central hub within a loosely assembled fleet where larger ships sit inside and smaller craft ring the perimeter. Expecting a meeting hall, Nomad instead finds the Reliquary: a towering glass drum filled with shifting white mist, ringed by a narrow observation path and a rack of depleted sunhearts.

With Rebeke and Zeal present, Nomad asks if the sunhearts have been reexposed to sunlight. Rebeke confirms they tried repeatedly; the cores did not recharge and often vanished, and those recovered remained inert. This closes an obvious avenue for solving Beacon’s energy needs.

As Nomad studies the mist, a face condenses against the glass—gaunt, red-eyed, and formed of smoke—startling him with memories of Threnody’s deadly shades. More figures loom behind it. Beacon, unlike Threnody, contains these spirits in a controlled enclosure, treating them as a sacred presence rather than a roaming threat.

One ghost speaks, identifying the entities as the Chorus. It recounts fleeing the Evil, leaving Threnody, and coming to the “land of the twilight rings” to found a world. The Chorus urges the living to survive and remember, warning that Adonalsium will claim them eventually. Nomad absorbs both the history and the unsettling contrast between past danger and Beacon’s reverence.

Who Appears

  • Nomad
    Protagonist; tours Beacon’s hub, verifies sunhearts won’t recharge, and encounters the Reliquary’s Threnodite shades.
  • Rebeke
    Beacon leader accompanying Nomad; confirms failed attempts to recharge sunhearts in sunlight.
  • Zeal
    Beacon representative who secures permission to bring Nomad to the Reliquary.
  • The Chorus (Threnodite shades)
    Contained ghosts who speak of fleeing the Evil and coming to Canticle; urge the living to remember.
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