Cloudbound (26 page)

“What do you think they're saying to each other?” Ciel wondered.

Beliak watched them thoughtfully. “Maybe they're telling each other that they're not alone.”

That seemed to satisfy the girl, who leaned against Kirit and closed her eyes, whispering, “You're not alone.”

Before Aliati and Ceetcee returned, the sky darkened, then brightened again, sunrise replacing moonlight. We took off in early morning light, singing The Rise softly.

By the time we reached the ghost tower, we were exhausted. We circled up to the towertop, where Doran waited with his scope, scanning the clouds for signs of us.

 

20

PROOF

Kirit made a mad landing, furling her wings while still in the air. She dropped beside Doran. The fall jarred her injuries, and she yelped, then shouted at the councilor from Grigrit, “You dare come here?”

I rushed my own landing, just as Kirit tried to grasp Doran's throat.

“Easy,” I said as gently as I could, pulling her back. “He's not your enemy.” I tried to see where Doran had placed his guards, but could not spot any nearby.

Kirit turned on me, eyes wild, scars livid. “He's close enough! Dix fought when he asked. Dix knows the man whose knife—” She bit back her last words and spun towards Doran again, who looked astonished to see her. “Where is Dix?”

Doran addressed me, not her, his voice loud in the mist. “I wasn't followed. You gave good directions.” Now Kirit looked like she wanted to throttle me instead. Doran continued, “But what do you mean by bringing this Singer unbound to threaten me. Is she your proof?” He had one hand tucked inside his robe, and he'd swapped out his fancy Liras Viit wings for those of a Varu guard.

Kirit struggled against my grip on her robes. “You are not innocent!”

“She's not my proof,” I said, hanging on to my friend. “Ezarit is gone.” Kirit did not bend, she did not weep when I said it. She turned hard and silent as bone.

Doran's demeanor collapsed into shock. Sorrow clouded his eyes. “I feared this, but hoped she would be found.”

“You aren't allowed to hope anything,” Kirit said to him. To me.

“I'm trying to help,” I said. Kirit had to understand.

The others landed, and Ceetcee tried to pull Kirit away. Only when Ciel clasped her hand did Kirit take a step back. Aliati landed a few steps away carrying Djonn, with Beliak close behind. He nudged the scavenger towards me.

“My proof,” I said looking Doran in the eye, “is the artifex, here.”

Aliati cried out. “You said we would be safe!” She put a hand to her knife hilt.

With everyone furious at me, I continued, “The artifex is under my protection, as is his guard and friend. If you don't agree, we will disappear into the clouds again, and you will be lost. Listen to what they have to say.”

We made Djonn tell Doran his story again. When he said “Rumul,” Doran interrupted. “Singers! I knew it. Clouds take them all.”

“Don't you see?” I said. “It's not Singers. Dix has Rumul, but he can't speak, can't walk. She's helping him, or controlling him.”

My proof laid out, I waited for Doran to react. Had I been wrong to give him another chance? Would he tell the council, and end the Conclave? Then we could come back above the clouds, and Ceetcee and Elna would be safe. Ciel would be safe. And Kirit could find the man who owned that knife.

But Doran's face reddened and his fists clenched at his sides. “She's doing more than that. In the short time you've been under the clouds, Dix has roused the city against me for putting off the Conclave.” He looked at me as if this was partly my fault. His voice thickened with anger, but he didn't shout. “If we hadn't waited for you, she wouldn't have been able to do this.”

“If you hadn't waited,” Aliati said, “she would have found other means. You fell for a show of loyalty. Now she's making her move.”

“To what end? What does she want?” Ceetcee asked.

I shook my head. “Power.” What I'd thought I wanted, once.

Doran shook his head. “Her kaviks have spread messages across the towers enjoining citizens to return to protecting the city. Some say the city is unlucky now but that she can fix it.” He held up a skein of chips and showed us. “Her kaviks attack birds they don't know. They almost killed Maalik.”

The councilor withdrew his other hand, heavily bandaged, from his robe. He held my whipperling out to me. Maalik's feathers were mussed, and blood speckled his wing and breast. “I fought the kaviks off with my bare hand. I'll shoot them from the sky next time.”

I took Maalik and held him gently. He settled in my hands, cooing. His heart pulsed, rapid but steady against my fingers. “Thank you.”
Dix will pay for all of this.
“Where are your guards?”
Why didn't they help you?

Doran reddened again. This time, the words came slower. “My blackwings, most of them, have left. Dix promised them a revelation after Conclave: a way to move forward, while harnessing the strength of the past. She's promising to fix the towers, to rise again, but to do so, she must throw down Wik, Moc, and the protesters from the Spire at Allmoons. She is demanding you, Nat, and your party as part of the appeasement.”

The ghost tower bristled: all our knives, bows, and sharp edges appeared before he finished speaking. Ceetcee cried, “Betrayal,” as I scanned the clouds for guards, expecting to have to defend my friends from my mentor. Kirit held her knife ready to throw it at the clouds. But Doran shook his head. “I've changed winds, Nat. Whether or not Dix was involved, the council attack made a hole in the city's leadership, and she has stepped in to fill it. She's fanning people's superstitions, their twined love and fear of the city.”

Doran lowered himself to sit on the towertop, mist swirling around him. He looked tired, and much older than I'd ever seen him look. I didn't stow my weapons. “I refused to support her methods when I learned what they were—especially not the fledges. I won't condone her actions now.” He paused and met my gaze. “Don't worry. Elna is safe on Varu, with loyal friends. With my family.”

“Where is Dix?” Kirit asked again, staring into the mist.

“She's taken control of the lighter-than-air storage on Laria. Says she won't help any towers that do not tithe to her. She's allied herself with the poorest towers, and is encouraging them all to rise up against the city. That blasted game—Justice—is in every tower. And each time it appears, market riots follow. Plus, her kaviks are everywhere; few messages get through any longer, except for hers. With the exception of the northwest and Macal, few city councilors are willing to oppose her. In those that do, their towers are turning on themselves.”

Beliak shook his head. “The towers are smart. They must know she's behind the riots and the fighting.”

“The towers are afraid,” I said. “And superstitious.”

Doran blinked. He'd tried to use fear as political leverage. Now he'd been deposed by it. “Dix says she's found a way to bring the city luck again. Those who wish to live within it must tithe to her, and must allow the Conclave.”

“She is cloudtouched,” Ceetcee said. “She's got nothing to offer.”

“On the contrary,” Doran sighed. “She's got the south. Bissel and Laria.” He sighed heavily. “And Grigrit.”

“Worse than that,” I realized, “she's got captives to throw down.”

*   *   *

Shaking off Ciel's grip, Kirit said, “I'll stop her. I'll end this.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” Doran said. “We need Dix alive.”

“We?” She looked at Doran, then at me, and laughed. A hollow sound. “You two made a bargain, not me.”

I couldn't argue. But Kirit had turned back to Doran. “Why do we need her alive?” Her look of anger and sorrow spoke more evocatively than her words.
Why does Dix get to live while Ezarit does not?

Doran pressed his lips together and massaged his injured hand, stalling. “Dix has manipulated the city better than anyone: her kaviks spread conflicting messages. People don't know what to believe, except that the city is unlucky. They can see as much in the cracked Spire, in all the Remembrance banners. The Justice game reminds them of tower war. Dix has the city so riled up that one wrong move, one bad death, could set off just that war. Unless she swoops in to fix everything.”

He was right. We needed Dix alive, and Rumul too. We needed to argue a case before the city, with proof. They might not give willing testimony, but it was easier to see the faults of the living than the dead.

One look at Kirit told me she disagreed. She seethed as she leaned on Ciel's shoulder. Would she listen?

Ciel tightened her grip on Kirit's hand. “We'll make it all right again,” she said.

“Maybe,” Beliak said. Ceetcee knelt, tired, on the towertop, back against his legs. He turned on Doran. “We are seven. I have no love for Dix, nor Rumul. Nor much for you either, after everything that's happened. Will you put yourself at risk to stop Dix's Conclave?” He looked at me, then away. “So far, you've been happy letting others do your dirty work.”

A sharp pain at my wrist. I'd twisted the blue silk cord so hard, it left a purpling dent. I wanted to reach out to Beliak, to say I was sorry. That I'd made mistakes and was trying to fix them. But I couldn't here, not in front of Doran. I gave the cord another twist and stayed silent.

Doran frowned and bowed his head, but his was face red and angry. He looked like he had at Grigrit, when Kirit questioned him. I braced, prepared to fight him if I had to. Beliak did as well.

But Doran sighed. “I understand. My mistakes have been terrible, and my accomplishments are no trade for them.”

Ceetcee rose and stepped forward until she was toe-to-toe with the councilor. She was smaller than him, and exhausted, but she held his gaze unflinchingly. “You will not lead us, Doran. But you may join us in the clouds.” Her voice was as light as silk wing, and as strong as the battens shaping that wing.

For a moment, Doran's face fell, his eyes softened. Then his cheeks reddened again. “I am still a councilor.”

Kirit watched him carefully.

“What's your reasoning?” I asked Ceetcee.

She looked at us all. “We need Doran's connections, the guards who are still loyal to him, if we want to rescue Wik, Moc, and Hiroli, and end Dix's pursuit of us. I don't doubt Doran wants to regain power.” She didn't embellish. “But I think in the end he intends well for the city. I don't think the same of Dix. I think she intends only to do well for herself.” She'd made a bridge between our two goals, and when she was finished, she sat down to rest again.

We watched the two halves of Doran's emotions struggle like the skymouth and bone eater had in the clouds. I willed the calmer side out, but knew now that the real Doran, the one with fears and anger, the one who needed loyalty, was the one who could betray us. It was the source of the fault in his politics that allowed Dix to sneak in and subvert his work.

Doran finally nodded. He clasped Ceetcee's hand.

Beliak knelt with Djonn and Aliati on the ghost towertop. They sketched several ways to capture Dix and reveal what she hid from the city, then discarded them. Plotted rescue attempts using decoys, long climbs up the towers. Most plans, worked through to their logical end, led us from the clouds, to Laria, and capture.

No one was happy, least of all with me.

They stared at the silk square with the tower map on it. “What if—” I broke the tense silence. “We tell the people on Laria and nearby towers
how
they're being manipulated. We tell them about the fledges, the kaviks. Show them how they could be next. Some will rise against her. Then we visit Dix at Laria before the Conclave, before she gains more power—”

“Why not fight now, and get it over with?” Kirit interrupted.

Ceetcee answered, “I think most towers just want to survive, so many will turn away from fights unless they're sure they can win, because they want to be safe. There's been too much loss already. If we can avoid more violence, we stand a better chance of swaying the city away from Dix.”

“That means fewer people to fight, if it comes to that,” Beliak countered.

“I'll alert the guards I have left at Varu, and the strongest fighters from Densira and Mondarath,” Doran said.

“I wish we had lighter-than-air, and more weapons, in case it does come to a fight,” I said.

“That,” said Aliati, “Djonn and I can help you with.”

 

21

TREASON

Aliati and I dressed in hunter blue cloaks from the scavengers' ghost tower cache. Mold flecked the hoods, but not too obviously. I secured my knife on my arm, my bow across my chest. Aliati mimicked my preparations, and I showed her how to slide her quiver of arrows beneath her wingset, out of the way, but ready.

We'd look like hunters heading to market. I didn't want to think about why scavengers would need hunters' cloaks.

“Are you sure you want to choose sides?” I asked her. “Even if it risks your safety, and Djonn's?”
Even if it means the city knows you to be a scavenger and a thief?

Aliati tilted her head at Kirit, sitting at the cave mouth, sharpening her bone knife over and over again. “She's chosen a side, and it's neither Tower nor Spire. She's chosen the city,” Aliati whispered. “I choose the same.” She looked long and hard at me. “You didn't give me a choice before.”

“There aren't any easy choices left.” No one was right; no one was a hero. Not anymore.

“Hearing you say that eases my mind,” she said. “Maybe I'll choose your side too.”

Somewhat comforting, that, even from Aliati.

We left the others in the ghost tower cave, with Ciel watching over Maalik's recovery. Ceetcee and Beliak carved message chips to alert the towers about Dix. Djonn began making something he said would help us deliver the messages.