Updraft (32 page)

I fell back on tradition and Singer training, saying only, “Your bridge is sturdy and well built. Please make good use of it. You honor the city and the Spire when you do.”

Dojha and my cousin stepped out onto the bridge, and Densira began to celebrate.

I looked around me, at my old tower. Familiar faces looked back with unfamiliar reverence and fear. I did not see Elna. Nor Ezarit.

The bridge ceremony complete, I waited for Sellis to join me for our second duty. The awkward silence stretched out until Sellis landed on the tier.

I tried to clear my throat, find my voice. I could not.

Finally, Sellis said, “We have another duty to discharge, and the light is fading. Where is the mother of the young man who challenged the city?”

My burden pressed at my chest. Wings for Nat. Another silk banner.

Councilman Vant stepped forward to greet us. He bowed so low his furled wingtips nearly touched the ground. I accepted his greeting with a bow of my own, then continued searching for Elna in the waiting crowd.

“She is below, Singer,” Vant said, hurrying behind me. “She asks that you bring the wings there.”

Sorrow bloomed. I stopped walking. A near silent hiss from Sellis, and I was under control again.

“It is tradition, if the family wishes. We will go down to her,” Sellis said to the crowd. She and I secured our wings and bowed to the remaining citizens on the tier.

“On your wings, Singer,” said the guard who had once stood watch outside my tier, who had called me Lawsbreaker. He bowed to me now.

Sidra stepped to the ledge and pressed an apple into my hand. She didn't look me in the eye. She wore apprentice Magister robes, blue-gray with a stripe of gray. So much like an acolyte's robes, I was caught by the similarities.

Sidra's respect, and that of the guard, was Singers' due. Sellis didn't blink at it. It was her birthright. It was part of what I'd wanted when I'd agreed to fly the challenge. But there, on my former tower, it felt hollow. I was grateful for the silence I was required to keep, for tradition's sake. But I wondered at all the changes in Densira. In myself. At how open and unprotected the tower seemed to me now. At the strangeness of a center core in a tower, rather than a Gyre and walls.

Sidra bowed to Sellis as well. Macal stood behind Sidra and looked at her proudly. Their hands clasped when she finished her bow. Another new thing. So much change.

Sellis nudged me, then turned away from the crowd.
Do not linger.

She opened her wings and left the tier's edge, then circled, waiting for me to show her where to go. I looked at my former councilman, my former family and flightmates one last time, then unfurled my wings, stepped from the balcony, and rode a breeze down to Sellis.

*   *   *

The tier we sought was far below the bridge and speckled with the garbage of those above it. There, living quarters were pressed a little closer to the edge by the growing central core than they had been six months ago.

Elna stood at her cookpot, stirring. Did not hear us clatter onto her balcony. The scent of what she cooked was new to me. Something with a heady spice.

Finally, she turned. The light of the setting sun behind me etched her face in stark relief, her wrinkles and jowls. As she navigated towards me, her fingertips brushing the room's spines and furnishings, I realized she could not see me in the glare. The skyblindness had grown much worse. A thin silk tether around her waist kept her from the edge of her balcony. Like a child. She kept one hand on it.

“Elna,” I whispered, and caught her hand as she passed near.

“Kirit,” she whispered back. Then, “You honor me, Singer.” Tears filled her near-sightless eyes.

This and her simple formality broke me nearly in two. I did not honor her. I was begging her forgiveness.

Sellis's whispers grew louder as I held Elna's hand.
Cannot linger. Must return to the Spire before dark.
“Kirit. Tradition,” she finally snapped. I let Elna's hand go, gently.

From behind a screen, a voice sounded. “Is she here?” The tone was familiar, but had a sad edge.

Then Ezarit stepped around the screen. My mother, here.

She stared at me. Her eyes held worry, a little fear. I stared back, all my words gone from my mouth. She should be out trading. Not here. This was why Singers clung to tradition. To Laws. Surprises conflicted too much with duty.

Sellis seemed confused. She looked back and forth between the two women, trying to understand my alarm. In the time it took her to form the words “who's this?” Ezarit had rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me, wings and all.

Now I understood: Elna had stayed below not because she couldn't rise but because of my mother, because my mother wished to see me. I stiffened, but Ezarit did not let go.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered.

“Kirit,” Sellis finally managed.

I ignored Sellis. My arms came up from my sides on their own, and my palms brushed Ezarit's shoulder blades. I thought of the scar that ran across her collarbone. From her fight with Civik.

“I met him,” I said into her ear. “You let him live.”
I couldn't follow your example.
My shoulders jerked with a single sob. I locked my arms against it.

She whispered, so quietly I could barely hear, “I should have told you everything. I thought I was protecting you.”

“Tradition!” Sellis pulled hard on my wingstrap. “You will bring shame on us. Rumul will have you enclosed when he hears you cannot keep silent. Cannot act properly.”

I didn't care. I let Sellis yank me away from the embrace, but I took my mother's hand. Then Elna's.

I stood between them, taller and robed in gray. I felt their blood pulse behind the soft envelopes of skin that separated us. My mother's words echoed in my ears.
I thought I was protecting you.

Sellis cleared her throat and glared. I thought of my vows, of the city. I released the two women I loved best in this world. I untied my terrible parcel and prepared for them to turn away from me as well. They would see the truth in my eyes.

With shaking hands, I held out the wings.

Sellis stepped beside me and spoke, because I could not. “Your son has done a service for the Singers,” she said. “His sacrifice elevated a new Singer to protect the city.” It was the third time we'd spoken the ritual of the honored fallen today. Now it sounded so hollow, so empty.

I watched Elna's face collapse.

My resolve broke, and I began to shake. To reach out to her. Sellis gripped my arm and pushed it forward, but my mother was the one who took the wings from me. She passed them to Elna as Sellis and I waited for them to bow to us, to release us, as the other families had done.

“Did he suffer?” Elna asked.

I shook my head but did not look at her. Sellis squeezed my arm hard, reminding me of how much tradition I broke here.

I could not breathe.
By my hand.
He didn't burn to death. He wasn't eaten by a skymouth. He fell whole and true, a failed challenger, a hero of the city. The song wound its way through my mind. I had asked for this. I'd made it happen.

I looked Elna in the eyes. The light that filtered down to her tier through the tower's shadows made her cloud-covered irises shine strangely. She might not have seen the guilt in my face. But my mother saw.

“He did not suffer,” I promised them. Elna's tears fell freely, and I rushed to give her what more I knew, hoping my words would help. “He was thrown out a vent.”

The ceremony had gone completely awry. Sellis, in her anger, would tell Rumul about my actions the moment we returned to the Spire. There would almost certainly be punishments. Still, Elna's face seemed lighter now. As if my words had helped. I could hope. I ached to tell them how sorry I was, but Sellis's grip bruised my arm.

My mother nudged Elna, and they bowed.

Ezarit stepped forward and stared long and deep at me. We had no more time to talk. I hoped Ezarit could see what my eyes begged her to see. I wanted her to know that I was trying to do the right things, to make the best trades I could. To help the city. To keep her safe.

We exchanged no more words, but I understood her better now. I hoped she could see that in my eyes before they filled with tears.

*   *   *

We left before I could give Sellis more things to report to Rumul.

When I leapt, I risked a look backwards, beneath my wings. Elna's and Ezarit's faces glowed from the balcony, on light reflected from the clouds. Looking for a last glimpse of us.

I did not blink or make a sound. I let the evening wind dry my eyes to salt. Hoped it was too dark for Sellis to see my face.

She began to whisper at me as soon as we'd cleared the tower.

“Too dark already, thanks to you. We will, for appearance's sake, ask to sleep at Viit.”

She had not suggested sleeping at Densira. That would have been too much mercy.

“I will send a whipperling telling Rumul of your actions.”

She had more than enough tradition-breaking to silence me now. To send me downtower or have me enclosed.

I drew a jagged breath, composed myself. Thought about what would draw her attention away from me. What I could trade now.

“I think we should risk going back tonight. The council should hear about Narath.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Narath? The first tower?”

“You didn't notice?”

Her silence told me everything I needed to know. I'd heard pride at Narath in the celebration of their challenger. Not grief. Not hopelessness. The Singers would certainly see more dissent from them soon. I explained this to Sellis.

“I heard nothing of the sort,” she said.

“Rumul sees the value of my insights. He has forgiven my Lawsbreaks. Why can't you?” I decided not to bargain with her. I would speak my mind, not caring whether I earned another punishment. Duty. “Spire-born are sometimes very deaf to what tower words mean. I might break tradition, but I can help you understand the towers.”

A long silence as we flew nearer to Viit. “I see your point,” Sellis said. I hoped her flat tone meant she was giving my words serious thought. We angled around Viit. Headed for the Spire.

Another few heartbeats, and Sellis began to echo. I joined her. Soon the shapes of the towers, grown closer at this depth, were clear around us. We found a breeze that would take us faster towards the Spire.

We passed into the purple night, the towers glowing across the heights with warm lights. The city had grown so full while my heart had grown so empty.

 

22

ATTACK

As we passed Viit, I heard a disturbance, an echo in the wind that should not have been there.

Sellis fell quiet. She'd heard it too.

Then she began to hum again, turning left, then right on the breeze. Trying to find the source of the echo. The disturbance sounded like bubbles in the air. Like occupants of the cages in the Spire.

“Skymouths,” she said.

We rode the darkness alone. No one in the towers could see well enough, or hear well enough, to know we were out here. Only the giant hungry mouths of the sky.

“You could try to divert them,” Sellis added, her voice hopeful.

“I've never done it for long,” I whispered back. “Or on the wing.” I wished Wik were there.

“Look.” Sellis pointed around the curve of Viit's lowest tiers.

In the dark, I opened my mouth wide and echoed until I heard the curve of a tentacle. Then more. The enormous limbs, curling.

A huge skymouth prowled Viit. My throat squeezed in fear. I heard Sellis swallow, hard.

“There are more, Kirit.” She said it in a rush. “We need to get out of here.”

I fought the urge to flee. We were Singers. We protected the city. “We must help them, Sellis. We should wake Viit. And Wirra. They can sound the horns.”

“We can't fight off an entire migration by ourselves.” Her voice edged with strain. She angled her wings to lift herself higher, preparing to race back to the Spire without care if she was seen.

“Wait!”

“What would you do? I can rouse the Spire.” Sellis and I carried no weapons beyond our short knives. Our flight was ceremonial. We weren't prepared for a fight.

But I'd heard something behind another, smaller skymouth in the migration group. I'd heard the sound of silk in the wind. A skyshouter call.

Against the purpling sky, two Singers appeared, their nightwings locked so that they could hold their weapons at their chests, arrows nocked to bows. Their faces were obscured by shadow.

“Ah.” Sellis sighed, relieved. She circled, looking for a gust that would take her behind the Singers. “We are lucky.”

But my own relief muddled with confusion. The Singers weren't driving the skymouths away from the towers. The group rounded Viit and headed the direction we'd come. “What are they doing?”

Sellis slowed her glide, angling up for a closer look, risking a stall. I did the same, then circled, still echoing. The three long bodies and sinuous tentacles revealed themselves clearly.

“I'm sure they have a reason,” she said, finally.

“The skymouths came from behind Viit and are flying towards Densira,” I said slowly.

“Perhaps Singers are driving this herd out of the city,” she responded, too quickly.

She thought the same thing I did.

These skymouths could have come from the pens in the Spire.

The monsters hovered, waiting for something. Waiting for their masters. Flying low.

“Nat said something, during his challenge,” I whispered to her as fast as I could. “He said Singers would send a skymouth to kill him if he conceded.”

“That's mad!” Sellis said.

“What if it isn't?”

We both fell silent.

“If it isn't,” Sellis said finally, “then there's a reason. There's a mystery we do not know yet.” Her voice was firm. “This is a Singer matter. If we'd needed to know more, we would have been warned. If we hadn't lingered, we wouldn't have been caught up in this.” Time to go back to the Spire like proper Singers.