by Fran Wilde
Urie, arms still bound, looked out at the sky from the balcony. He’d told us enough to keep the blackwings at bay for now: what heights they flew, how they used the clouds for cover.
We’d strategized: guarded the bridges, hidden the remaining food. We didn’t let anyone approach unchallenged. This was a different life than anyone had known on the open tiers.
I was starting to believe that the young blackwing truly wanted to stay on Mondarath. That it wasn’t an act. From what I’d seen out on the wind beyond Mondarath, his tales of blackwing infighting were more than accurate.
I’d decided to allow him a taste of freedom, to see what he’d do, but I couldn’t let him feel too comfortable. Sidra helped me come up with a plan.
“It’s a bit like training a bird,” she’d explained.
Urie wiped his bound hands on his robes and scrubbed at his face with his knuckles, trying to get some of the grime off. Then he bowed his head to Sidra as she approached him. “Risen.”
She knelt by him. “You helped our tower. You’re welcome to shelter here for as long as you wish to continue to help,” she replied. “You do not need to go back.” She said this loudly enough for all on the tier to hear. “There are many of you with pasts in the southwest quadrant who shelter here. We do not ask you about this, only that you declare your loyalty to this tower, this quadrant.”
“That’s premature,” I started. We hadn’t talked about this.
Sidra gave me a look that said, Enough. Stop torturing this boy. She gestured to Urie’s hands. “We’ve welcomed far more dangerous guests to Mondarath in the past,” she said.
I wasn’t torturing him. I needed his help, but I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t very well go to the southwest myself. And Raq had failed.
He was so young still. He’d betrayed his commander to stay here. Could we trust him?
Seeing my hesitation, Sidra touched my shoulder.
I nodded, finally. Sidra loosed his ties, smiling at the boy.
Urie smiled back and clasped her arm. “Thank you.” Then his expression shifted from relief to worry.
The balcony stilled, everyone listening.
“The southwest is lost,” he whispered, rubbing his wrists. “Blackwing factions struggle amongst themselves to control towers—not even quadrants, and I think Rya—one of the leaders—is fighting to ride that out. She’s smart. But my aunts can’t risk waiting. They are too valuable to some factions. Rya promised to protect them, but she’s not strong enough yet.”
His aunts were why Urie had agreed to come here. I understood now.
“Rya?” Urie had mentioned her name earlier. I knew that name. Doran’s daughter.
After Dix’s takeover of Grigrit, when Doran was declared a Lawsbreaker and banished into the clouds, Rya had gone into the wind. “She still lives?”
And if she did, under what possible circumstance would Rya take the wings of the people who killed her father?
Urie bobbed his head. “She’s thriving. Her tower—she took back Grigrit—is organized. She’s got artifexes under her wing. But she still must follow orders from the quadrant leader. And he’s trying to keep her from power.”
He pulled back, frowning. “Or, he was. She was supposed to join the raiding party two days ago. She knew it was a trap. She still obeyed orders.”
We hadn’t told anyone what had happened in the sky beyond Mondarath. “Does Rya have tattoos?”
Urie nodded. Put his fingers to his eyes, like wings.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Then she lives. We surprised them while another blackwing attacked her. She got away.” What that said about infighting among the blackwings was important. But what the raids said about our own weaknesses in the north was more so.
“Which blackwings are which?” I asked. My fingers ached, my shoulders too.
Urie shook his head. “Some factions are making lighter-than-air, as you knew. Others are deciding who can and can’t have wings. Or food. The leaders from each tower fight often; only a few blackwings can get everyone’s attention. Rya is one of those. That’s why the quadrant leader doesn’t like her.”
I wondered at that. “But she can see reason? She can lead?” Even as I said it, my mind balked. She’s a blackwing!
And still I’d let her escape.
“She’s convinced some of her people that if they work hard enough, they won’t need the towers or Laws. Some believe they might not even need wings,” Urie said.
“It’s cloudtouched, but true,” Raq said. She made a face like she’d sucked on a sourfruit, a delicacy we hadn’t seen in moons.
“What’s her real goal?” I needed to know.
Urie answered Raq. “It doesn’t seem cloudtouched when you’re around Rya. She’s got different ideas about how to do things. Blackwings. Conclaves. She’s like a clear sky.” Urie’s eyes softened at the edges for a moment.
I watched him carefully. “Are you with us, or with her?”
Raq spoke before Urie could respond. “Rya’s very compelling. And once a blackwing, always a blackwing.”
Urie could not contain his frustration. “Rya had my aunts working on a lighter-than-air project. They’re artifexes. They’re important.” He sighed. “And when a blackwing group from Laria tried to kidnap them, Rya intervened. That angered the blackwing quadrant leader. I trust Rya, but not the others.”
We were past the edge of war. Urie’s aunts might help us, and he wanted to bring them here, but politics and alliances roiled the southwest. Helping him could bring the blackwings to our balcony again. I hesitated.
But Sidra smiled and held out her hand to him, as she’d do with a skittish bird. “You are welcome to bring them here.”
“Would you let me have a visitor kavik to send a message?” Urie asked.
Visitor kaviks. A relic from another time. “We don’t keep extra, not any longer.” The birds couldn’t be trusted to fly where they were told, not after Dix’s new ones had homed straight for blackwings invaded the roosts. We rarely used our remaining whipperlings either. “Face-to-face is better than message chips, always.” Looking people in the eye, questioning them to see their reactions. Flesh couldn’t conceal lies as easily as bone. I watched Urie’s eyes. Was he concealing anything? He needed to be truthful if he was going to stay in the northwest.
A guard shift landed. Another three guards launched from the towertop and began to fly a Fortify formation around the tower, ready to fight.
While Mondarath watched its guards glide the wind, Urie spoke again. “The southwest says towers should save themselves, raid for what they need. Cut bridges if they have to. And appease the city at all costs. Many of them believe Dix’s sacrifice kept the city quiet since council fall but that it will roar soon.”
“Rya will never celebrate Dix.” Sidra handed him the last stone fruit. “Eat.”
“What sacrifice?” Maili asked quietly, drawn to Sidra’s side by the fruit. I tried to shoo her away, but she clung like nettles.
Urie finished most of the fruit in three bites, then handed Maili the last bite and the pit. He kept talking while he chewed, his voice matter-of-fact. “Dix pursued the Spirebreaker and Brokenwings below the clouds for their crimes,” he said, his voice light. “The sacrifice that cleansed the city. There’s a song about it, at least in the south, by that name.”
Spirebreaker and Brokenwings. He meant Kirit and Nat. And my brother, Wik, with them. And Ciel and Moc. All fighting below the clouds after Dix betrayed the council. All lost to us now. Perhaps forever. No, I would not let this stand.
I turned on the boy fast enough to make him blink. “That is what you were taught by your aunts?” My own voice rippled with anger. He’d stayed with us for days as a captive believing this, and I hadn’t known. What else didn’t I know? “Can you think past this to a different truth?” His time on our tower hung in the balance.
Urie put his hands behind his back, wary now. “Are you challenging history, Risen?”
“I’m
challenging blackwing history. I’m challenging the rumors spread by kaviks and songs in the south. I’m challenging what you think you know. Will you listen?” Or will we wake one night to find you gone and our bridge cut?
I rubbed my temples. So much distrust, everywhere.
“No—yes, I can listen.” His voice was quiet. “I didn’t know there was another side to the story.” A look in Urie’s eyes told me this was true. He was terrified of his misstep.
“Breathe. I am challenging what you think you know, not you.” Voice steady, I held my calm. I was a Magister. Singer-born. This kind of teaching was our charge and our trust. And our moment of greatest betrayal to our community. I could redeem that, starting now.
“Even after all my years in the sky, understanding why people need someone to blame when they hit rough wind is beyond my patience. Especially this morning.” If I’d flown against this boy in the Gyre, fighting for the right to speak, I would have beaten him to clear this truth. The thought made me catch my breath. I a grown man; he, not much more than a child.
But those, again, were long-gone Singer ways. And the Gyre was long gone too. We could be better. All of us.
To his credit, Urie drew a deep breath and nodded. “There are many ways to sing a song, I guess.”
The tension ebbed. The echo of the Gyre’s songs faded.
“There are.” The version of The Rise I’d learned as a child in the Spire was a good example. The towers had different words, and I’d had to relearn.
Urie ducked his head. He could relearn too.
Perhaps one day, he could teach others. But first he needed to teach me what he knew.
I nodded to him. “You are welcome here as long as you are willing to look past convenient truths and renounce the southwest’s lies.”
“I will.” Again, earnest voice, clear eyes.
I had few other options. I decided to trust him. Clapped him on the shoulder. He drew a shuddering breath.
“You mentioned your aunts. What about more artifexes? All of them?” I’d take any opportunity to find out more about the lighter-than-air he’d been working on. We needed that now more than ever, with the towers so crowded. But everyone in the north who’d known about it was dead or had disappeared.
Urie tilted his head, thinking. “My aunts are at Grigrit with several others. They’ve got schematics and the stills that were taken from Laria during the battle. They’re figuring out how they work. It’s slow going. But, Macal? They’re always watched because of the kidnappings.”
Raq sucked her teeth and nodded agreement. “He’s telling the truth. I barely saw them.”
If we couldn’t get to the artifexes, we couldn’t get the lighter-than-air either.
“Barely is better than not at all,” Sidra said. “We’ll find them.”
“Would they come here willingly, if we could get them out of Grigrit?” Sidra asked Urie.
He nodded. “They want to leave. I want them safe.”
Sidra was right, barely was better than not at all. “We’ll make plans to fly tonight,” I said to the nearest guard. “Tell Viit and the towers.” It was a chance at change. We had to try.
As the guard unfurled his wings at the balcony’s edge, preparing to follow my orders, he stumbled.
A moment later, the tier jerked from beneath my feet, then slammed back.
Mondarath shook. All the towers shook.
“What is it?” Maili cried. I gathered her in my arms and held tight.
Below us, shouting and terror. An enormous cloud of bone dust began to billow around Mondarath.
Trying to calm my own jagged breaths, I remembered my long-ago Spire training, the promises my Magisters had made. The shaking would end. The roars would quiet. They always did.
But Mondarath kept shaking. The very air seemed to quiver as the towers jerked and tumbled. With my free hand, I grabbed for Sidra’s arm and held on. Sidra clung to Dojha.
The sounds were the worst. They were unlike any roar I’d ever heard, even during my time in the Spire. Much worse.
Urie lost his balance and wobbled at the balcony edge, still wingless. Sidra and I stumbled to catch him and pull him back without me losing my grip on Maili.
Raq, wings half unfurled, fell off the ledge, then righted and fought her way up through the turbulent air.
All around us, roosting birds tumbled still half asleep. They hadn’t time to spread their wings. Feathers spilled into the bone dust clouds, while dark bodies spun into the depths. Wings struggled to pull against the tide of gravity and surprise.
The towers kept shaking.
Below, the clouds seemed to bubble and bulge. Holes opened like eyes in the mist. Snapped shut again. The roaring all around grew louder, and I saw more birds fall into the clouds.
Sidra stumbled and fell to her hands and knees, her eyes on the tumbling figures, which were not birds at all, but people. I reached for her, steadied her.
People fought to spread their wings. The clouds reached up to swallow them.
I tried to join those already in the air, but the tower jolted and rolled too much for anyone on it to gain footing. I couldn’t fly.
“Get them!” I yelled to my guards already in the air, and I was not the only one. Everyone still on the tower yelled and pointed for someone.
Guards dove and hooked as many as they could, then swooped and circled, unsure of where to put their rescues. I tried to rise, to help, but my neighbors pressed me against the balcony edge while the towers kept shaking, and all we could do was watch.
With a terrible crack that we could hear clear out at Mondarath, the Spire listed and shattered. In slow time, the distance making it seem even less real, a great sheath of its bone wall swung up into the air and spun outward, striking Varu, then Bissel. Bissel buckled and slid into the clouds. Nearer to us, Wirra cracked and toppled with a terrible roar.
The wind’s soft passage turned to screams and terror. My heartbeat drowned out all sound; Sidra’s hand clutched mine. Bodies pressed against us. Maili’s mouth opened in a silent scream.
Then sound returned as the noise built with the shaking to a maelstrom roar. The wind swirled. Raq and the guards fought to stay aloft. Neither air nor tower was safe.
As the city bucked, we wrapped arms tight against a bone spur and braced several guards who were sliding down the bone tier. Across the sky, others on Densira and Viit held on to anything they could.
Gravity tugged at us, and we formed nets with our bodies, wrists locked around forearms, elbows hooked at angles. My shoulders rubbed hard against my neighbors’, and I smelled fear thick as smoke.
Together, we resisted the pull of everything that wanted to swallow us, and all we held.
Between Densira and Viit, the bridge Kirit and the Singers had built three Allmoons prior tossed and flipped. Sinew and fiber squealed in the wind as the towers that pillared the bridge jumped in the shake.
“It’s going to break!” Sidra said, her voice loud against the roaring in my ears. More screams and shouts filled the air and then the city jolted.
The shaking turned into a rolling wave that jarred my muscles from my bones, then jerked them taut. The bridge between Densira and Viit snapped and swung loose. “No.” The word tore from my lips, aimed at everything: my neighbors, the people clinging to the bridge’s remains, the city. I lunged for the edge to help. “Hold on!”
“Macal!” Sidra said, her voice shaking. Her arms strained, and she tightened her grip on our neighbors, even as they also tried to pull away to go to Densira’s aid. “You cannot. You must stay and lead.”
My grip on my towermates, and their grip on me, meant we couldn’t do more than shout anyway. So we watched, hearts railing against the fact that we weren’t in the air, helping.
When Densira’s core wall began to crack at the point where the bridge had been, the noise rose to incomprehensible levels. A new dark line grew visible even from a distance. The air filled with more dust and a rich smell of heartbone that ca
used Sidra to vomit and me to feel dizzy.
Sounds of bone cracking, sounds of fliers taking to the air, young children in their arms, sounds of shrieking from those who hadn’t donned their wings in time. Sounds of gravity, embodied, as the tiers above the crack tilted and began to twist, then fell away into the clouds, tumbling end over end. Densira’s pieces of daily life erupted from the tiers—mats and shutters, wingsets and cookpots. People. The broken tower spun, batting these from the air as it tumbled, breaking bodies and silencing screams until the bone dust silted red in the afternoon light.
A guard lifted Maili and took her away from the balcony.
As the survivors hung unbelieving in the suddenly quiet air, the city stilled. The fingers that bruised my arm from holding on so long peeled away, and I unhooked my elbows from my neighbors’. Sidra, pale and ill, would not release my hand.
The first thought I had horrified me. Safe! I was safe, and those I loved best were too. Among all of my city, we had survived.
But then the dust cleared from my thoughts. It was up to us to save the city now.
Bile choked my throat. All of the city. Save us.
Turning to Sidra, I gestured into the dust-filled sky. “We’ll gather survivors.”
Guards lifted more citizens to safety, while other residents circled, shocked.
“And check in on other quadrants,” Sidra said. She peered out through the dusty air. “I can’t see farther than the northwest quadrant.” Her voice quavered. “I must find Dojha.” Her childhood friend. Her wingmate.
“We’ll find her.” My mind, attempting to encompass the scale of what had just happened to us, fed me songs, Laws. Tradition. Luck.
We were unlucky! Panic swirled, and I fought it.
Think of what’s needed, Macal. Shelter, safety. Those first. We would find out what happened, stabilize, rebuild. To do that, we’d need lighter-than-air. A truce with the blackwings. My mind spun with needs.
“Macal? Your orders?” Raq called.
So many answers to that question, and so many people looking to me for those answers. “Survivors. Find them now. Bring them here or to the closest stable tower.” We’d deal with the blackwings later.