by Fran Wilde
A ripple of surprise spread through the crowd.
We certainly had everyone’s attention now. For better and worse.
“Why should we listen to a cloudbound Lawsbreaker?” A blackwing circled Nat. The point of her nose brushed Nat’s ear; her breath lifted his hair. Nat didn’t blink. “I know who you are, Nat Brokenwings. Cloudbound. Why should we care what you say?”
His fingers curled tighter, as if around a knife. Beside me, Rya’s arm muscles flexed as she tightened her grip on something in her sleeve. No one else on the towertop moved, besides Nat and the blackwing.
“Cloudbound, but not dead, and more than just returned,” Nat said, pushing the blackwing gently back. Raq and I stepped back as well, and Nat moved into the wider space that was left in the center of the market. “I’ve been to the ground.”
“Like in the song,” someone nearby whispered.
Rya tilted her head, curious but wary. “There is no ground.”
The Laria blackwing raised her knife to Nat’s throat. “So you are a liar and a murderer.”
I pressed my own blade to the blackwing’s side. “Not today.”
Quick as that, we stood at the edge of a fight. Just as we’d planned.
I turned to Rya. “Time for truths. Dix killed your father, and now she’s dead herself. Nat fell through the clouds with Kirit and Wik and Ciel. The fall broke them, but they didn’t die. They walked on the ground. They saw what the city is. And what it’s become. They came back to save us.”
The market tier quieted, tense and waiting.
Nat sketched the city in the air with his hands. He described the bone eaters and how they fed the city. The market-goers paid rapt attention, including the blackwings and Rya’s Aivans.
Sweat began to gather between my shoulder blades, beneath my wingstraps. It itched. Instead of scratching, I pressed my hands together, saying, “Our towers crushed the city. And then another city attacked, killing it. Truth: our city will collapse. We have to leave it, now.”
“This is a tale for scaring fledges.” Rya snorted. Both factions of blackwings did the same. Rya tilted her head and beckoned an associate forward. “Don’t you think?”
An Aivan laughed, and was quickly hushed.
I had to win them back. “What did you feel when the towers collapsed?” I paused as faces turned ashen and fighters looked at one another, remembering. “In the clouds, they felt only a little shaking. It is safer down there. Lower is safer right now. The rest we can prove to you in time.”
Nat turned to Rya, hands out, palms up. “For the sake of your father and what he sacrificed, come with us. Convince your people to help evacuate the towers. We can’t do this without working together. We need you. You need us.”
“We could fly down and see if you’re telling the truth. Seems the clouds don’t hold enough danger to kill you once and for all.” Rya’s voice was sharp.
“You might die trying,” Nat said. “There’s no time. The city could fall any day now.”
The marketplace rumbled with dissent. “I’m not leaving.”
“You couldn’t get me to go into the clouds for anything.”
“We will confer,” Rya said, waving a hand to include the blackwings as well as her own group. “We’ll send our decision with a bird.”
We were losing them.
Nat sped ahead. Put a hand on Rya’s shoulder. She stiffened, and her guards tried to pull him away. He didn’t pause. “You don’t want to leave the city, I understand. I didn’t either. I dreamed of clear blue skies while I was in the clouds. Dreamed harder once I was on the ground. All I wanted to do was see the stars again.”
At Rya’s signal, the guards released him, but they whispered, even more unconvinced. Damage done, Nat. Don’t make it worse.
But they hadn’t walked away. Neither they nor the others from their towers had moved. They were listening again.
“No stars?” an older woman asked, holding a very thin child.
“Do you know what’s worse than no stars?” Nat began. They leaned in, listening again. “Dying is worse. I want to live. I want the people I love to live. To see my family again,” he said. “You do too. The city will roll, the towers, collapse. Soon. We have get everyone to go down before that happens.”
Nat spoke to the crowd, but I kept my eyes on Rya. She continued to circle us both until she met my eyes again. Behind her, a young man, tall and angular like her, brown eyes, darker skin. Unsmiling. He’d tied a black feather to his wing.
Rya whistled to him, and he whistled back, an inquisitive note on the end. I’d heard their whistle code at Mondarath, but I still did not understand it.
Not knowing what they said either, Nat shifted from one foot to the other. The scavengers behind me began to whisper. Blackwings from both factions looked uncomfortable, but waited. Somehow, Rya had captured their attention. Would she lead them? Would she come with us?
We needed to tip the balance. But how?
“I need a guarantee,” Rya said. “Something that will be a powerful symbol to the city that you respect me.” She did not meet my eyes.
I let you go free, I nearly said, but Nat spoke first.
“You want a Lawsbreaker as a guarantee? I will do what you require,” he said. “Do what we ask, and you can put Lawsmarkers on my wings.” There was an audible gasp from the blackwings. I bit my lip, hoping that Rya still rejected Conclaves, as I’d once told Nat, below.
He was risking everything, on my word.
Once Elna had stood up against a city and spoken her mind.
Now Nat had done the same.
“What is it that you ask?” Rya’s captain said.
Nat spoke again. “Help us move as many people into the cloud and down as we can, taking as many supplies as possible. Bring your people. Come downtower, into the clouds with us. And then lower. And take me as your guarantee that you will be respected.”
Rya turned from us then, and I could see the dark feathers that now edged her silk wings and the collar of her robe. She’d woven them into her hair too: gryphon feathers. She beckoned the other factions to her side, and amazingly, they came. Rya held their gazes. Spoke to them, and then turned to us.
“We do not believe you.”
The wind whistled across the towertop, flapping robes, lifting the feathers on Rya’s wingframe. A piece of scavenged metal blew sideways with a rippling sound. It crashed as it struck one of the baskets. The smell of stone fruit, mashed to a pulp, mixed with the wind.
Rya’s people began to gather up supplies. The other faction started to do the same. We were losing them again. Nat looked at me, pleading. Unwilling to give up.
I spoke fast. “We need you, Rya. To help lead the city. You are a brave fighter, and a lucky one.” I put emphasis on the word lucky. She blinked slowly. She knew what I’d meant.
Nat had offered himself up as a Lawsbreaker. Now I offered Rya a role as a city leader and a chance to clear her unspoken debt to me. “We need you to help organize the city’s escape. You will work directly with me.”
I’d saved her, and I’d let her go on the gusts beyond the city. Would she honor this?
After a long pause, Rya said, “We would fight well together.” A small quirk to her frown.
We had already done so, it was true.
As I pleaded with Rya to listen and not turn away, two blackwings landed with Sidra flying between them. Suddenly, I felt as if the air had been kicked from my stomach. Sidra, arms bound, wings furled tight and carried by a blackwing. A bruise was beginning to color her eye.
The blackwings had taken the northwest. She’d fought hard.
Rya saw it too, before the blackwings did. Her eyes widened for a brief moment. Then she turned to us, her jaw clenched. The power balance was shifting.
She needed to act, or lose her chance, whether she believed us or not.
The blackwings had brought Sidra because we’d asked the scavengers to pass her a message. They’d thought she was important, bu
t did not know fully how. I could not go to her. Not until we had a deal. She raised her eyes and saw me. Smiled for a moment. Not free, but safe. That was enough, for now.
I turned, as if to speak to the other faction, but then dove back into the argument, cutting between both groups. “Rya, you control the towers in the southwest. You’re responsible for those people. You must help them move.”
Rya shook her head slowly back and forth, assessing the citizens who looked at her closely now, the blackwings, her Aivans. “We will take responsibility for those towers, then.”
“And the others too,” I said. “All or nothing.” Remember how we once helped you, Rya.
“And then what? We could take the lighter-than-air and fly our people higher instead.”
A blackwing muttered, “Leading all the towers? Her?”
Rya looked across the tier at Nat and then at me. She inclined her head in agreement.
I answered the blackwing, “Yes, all the towers. Rya is taking charge.”
A thing said by a city councilor could still ripple out and create change. The crowded tier looked at Rya with expectation. And this time, she did not falter.
“I take this responsibility in the name of the Aivans. This is a time of emergency. I’ll guide you, and keep you safe.”
Standing as close to her as I did, I saw her fingers shake. Heard her draw a nervous breath. Everyone else saw a leader.
We would need to work together.
“You cannot take them higher,” I said. “You don’t have enough lighter-than-air, or food for everyone. You would have to choose. Down is better, for everyone.”
Rya nodded, accepting the argument. But another blackwing, again very young, shouted, “We can hunt the skies!”
“How many of you can live on a plinth, do you think?” I asked. “And for how long? You’ll be safer, for longer, on the ground.”
Nat reached into a pocket of his robe and held out the fistful of red soil, mashing it in his fingers, letting it sift out and color the tower floor. “This is what’s below the clouds. There are other cities below, many of them. Most aren’t as big as ours, but they aren’t dying. There are places to hunt.” He didn’t mention for what. “And there’s more space. Space enough for everyone.”
That last item got their attention. Space to spread out.
One of the blackwings from the northwest shouted, “What about—”
Rya spoke quickly, before they could finish the thought. “I will take the lead on the move. We will guide our people down, in case you are right. What do you need from the towers?”
Rya became, in that moment, the face of the evacuation. She and I would share the responsibility. She solidified her control of the blackwings. And she allowed Nat and me to tell her and the city our plan.
“Descent in stages,” I said. “Occupying towers near a smuggler’s cave, with hang-sacks for sleeping. We’ll harvest lighter-than-air above the clouds, with several crews up here to do the work. Nat will lead you down.”
At a look from Rya, I changed my words. “Escort. Nat will escort you down.”
She acquiesced. “Is there no lighter-than-air harvesting in the cloud?” Rya looked confused.
“Our artifexes believe heartbone from newer growth is stronger and easier to tap,” I said.
Rya looked satisfied with that. She took several volunteers who wanted to stay and assigned them to my crews. Then she sent the rest of her Aivans and blackwings back to their towers. They were all her blackwings now, and at least for the near future. She’d won, and she knew it. And we’d helped her.
She smiled at me. “We will work together, you and I.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“And you, Lawsbreaker.” Rya smiled at Nat. “I will find you when I need you. You won’t be far.” She affixed a large Lawsmark and a black feather to Nat’s shoulder. The quill poked up through his robe. “You are mine now, an example to all the Lawsbreakers below.” Her voice carried across the tier. The citizens who had stayed would remember this, and the power she wielded.
Had I miscalculated? If Rya tried, she could take over everything by the time she reached the ground. Ceetcee, Beliak, and Ciel might be only subjects in her eyes, especially if Nat was forfeit.
She winked at me. “You see, Macal? We can work together.”
I tried to set my worry aside.
Raq signaled two scavengers, who listened carefully to her whispered directions, then took off, three more scavengers following. We’d need everything that the scavengers could pull from the towers on our descent, and more.
When we finished, I sat quietly on the edge of the tower, wings half furled, next to Sidra. I closed my eyes, put my arm around her shoulder. “You are safe. You are free.”
Sidra whispered in my ear, “I am yours.” Brushed my cheek with her thumb.
I leaned into her touch. Carved the feel of it on my memory. This. This is what I fly for.
Behind us, Nat coughed. I opened my eyes while Sidra kept hers closed. “Yes, Nat?”
He sat down on my other side, our pinions nearly touching. “Was that a good idea? Being so honest with them?”
I sighed. “You didn’t tell them everything.”
“I will. Soon.”
I was right. He had been holding back.
I looked at him. “You did the right thing. You made them want to go. They’ll bring supplies until we can find food and water. We can last for days. If you need help with them, ask Urie.”
Frowning, he bit into a stone fruit he’d saved from the market. Chewed.
Finally I said, “When will you tell them?” When will you tell me?
He drew a long breath. “There’s no wind strong enough to lift a wingset, at least not at ground level. Once we go down, we’ll be stuck below.”
Sidra sucked in her breath through her nose and then let it out slowly through her mouth.
I tightened my grip on Sidra’s shoulder and stared out at the lightning sparking the clouds below. At the spare dark purpling the cloudtop.
How could he keep that a secret from the city? From me?
But I’d done the same. Telling the blackwings just enough to get them moving.
That was our priority now.
“How much longer do we have?” Sidra asked. We were past Allsuns. Nat had said only days.
I shook my head. “We can’t delay.” Two moons would be up soon. The city below would run out of food, especially if the birds were gone. More, it could topple any day. “I’ll bring the last group down when we’re finished here. Then try to encourage the holdouts. Take Sidra downtower for me.” I said it quickly, hoping Nat would understand.
He did, and stood, holding out his hand to help Sidra up. I clasped his shoulder, grateful.
Sidra looked at him in horror. Then at me. “I will not go down. Not without you.”
“You must.” I said it calmly, as if I hadn’t been arguing with myself about it.
She stared at me. The stubborn tilt of her head told me she was ready for a fight herself. “No.”
I took her hands. “My heart.” I pressed Ciel’s gift: a fiddlehead into her palm. “You have to. Someone needs to lead them, and someone needs to stay here for now. They won’t follow Raq, and if you don’t go, they may follow Rya right off a balcony.”
“We could both lead them. You and I. At least you know how. Don’t be a hero, Macal. Be a leader.” She spoke slowly, angrily.
“You know how. Raq knows where to go in the clouds. Nat knows the ground. Go with them.” My voice broke. “I will follow.” I was not being a hero.
I was leading.
In the end, Sidra gave in. I held her hand until she leapt from the balcony one last time, and glided in circles towards the cloudtop.
Artifexes dragging weighted nets full of lighter-than-air followed her. As I watched Sidra’s bright wings disappear, I hoped we could do this right.
Nat reached out and clasped my arm. “We’ll save the city as best we can. Whether it wants
us to or not.” Then he leapt from the tower and followed Sidra down.
All around me, each tower learned its fate from scavengers and the Aivan-blackwings. Ciel’s song began to spread.
Bone horns sounded long and low across the sky as the city began to decide what to keep, and what to leave.
24
KIRIT, BELOW
A city forgotten, the Nightwing walked away.
Pulleys adorned the sleeping creature’s back like ancient beads draping a tower resident’s wings. We used them to drag ourselves over one massive shoulder.
When we reached the top, Wik brushed the dirt and rope fragments off his hands, then mine. His fingers felt rough on my skin.
Below us, the beast began to snore in earnest. Its rumbles nearly shook us off our feet. I crouched near an assembly of cleats and pulleys and held on.
“Even as old as they are, these might help us,” I said, looking carefully at the bone rollers and feeds that held the lines steady and kept them moving slow and easy. They didn’t look as if they would come free of the weatherworn assembly of knots and splices easily. Who had built them? Where had they gone? We heard no noises as we had on Varat, saw no evidence of recent inhabitants.
How could I carry that equipment? I’d need bone hooks, a net. Another flier on my wingtip. No. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard against the ache of what was gone.
That was a question for a former me.
But I still wanted the tools, though the rope was too thick to cut.
The city slept on, not noticing us.
It felt good to be up high again. Safer. Despite the rumbling.
“We could stay here,” Wik said. “At least until the eggs hatch.” He looked ready for a rest also.
“And then where would we go?” I didn’t want to be around when a new city hatched. I gave the towers that stretched almost to the clouds a long appraising look. “Up? Like our ancestors?”
A flash of white near the bone ridge caught my eye. Then disappeared.
“You’re right,” Wik said, staring at a small shape on the horizon. According to the map at Varat, that was the direction our city lay.
Far in the other direction was a dark ridge that seemed to ring the entire horizon. “These tools could help our people. But we have no way of getting tools to the city.” His jaw clenched and unclenched. “We just need to find a good place to make a home.” Another flutter of white.