by Fran Wilde
Before I could reconsider, I tied Dix’s tether to my pack, and she, Liope, and I began to walk away too.
25
NAT, MIDCLOUD
Blackwings found the midcloud at start of day
In the early morning light, with a dozen blackwings and Aivans following, I left the towers behind. After taking one last long look at the sole star that still hung in the dimming sky, I turned away. Dove towards the clouds with Sidra beside me.
The gray mist pulled me in, blotted the sky, then closed as if we’d never passed through.
On our way down, I taught my companions how to glide to the midcloud. How to fly a circular route with stops to rest and acclimate.
When the rain came hard through the clouds, we sheltered in the cave where I’d hidden with Djonn. The cloud rolled slowly, and thoroughly soaked us. The Aivans and blackwings stared, shocked, at the downpour. They weren’t prepared to fly in it.
The wait seemed to take days, and we had no time to spare. As we sat, we ate dried goose the scavengers had pressed into our satchels, sipped cold tea from our water sacks. We napped in shifts beneath a tarp, though I could never relax enough for sleep.
The Aivans couldn’t either. They muttered and whistled to each other. I wished them quiet, so I could remember the faces of my family in solitude. Sidra was quiet too.
I had to face facts: I didn’t want the blackwings back in the meadow. The last time they’d landed there, Elna had nearly died, and Doran, Rya’s father, had died. There were too many memories there. Too much loss.
When the rain ended, we took off again. I led them all the way into the lowcloud.
I hadn’t thought about how we’d land in the meadow without disturbing the ongoing work there. Worry nagged at me as I flew. I whistled, trying to lead my charges in the darkening mist. I threw us into desperate turns away from looming towers and strange wind shadows created by the newly broken towers above.
“Brokenwings!” a blackwing shouted. “How much farther?” Rya’s second, an Aivan, hushed him with a whistle.
“Not long,” I whistled back.
I sighed and curled the first three fingers of my right hand in the carefully artifexed wing grips. My new wings, a gift from Raq’s scavengers, shaped a beautiful wing curve. It drew me into a slow turn, and the blackwings followed.
We passed the bridge that overlooked the meadow. An iridescent shimmer made everything look mist-covered, until the three towers poked above the canopy. The skymouth hide that Elna had suggested cloaked Djonn’s work from sight.
“What about now, Brokenwings?” another blackwing called. There were chuckles in the diamond formation behind me. They’d grow louder if I didn’t answer.
Rya caught up to me. Flew at my pinion. “I’ll take care of it,” she said.
I dipped my right wing in agreement. “They don’t like Lawsbreakers,” I said.
“They don’t like non-Aivans.” Rya wheeled away, back to the noisier part of the formation.
The light changed as we dove lower. Shifted from sunlight and sepia to green and gray.
Rya’s feather hung next to my Lawsmark on my new wings. She’d stopped calling me Brokenwings at the first cave. I’d offered myself in trade, and once she’d claimed me, she began treating me as an Aivan. No wonder the blackwings hated me and the Aivans distrusted me.
I was glad Ceetcee and Beliak wouldn’t be in the midcloud. Aliati would see it, though. And Moc. And Djonn. I circled the meadow again. Flew a wider circle from there. Kept flying, gliding lower, putting off the inevitable.
Dark shadows prickled with beams of light when the clouds breached from below. I balked and wheeled fast. I’d flown too far down. I fought to find an updraft, a strong gust near one of the towers, and barely made it.
The Aivans who saw me turn, the ones in the middle and back of the formation, made adjustments successfully. But three fliers out front, Rya among them, flew even lower. They shouted as the wind failed to fill their wings.
I made a curving dive and grabbed Rya with my winghook. Dragged her up, then released the hook as soon as she had enough lift. Another blackwing did the same, hauling upwards on her companion so hard, I could see muscles standing out on her arms.
But one blackwing dropped away from us. He spun faster and more erratically as the wind failed to support his weight. He spiraled down and I dove for him. He disappeared out of the cloud, out of the wind, beyond where I could follow and still return.
“I am so sorry. I didn’t think we would fly so low today,” I whispered to the fallen blackwing as the clouds closed over him.
When I caught up with her, Rya frowned, her sharp eyes and dark tattoos forming a piercing accusation in the dim light. “What happened?” she said.
On the wing, after that, I could not lie. “The wind goes away below the cloud.”
She shook her head. “Wind doesn’t go away.”
“I’ll explain on the ground.” I tipped my wings. Aimed for the cave and the towers. We landed safely in the meadow.
I’d told Rya some of the truth.
I hadn’t told her nearly enough.
* * *
Several Aivans circled the air above the meadow. More rested below the overhang near where Moc stood guard. When they were settled, I escorted Rya and her second to where Djonn worked. She exclaimed quietly over the artifexes’ work on the climbers and kites.
While they were occupied, Aliati pulled me aside. Her grip was tight on my forearm. “Several small problems while you were gone.”
I froze, bracing for the worst. Were Ceetcee and Beliak all right? Ciel? The baby?
She saw through to my worry. “No word yet. It’s that we’re running out of lighter-than-air. And the blackwings are pushing Djonn hard.”
I flipped over the piece of bone, thinking. “Where’s Urie?”
“Over by the climber with Djonn and his aunt, learning to be an artifex,” Aliati said. She whistled for him. Urie waved and began to walk across the meadow. “Before he gets here, let me say this: if you and Macal are so willing to accept what the blackwings say at face value, you can clean up their mess,” Aliati said.
Urie joined us. The boy’s burns had faded, his eyes shone bright. “What mess?”
“We need your help, Urie. Can you take some time away from artifexing? For Macal?” Aliati asked.
Urie looked back over the meadow, his smile fading. “The mechanisms are so intricate. I’m learning so much from Djonn. I’d like—” Then he saw our faces. “For Macal? Yes, I can.” His easy smile disappeared. He glanced back over to the kite scaffolding, then returned his attention to Aliati. “Whatever you need.”
In the mist above the meadow, blackwings hung and circled on the wind, looking like kaviks at this distance.
Urie watched them too, his frown deepening.
“We need you to work with the blackwings, become one of them again.” As I said it, I watched the boy deflate.
“Why?” Urie asked, disappointed. I watched him slowly figure it out. “Because you need to know what they’re doing down here.”
But Aliati smiled. “Maybe not so naive.” The boy’s face slowly transformed under Aliati’s regard.
“Do you think I could pull off watching them without them knowing it?”
“You might need some lessons from the scavengers,” Aliati said. “I think we can help with that, especially when Raq gets here.” She looked at me with eyebrows raised. “She was supposed to come down first.”
Aliati gazed up at the cloud.
“I know. Macal decided to bring the blackwings down first. But she understood.”
That was a half-truth. Raq had been more than upset. She’d threatened to hold supplies back. But she capitulated once Macal decided to stay above.
Now I elaborated. “He’s trying to keep the city together, to keep it from panicking. From being overwhelmed by blackwings and Aivans fighting, and by fear.” Aliati’s eyebrows stayed raised. “Raq said to tell you she’d be d
own soon.”
With relief, Aliati nodded. “If she’d had a very bad feeling about this, Raq would have ignored you and done what she wanted.” She slung her bow, and I waved the blackwings into the meadow.
Rya took Djonn with her to greet the blackwings. As a group, most bowed deeply to her, with a few blackwings remaining standing. Few bowed to Djonn. Rya frowned. “You will treat him as you treat me.” She waited until every blackwing and Aivan had bowed.
Urie joined the group greeting Rya. His black wings gained him easy entry. His Mondarath marks and the glass beads he’d found somewhere to decorate his wings caused his neighbors in the group to nudge each other. Ignoring this, Urie bowed as well.
Rya gestured towards the meadow and the gliders, to the climbers as well. Most of the blackwings paid attention. Then Rya gestured to me. Two of her guards broke away from the group. Djonn startled and began speaking loudly, but they ignored him. They walked towards me, faces expressionless. Hands at their sides. I’d seen that before, when blackwings guarded the meadow for Dix.
As they advanced, my shoulders tensed. This wasn’t part of the plan.
I wanted to run, to fly, as I had when Nimru turned and saw our city lying on the desert. But there was nowhere to run in the meadow.
And I’d promised myself to Rya.
“The blackwings wish to make an offering to the city in honor of this effort,” the younger of the guards said. “Rya has chosen to take you as Lawsbreaker now.”
A Conclave. Here? Rya? She’d stood against Conclaves. Had interfered in them, had helped save Aliati. I could not speak for the shock of it. I hadn’t meant for them to use me in this way.
I’d offered myself only as a guarantee. A reassurance.
Surely Rya needed me alive, to help with the evacuation?
The Aivans pinned my arms to my sides so I couldn’t move.
I realized. The blackwings had lost one of their own. They weren’t listening to Djonn, or me. Brokenwings. Lawsbreaker. Rya needed to mark her power, to seal her control.
She raised a hand. “My father died in this meadow, I am told. This is where Dix fell. We lost one of our guards to the wind today. What better place to seal our common purpose than in this meadow? With what better gift than a willing cloudbound Lawsbreaker?”
Wait. But they were getting their winghooks out. Wait. Preparing to lift me.
Now? When we had so much left to do? When citizens hung from the pulleys at the city’s edge? When my family waited for me below?
Aliati, fingers tight on her bow, an arrow already nocked, moved to stand by my side. “This will not happen.”
Rya crossed the meadow. Djonn harangued her from behind. “You throw your best assets away?”
She spoke loud enough for all to hear, “He offered himself freely to us. It is a skyblessing.”
“It was cloudtouched, not a skyblessing,” Aliati replied. “You have two people who know what it’s like below, and one has taken the first party down. The other is here, and you’d throw his knowledge away?” Aliati and Rya met in the middle of the meadow and stood eye to eye.
Wait.
I’d offered myself. I’d known what I was offering. In hopes of saving something bigger than myself, in hopes of getting the blackwings to listen, I’d do it again.
I thought I was helping my family escape the city. I thought—somehow—I’d have more time. At least until we all got down to the ground. And that then I could talk my way out of my punishment.
“I saved you,” I whispered when Rya had come close enough.
Rya’s eyes glittered, dark and angry. “And if you’d spoken of the wind before we flew, or had not led us so low, that blackwing would not have fallen. I would not have needed saving.”
“Nat’s life for your blackwing, then?” Aliati gripped one of the Aivans by the arm and spun them away from me, hard. “They chose how they flew. But everything else falls to the clouds?” When Aliati stopped moving, the Aivan lay on his stomach on the ground, Aliati behind him, foot in his back. “What about now?”
The meadow stilled and went watchful. Every Aivan focused on Rya. All the workers in the meadow looked from me, to Djonn, to Aliati.
The Aivans held me so tight that my feet lifted from the meadow surface and only my toes touched.
Rya’s slow smile shifted her tattoos so they looked even more birdlike in the cloudbound light, below the meadow canopy. “Nat’s life is mine. He gave it to me above. I have witnesses.”
Murmurs of agreement among the blackwings.
“And I can make this offering to the city when I like,” she continued.
Both the Aivans at my side nodded. “Truth.”
Rya walked slowly among the blackwings newly landed in the meadow. “You understand that here, I speak for you. You move, work, and pay due respect or you will test my goodwill. There is no person here I will not sacrifice for the good of the city.”
Rya’s Aivans nodded. “Truth.” The blackwings followed suit.
She turned to Djonn and Aliati. “But I would not be a good leader if I was reckless with resources. You’ve made your challenge well. A good leader rewards sacrifice in the name of the city. I offer Nat a stay.”
She waved a hand, and her Aivans lowered me but did not let me go.
My toes touched the meadow once again, hard. I bounced, and my knees nearly buckled beneath me. I could not breathe.
“He will remain my trade from the towers, their guarantee that they will work with us. And our guarantee—which I can undo at any point—that we will work with them too. We are all witnesses to this.”
This time, all of the blackwings and Aivans bowed to Rya.
The Aivans let me go. Struggling to my feet, I refused to lose my composure in the meadow. In front of the watching blackwings and the Aivans.
A stay was temporary.
But with one move, Rya had stated she was in control of the meadow. She’d chosen to honor Aliati’s case. She’d shown me mercy.
Had we won? I did not think so.
Aliati and Djonn hustled me inside. Djonn whispered to me, “What did you do?”
Meantime, Aliati rounded on Rya. “Your show of power will weaken us all.”
“It was necessary,” Rya said. “For now. Nothing will change.”
Djonn muttered as we walked, “If anything like that happens again, you’ll be finding your own way down.”
A smile replaced the frown Rya had worn in the meadow. “It won’t.”
* * *
In order for me to avoid the blackwings in the meadow for the remainder of the day, Aliati and Rya agreed I would inspect the tower pulleys at the western edge of the city.
Ceetcee had set the first descent lines there. From these towers, she and Beliak gone below the clouds with our baby, Elna, and Ciel.
Ceetcee’s knots and lines secured the blocks and lines high above the cloud base. I looked at the ropes she’d touched, the braces she and her assistants had driven into the towers. As I flew, I glimpsed color below the cloud. Mist ebbed and flowed.
The muted reds and dark grays woven in the cloud were as beautiful as the stars from the night before.
A new kite hung from the pulleys, awaiting its next crew. Four pulley operators sat on a nearby ledge, eating graincakes. Among them, Dojha, a long-ago flightmate, waved as I glided past.
When I came back around, she’d made room for me on the ledge.
“A whipperling came back this morning.” She beamed. “The first kite made it down all right.”
The weight I’d been carrying since they left lifted. “All of them? Elna? The baby?”
Dojha smiled, a dimple creasing her cheek. “‘All okay’ on the message chip with Ceetcee’s mark.”
It was enough. It would have to be.
* * *
When the midcloud light faded again, I returned. I felt my way along the darkened tunnels leading back to the main cave. Rya and two of her captains sat with my companions around the fire. Urie
brewed tea over the flames. In the distance through the mist, I could see hang-sacks and plinths being strung between tiers on other towers.
Urie handed me a warm cup of tea, then gave one to Rya. He looked at Rya with curiosity. “Risen.”
Rya bent her head at the neck. “You are welcome, Urie.”
Aliati bristled, but she recovered quickly. “Urie? If you find Moc in the meadow, he might have time to teach you some night flying.”
Urie looked from one woman to the other. Finally, Rya nodded.
“He’s just outside, with the scavengers,” Aliati said. Urie didn’t wait for more. He stepped back towards the cave mouth and unfurled his wings. When he leapt from the cave ledge, I heard Moc echo and saw a glint in the silver cloudlight, a wing curve arcing gracefully on strong wind and patched silk. Urie disappeared as he took a turn around the tower, obviously enjoying the flight.
My heart caught in my mouth once more. To give this all up. To spend the rest of our lives on the ground.
To be safe. Eight days. Tomorrow, more kites would descend. Work in the meadow had sped up.
Aliati took Djonn’s hand and squeezed. “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered. I hadn’t noticed him shaking before, but now he was.
“Exhaustion,” Aliati whispered to me. “The blackwings are pushing him very hard. It is too much for him.”
It was a lot for anyone.
Rya looked like a nest of bees hid behind her eyes. She, too, was troubled. Out of her altitude. She looked at me. “We’re not the enemy.”
Aliati snorted. “You could have fooled me.”
“We need to keep the evacuation moving. More towers are on their way down, we’ve got maybe a few more days by Macal’s estimate, and not near enough kites. And the new blackwings aren’t yet completely loyal. We don’t have time for dissent.”
We had a common goal, but little more in common. We needed to find some way to bridge our experiences, before it was too late.
I stood. “Come with me, all of you.”
Rya looked shocked, but Aliati and Djonn stood, followed by one of our meadow blackwings.
“Let’s go.” I offered Rya my hand.