by Fran Wilde
“We’ll find Kirit. Wik said she wasn’t giving up, so we aren’t either. We’ll get help,” Ciel said. “The way things are going here, you’re going to need it.”
“What help could Kirit possibly be?” I said. “She walked away. She’s with Dix.” The thought was ludicrous. “Go, then,” I said, a sour taste in my mouth.
The twins scrambled across the bonefall and out into the desert.
* * *
When I returned to her camp, Rya was waiting for me. Wik sat on the ground, the map spread before him.
Rya’s guards checked through my satchel. Searched my robes.
“What are you looking for? I have nothing that you don’t know about.”
“Liar,” she said, not unkindly, as if she did it for the guards. Then her voice changed, became softer still. “A kite crew saw two fledges walking the bonefall this morning, but only reported it when they didn’t return. No one can find Ciel, nor her brother, Moc. You said you were going to talk to her. Instead, they’ve fled the city and supplies are missing. Did you see them go?” Her men were searching through the bags and baskets, even the ones from the scavenger market. They’d lost something.
“What are you seeking?” If what Ciel had said was true, and Rya had been gathering all our resources into a central location, they sought something important.
“Do you remember the littlemouths from the midcloud?” she asked.
I nodded. “Of course.” Ciel had taken care of those.
“And the silkspiders?”
“We packed several hatches in the kites.” I didn’t know which kites, or how many survived.
“They’re gone, as are the artifexes plates. I think your fledges took them.” Her voice rose an octave. “All of her verses about working together. About new horizons, and now she’s made off with the city’s treasures, into the desert.”
“Maybe she had a good reason? Maybe she thought our plans were dangerous.” I didn’t mention that I’d heard what they were looking for. Perhaps I could get Rya to understand what Ciel and Moc feared first.
“What do we need littlemouths for?” Wik said. “Down here, they’re not likely to matter much.”
Rya was quiet. She tilted her head at me, then at him. “Don’t you see them as lucky?”
“Not really,” Wik grumbled. “People make their own luck.”
“I disagree. The littlemouths are important. They inspired me in the clouds. Kept me going.” I’d never told anyone that. Now I felt protective. “They were our connection to our community for a short while, too. Our bridge.”
Now the twins’ hiking out beyond the outer tower collapse began to make more sense. They’d taken more than the brass plates. And the guards had lost sight of them. I would not lie about where they were to Rya, but I wasn’t going to offer any details either. Soon, the twins would be out of sight.
Rya smiled slowly, looked at the guards. I realized now one was a blackwing, the other wore an Aivan feather. Rya’s voice was still worried. “Your family wishes to see you. They’d like you back in camp with them. I have reason to want that.”
I wanted that more than anything. “What’s the cost?”
“The littlemouths, Liar. I want them. And your help developing a plan to keep the community together, to fly, and to train the new city.” She glanced at Wik, at the blackwings. “You endangered us by keeping truths from us. You cannot lead. So I must. And you must help me.” Then she whispered, for my ears only, “Before Dix returns.”
Is that all? “That’s a great deal to ask.”
“You’ll have help.” She beckoned a guard. “Bring Urie. He can assist Nat.”
Moments passed. The guard returned, with Urie, breathless, and two blackwings in tow.
“Did you find the artifexes?” Rya asked.
Urie shook his head. “I saw something on the horizon instead.”
The twins? I hoped not.
Rya raised her eyebrows, interested, but her jaw clenched.
Urie continued, unaware, “Another city. Moving away from us, I think.” He looked at Rya with a bit of fear in his eyes, but only a bit. “It’s enormous.”
“Could we reach it?” Rya’s guard asked. “Climb it?”
“We could get there, but it might take days. Aivan”—he addressed Rya with that same tone of awe—“what would you do?”
An enormous city on the horizon might not be moving away from us. Especially if it hadn’t been there that morning. “How fast is it moving?”
Urie shook his head. “Not fast. There was a big flock of birds around it.”
Rya waved a hand. “Leave it for now. If it’s moving slowly especially, we can consider it once we decide what to do with the egg. Once we fly.”
Urie, disappointed again, ducked his head and chewed his lip. He was thinking something over.
“Rya,” I cautioned. I saw Wik’s lips move. He put his finger on the map, in the shadows. “Varat. We have to prepare. Be ready for another city to attack.”
The name of the city they’d discovered. The one Rya had wanted me to attack. The one that had moved away. And was coming back.
“Nonsense. Why would a city come here?” Rya said. “We will stick to the plan. How do we go on if we cannot fly? Flying is what we know best. How can we possibly train a new city? Or defend it? We’ll fight better from the sky. How else do I keep the city’s loyalty?”
Who are we as a community if we’re grounded? That was her true question. One I couldn’t answer. I opened and shut my mouth like a fledge.
Her guard poured Rya a bone cup of stale water. She grimaced as she sipped. “We must return to the sky,” she said. “We must be ready to fly as the city grows. Safety is in the air, not on the ground. Your lie cost us so much, Nat.” She frowned. “It may have saved us, but how do we live?”
I didn’t know the answer to that either. I thought of Maalik. Imagined his return. “Maybe it’s only temporary,” I said. “Maybe we will fly again.” Inwardly, I cursed myself for ever grasping at hope, making promises I couldn’t keep.
Another of Rya’s guards approached the tent entrance. Rya quickly shook herself ready. By the time the young blackwing had reached her, Rya looked once again confident and sure. Two blackwings waited at the tent entrance.
I was rattled at the change in her. But I looked at Urie, and he was transformed too. Not afraid any longer.
Urie stared at Rya, boldly. “The blackwings wish to work on this together, with you.”
Rya’s captain looked at us and raised an eyebrow. “You can help the Aivans distribute food. Or find for the lead artifex. What Rya’s asked of you. We searched most of the bonefall closest to the city. Tomorrow we’ll search the remains of the hightowers. The blackwings know all this. You can help.”
“I don’t want to just help,” Urie said. “I want to work by your side. As I did with Macal. I meant the flight problem. The blackwings wish to take that project out of your hands. They’re suggesting I be in charge because I worked with Djonn.”
She put the water down. “Not an option, Urie. You don’t have the experience.” The boy’s face grew cloudy. Rya saw it and said, “I need you as a tether, a liaison. I want to call all the blackwing factions together. Urie, go tell them, and invite guards and hunters from the towers too. And any tower leaders who survived. We’ll have a ceremony—Remembrances, and also something new. We’ll declare the kind of community we want to be now.”
“I’ll tell them.” Urie turned and left, but his face was a storm cloud.
“Rya,” I cautioned. “Declare? What about defending? Rebuilding? What about asking everyone to decide? What about not looking away from a moving city? One that is coming closer?”
Rya raised her voice, so that the guards outside could hear. “As you once said, Nat, asking everyone to decide takes too long. We have an egg that might hatch into a city. Another one on the move. We have people to feed and clothe and keep out of trouble. They all deserve to know now what we’re up again
st, but not until we have a concrete plan. They’ll figure it out soon enough. They can relay it back to their towers.”
“They’ll tear you apart if you fail,” I said.
“No,” she said, looking at me sideways and pinching the bridge of her nose. “They’ll tear you apart. You are the Liar. If they do, then we will be free to go on. If they don’t, we’ll continue in this way. Unless you can give us a sign of luck to come.”
The littlemouths again. She wanted their light, their luminosity—a sign that we could carry the past forward.
The one thing I could not give her, because Ciel had taken them, for the one thing I wanted most: my family. “Do Ceetcee and Beliak already know what you plan?”
“They do. And they’ll agree to helping the cause you’ve given us.” Rya stretched “cause” out long enough to be two words, considering it. “Flight.”
She continued, “Ceetcee’s already working on a launcher. This is a good way to unite everyone and keep us together. If we need it, defense is also easier from the air.”
Rya pointed through the sheltering silks, and I looked out at the place where the Aivans had stretched a kite and were slicing it apart with their knives. They were cutting shapes from the stretched cloth, but strange triangles, too small for wings, or at least smaller than what I was used to.
Djonn’s windscoops. The last things he’d made for us, to free us from a dying city. They were what Macal sacrificed himself for. A new kind of city. A new way of living.
I looked openmouthed at Rya.
She beamed, pride showing through her worry. “Flying again, of course. We are working on the right technology to get us back up in the air, and Ceetcee and Beliak are being amazingly resourceful, especially when it comes to modifying some of the existing kites and crawlers.”
“What do Macal and Sidra have to say about this?”
Rya bowed her head, confirming what I’d feared. “Macal once saved my life. I owed him a great debt. I tried to save him, but he says nothing any longer, Nat. I am sorry.”
The news kicked the wind out of me. Just this morning, Macal had been alive. There had been a glimmer of hope. Now it slipped through our fingers. I heard Wik gasp.
We’d argued, and disagreed, but Macal had been a good man, a good leader. His loss ground me away. But Macal was Wik’s brother.
“Wik, I—” There weren’t enough words. I stood when he stood, rocked by his—and the city’s—loss.
Wik strode from the tent, fast. A guard blocked me from following. While Rya struggled to hold the reins of the city, I still couldn’t leave until she let me go.
I turned back to her. “What will you do now? Who will speak to the towers for you?”
She’d squared her shoulders. Closed her eyes so her tattoos looked like a mask. “I will speak to the towers. We’ll fly together. We’ll use what we have and unify the city, in Macal’s name.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “In Macal’s name? With the kites? We need those!”
“I disagree. They can be used to make many things. We will use them to fly. Macal’s dream was to save us. And I will save us. You will find the fledges and bring back what they stole.”
“That’s not—” I began. But Rya stood. A guard walked me from the tent. I was dismissed.
33
KIRIT, BELOW
Stolen objects lift wings up high
Atop the ridge, the giant kite rippled in the breeze, closer now.
I adjusted the straps on Dix’s wings, feeling the once-familiar weight on my shoulders, heavier now with the mechanisms. Pushed my fingers into the grips. The strange landscape made each motion new again.
I tightened the harness one last time. Double-checked the battens and grips. My heart thudded, nervous.
Now or never, Kirit.
Maalik grew restless and climbed on my shoulder, then flew to a safe perch on the ridgeline.
Instead of a disaster, the first failed flight had helped me figure out and recalculate how much lift I needed. It gave me a good guess as to what might happen with the propellers’ lift. How much curve I’d give my wings. “No time to hesitate.” My mother’s favorite phrase.
Reaching over my shoulder, I pulled the propellers’ pins with my fingertips. With a whir, they began to spin. I lifted up, into the breeze.
The wind caught me, and I straightened out. I flew.
Then I wobbled. Even with the wind bellying the silk and the propellers pushing me forward, I still felt extremely unsteady. But the forward motion drew me closer to the kites. I didn’t care how I looked while getting there. Don’t crash, I whispered.
Controlling the powered wings in a real wind gust was a different risk. As the breeze picked up, I tried curling my wings and immediately rose higher—a different angle than I was used to.
Stay calm, Kirit. If I threw myself out of the weak wind by panicking, I wouldn’t reach the kite.
I could see part of it now, knocking against the rocks above. The large frame had caught on something, and the wind battered at it but couldn’t blow it away.
Still wobbling, I dipped, then recovered. But my toes scraped hard against a jutting part of the ridge. I hissed at the pain and kept my body as straight as I could. It was much more work to glide here, though I felt the wind increasing as I flew higher.
The propellers made everything more difficult. They thrust me forward instead of buoying me up. Unaccustomed to their motion, I pitched wildly again, and then fought my way level. I yearned for the wind I could feel just a bit above, the strength that I could see pulling at the kite.
But if I looked down, which was dizzying, I could barely see Dix’s black cloak against the ridge. The healer’s shift stood out, stark and white.
The wind increased, and I fought to keep level.
Then the little propellers sputtered, first one, then the other. Then they stopped spinning. I had barely enough momentum to glide and turn. The wind pushed me sideways, to the water, then dropped me towards the ridge just below the kite. Close enough.
I stumbled again when I landed, jarring my ankles and knees with impact, but managed to stay on my feet on the uneven ground. I bit the inside of my lip to distract me from the ache in my leg, then put the windup propellers in my satchel and furled Dix’s wings.
By the time I got to the kite, my arms and legs shook with exhaustion. Huge expanses of patchwork silk billowed in the sky above the ridge, ripped free of the bone frames.
Listening for sounds of survivors, I scrambled up. When I got to eye level, I saw the left box frame of the kite was bent at a sharp angle. The sun gave the resulting crumpled shape a jagged shadow, which made it hard to see if anyone was still inside.
To my right, against the ridge wall, the kite’s tether was twisted around a rocky outcropping. The full outline of the box kite appeared as I cleared the last part of the ridge. A broken frame on one end revealed where the edge had snagged and torn. The frame dragged against the ridge and turned the kite one way and the other, but the rest still floated on the breeze, hanging out over the cliff edge and the rocks below.
“Hello? Anyone?” My voice bounced off the rocks. No answer.
Pale yellow silk from the kite made the gray cloud above look even darker. I scrambled for the fabric and tried to reel it in, but it was too strongly hooked. So I climbed the tether and peered inside.
Empty.
Where had they gone? There was no sign of the citizens who’d ridden in this escape craft.
A snapping sound from the tether drew my attention. The line looped and twisted over the kite, and the kite itself was upside down. The frame was still trying to fly on the wind with no one to steer it. My breath caught.
Across the landscape, bone eaters wheeled and banked, marking territory in the sky and on the ridge.
Not again. My heart sank.
I could hear the bone eaters’ cries in my memory as they stalked the midcloud meadow, where the council—and my mother—had fallen. I wanted t
o chase every bone eater from the air. This ridge was not for them.
Then I heard shouts from a section of the ridgeline just out of sight. Several people clambered over the ridge near me, battered, as I was, but upright. I didn’t recognize any of them.
“On your wings,” one called. “Mercy on your wings!” said another.
The familiar greeting, after all this time made laughter bubble from my lips. Still shaking, I made my way down the ridge to see how I could help and lifted a young boy who’d cut his foot. I carried him as best I could, back to the peak where they’d crashed the kite.
“Did Nat and Ciel survive the climb?” One must have, for these refugees to be here.
A woman nodded. “Both. Brokenwings and the Singer fledge. They sounded the alarm. Ciel was a wonder with the kites. She came down first.”
“And Nat?”
“He kept everything moving, Skyshouter.” The woman laughed. She knew a name for me, but it was a northern name. Even as Brokenwings was a southern one.
I didn’t care what they called us at that moment. Knowing Nat and Ciel had made it to the clouds was enough.
And at least one of them made it back down, only to find no whipperling waiting for them, and no new city to live in. I calmed, sobered. Soon Wik would be there to explain, but would it be too late?
Would Nat forgive me again?
I put my hand over the pocket in my robe where Maalik had nested. Empty. The whipperling had flown below. Dix stood near him on the ridge.
I whistled, but he didn’t fly up to meet me.
Above, the huge box kite hung in the sky. As it gently rocked on the breeze, its crew below picked across the ridgeline for the supplies they’d jettisoned.
It was hungry work. Other survivors from the kites had figured out how to lower buckets and toss nets to the water like we’d once done in the air. They came back with a strange, slick creature that flopped in our hands, unable to breathe the air. They’d built a fire on the rocks. The smell of cooking wafted up.
As they worked, I heard a laugh. Dix had finally made her way across the ridge. She rested there, but not for long.