Updraft

by Fran Wilde

  She hadn’t seen Nat fall. She didn’t know.

  I should have told her then, but I couldn’t put words to it. I opened my mouth and closed it again. Everything is all right, I thought as hard as I could, Tell me of our plans, describe our future like you did the trade run so many weeks ago, with eyes glowing and fingers shaping air into promise and power. I wished those words between us.

  She waited as well, her head tilting to one side, eyebrows rising. Quiet buoyed us for a moment while we believed we understood each other. Then silence grew from quiet, expanding up and out, hardening. The silence began to push us further apart.

  Ezarit tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. The Laws chip tied to her wrist flashed white. “Household member broke Laws.”

  My doing. A hero of the city weighted with Laws.

  I wondered what Councilman Vant would ask in exchange for making the chip go away. As I opened my mouth to ask, she began to speak at the same time.

  “I have some surprises.” She pulled me to the table, handed me a package. A cloud of silk wrapping, bound by complex knots, soft and light in my hands. “But tell me everything,” she said. I opened my mouth. Stopped. Pressed my lips together.

  “Don’t keep me waiting, who was your Group tester?” She did not want to talk about the Laws chip either. She was distracting me with banter, another trader trick. This made me more tense, more worried. Still, I could answer her, and distract her too. “My tester was almost Dix.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes searching mine. “But?”

  “But Sidra protested being tested three times by Mondarath’s new Magister, and Nat and that Magister pushed for changes. Calli was switched for Dix. I got Magister Viit. We flew true.” I didn’t speak of Nat’s flight. Somewhere far below us, he was finding the words to tell Elna that his father’s wing was lost, that he’d fallen. But I could not tell Ezarit.

  “I gather Sidra will be serenading her father with her woes.” My mother frowned and picked at my test marks. She sighed. “And for Solo?”

  “Mondarath. The new Magister. He flew strangely, but I managed to keep up.” I did more than that, I thought.

  “Strange, how?”

  “Like a Singer.”

  Ezarit’s eyes narrowed. “How many Singers have you seen flying?”

  “We’ve watched them, haven’t we? At Allsuns? And Allmoons? And the one who came here to get you? And after—” I stopped. I’d come treacherously close to the things I could not allow myself to talk about.

  She blanched. “After?”

  I could not say. I could not tell her.

  “Three Singers attended the wingtest.”

  “Three always attend the wingtest.” She would not let go of my slipped words. “After what? Which Singer?”

  “I’ve only seen three up close. They were all at the wingtest.” I was not lying. Not yet.

  She relaxed, but the distance between us expanded. So many things we were not saying. The silence of our mutual homecoming deepened. I furled my wings properly to have something to do with my hands. Reached to pull the lenses from around my neck. They felt cold on my fingers. I held them out to my mother, who touched them fondly, but did not take the strap from my hand.

  “You keep them.”

  She was trying to mend things. “They’re yours. You need them to fly. Your good luck.” They weighed heavier now, burdened.

  She smiled slowly, thinking I’d be thrilled. “I can fly without them too. I had very good luck out there.” Her smile grew, thinking of the adventure. “I want you to have them. When you’re a trader, they’ll come in handy.”

  The moment she said “trader,” something tight in my chest released with a great whoosh of air. I could hear the tower’s sounds again, the flapping of Allmoons banners on the balconies.

  She smiled again to see me relaxing. “Tell me more,” she said. I shrugged from my wings as she pulled me inside.

  I looked around our quarters for things that had changed. A tower chip with Vant’s mark sat on the table. She owed him now. She followed my eye to the chip and cleared her throat. “We’ll discuss that later. Tell me about the wingtest.”

  I told her as much as I could, about Solo and Group. About Nat, about his fall. Her hand went to her throat.

  “I’ll make them down a basket.”

  “It’s not something you can fix with goods,” I said more sharply than I meant to. I did not want to fight with her. I wanted her to help me figure out how to make things right.

  But she waved her hand, nervous, and turned to her panniers. “It is what I can do. Poor Nat. Poor Elna.”

  She fussed with her trade goods as if she wished to pull a new wing from one of the baskets. She opened and shut containers, sighing. Turned back to me, gesturing to the wrapped package I still held. She arched an eyebrow. “Open that while I think. More surprises later.”

  I didn’t want surprises. I wanted flying panniers and quilts with deep traders’ pockets. A wing for my friend. I untied the complicated wrapping to find a new robe, the markings embroidered and dyes done in layers and shades of green. No pockets. I put it down on the table; I’d wear it for Remembrances, tomorrow, after the wingfights.

  “I thought it was pretty,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “And with that a promise to take you to the Spire, once you’ve made your first trades.”

  A chill crossed me, like a shadow. It must have shown on my face. Not the reaction she expected.

  “Kirit, you’ve wanted to fly the city for so long. What has happened?” She frowned.

  I pressed my lips shut, knowing that everything would tumble out, and she’d be furious at the Singer. She’d argue with them, be ruined.

  Her frown deepened.

  “The skymouth. Elna said the Singer returned. Saved you.”

  I nodded.

  “But then he stayed. I imagine he said something to you?”

  I held my breath. If Elna had told her that much and she guessed the rest, whatever she guessed, it would be as if I’d told her. I wouldn’t have broken the fiat, but there’d be no way to prove that to a Singer, either. I let the breath out. “Only for a moment.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That I shouldn’t have lived. He spoke to Councilman Vant, told him to make an example of me. Of us.”

  Her eyes narrowed again. “Are you sure it was the same Singer who escorted us past Mondarath?”

  Singers looked so similar in their gray robes and tattoos, but I thought that was a safe area. I described the hawk nose, the green eyes. As I did, she relaxed. Strange.

  “You thought it might be someone else?”

  She sighed and looked away. She did. She knew Singers, of course. She’d petitioned them. They respected her. But the look in her eye had been more complex than that of someone expecting an old friend.

  I cleared my throat, curious now. “Who?”

  “I can’t discuss it.” She stalked to the back of our quarters to fold quilts. Ezarit was not the kind of parent who folded quilts.

  Moments later, as if she’d signaled to them, the aunts burst in with congratulations and questions about the wingtest. Several asked about Nat and tutted uselessly. Dikarit looked exhausted, as I must have, but he eyed my mother’s panniers, knowing she’d returned with gifts for the family. I smelled what she had carried home, hints of dusky spices and honey. Only a few towers were successful with bees in the city near those who grew that particular group of spices, far to the southwest. She’d been on the wing for a long time.

  The sweep and swirl of a trader’s homecoming, with shouts of excitement over small trinkets from distant towers, and the general bustle of preparations for Allmoons that began immediately after, kept us from any more discussions.

  The relatives did not leave our home until nearly dawn. I woke where I’d pulled my mat to get away from them, back by the center wall, wrapped in my flying quilts. The soft rumbles of the city filled my ears.


  Ezarit stood on the balcony, looking at the sun barely peeking over the horizon. I found a goosebladder of water from the night before. Carried it out to her.

  “When you were very young,” she said when I joined her, “I flew to the Spire, determined to get a better life for both of us. I was crazed with losses. Loss of your father, of all that I’d planned for our future. I challenged the Spire.”

  I dipped my head. I knew this.

  She pulled the shoulder of her robe down. Showed me an old scar, long and deep, parallel with her collarbone. I had not known this. She had my attention.

  “The Singer who flew against me did not want to fight me. He barely marked me. I was ruthless, Kirit. I won that challenge because I wanted our future back. And I got it.”

  I held my breath, waiting for her to tell me more.

  She took a sip of water. “Sometimes, even when you think the fight is over, you have to keep fighting.” Then she turned to look at me. Her golden eyes matched the clouds’ colors, far below. “You will get your wingmark today.”

  “Yes.” And Nat would not. Nor Sidra.

  “You will need to fight for your own future, Kirit. No matter what.”

  I didn’t understand, but she rose and hugged me quickly.

  A shout went up in the pink-tinted light of the city’s shortest day. Guards called their teams together for the wingfights.

  Allmoons meant three days of wingfighting, festival markets, and ceremonies in each quadrant. I’d been looking forward to it.

  Tonight, Densira would light its banners, to remember our lost. We would listen to Mondarath’s raw grief, and Viit’s, and we would say good-bye to those we’d lost to the clouds as well. My banner would have been among them, if the skymouth hadn’t turned. Nat’s also, if the Singer hadn’t caught him.

  On the year’s shortest day, the towers lit the Allmoons banners when the moon reached its highest point. The city glowed, a fiery night flower. Each year, it surprised me with its beauty. After a short moment, a monument of light, the banners would fall to ash, and the flower that was the city, stripped of its colors, turned back to pale thorns rising from the clouds.

  When we were small, Nat and I watched from our mothers’ backs, clinging between their furled wings as our neighbors crowded Densira’s roof. The night’s dark landscape pricked with one light, two, then all the towers together as the council members from each tower lit the banners. The moon rose above the clouds and hung there for the long night, until it seemed bright as day to our eyes. Our bellies rumbled, hungry for Allmoons morning spice rolls. We wondered what we’d find in the markets the next day. Honey sweets, sometimes, small bone toys. And kites, for the holiday.

  Ezarit gave me a small silk bag. “For the markets.” She grinned, trying to lift our mood. “Make sure you bargain well.” I shook it and heard the clicking of many tower chips. There was enough in here to buy my own panniers and beaded ties for my hair. Or something for Nat, my wing-brother, to whom I owed a debt.

  She handed me my new wings.

  “Go watch the wingfight.” She nudged me. “Enjoy it. I have some things to finish up here before I come.”

  I unwrapped my wings, and she helped me strap them on. Glorious whorls of gold and green. I was transformed. My mouth ached from smiling so suddenly.

  She chuckled. “I like seeing you happy, Kirit.”

  Our smiles faded at the same time.

  “I’d like to take my old wings to Viit, to see if Liras can use parts to repair Nat’s,” I said.

  “A good idea. But after Allmoons.”

  I agreed. No one did any work at Allmoons. But I would have agreed to anything she asked. A good apprentice already. My wings rustled in the wind. Ready to fly.

  Outside, tower citizens who wanted to be close to the wingfight, instead of watching with their scopes, had already started to glide towards Mondarath and Viit, to the balconies there that had been made into grandstands.

  I tucked my purse into my robes, tightened my wingstraps, secured my new cap, and, with my mother’s shooshing hands to give me extra thrust, at least in my imagination, prepared to launch myself from the balcony and glide towards where my flightmates and family gathered to watch the wingfight.

  To my surprise, I spotted Nat’s black curls below a patchwork pair of wings. He circled up on a gust and was overtaken several times by younger children. Still, my heart leapt a little as he waved at me and shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear, “You don’t live long in the towers if you can’t pull yourself back up when you tumble.”

  I waited for him to get close before I took off from our balcony, then let my wings spill air as we flew tip to tip towards Mondarath.

  He caught me at this and scowled. “Don’t, Kirit. Fly true.”

  I nodded, banking away. I arrived at the wingfight well before he did and found space on the Mondarath balcony where the traders often gathered. Nat would catch up soon, I hoped.

  Guards lowered the wingtest plinth and stretched it between the fifth tiers of Mondarath and Viit. The towers had draped the balconies facing the plinth with nets and woven platforms.

  Atop the towers, guards, hunters, Magisters, and several younger residents readied themselves for the wingfight. They tied bands of glass shards to their wings and feet. They sharpened their short bone knives.

  * * *

  The horns sounded again, a bright cascade of notes, a summoning.

  Skyfighters leapt from their towers two at a time. Their wings glittered in the pale sunlight. One of Mondarath’s youngest fighters roared. Her wings were familiar. Aliati!

  I laughed, happy to see a flightmate in her first wingfight. I worried for her too. Neither joy nor worry was enough to distract me from what came after the wingfight, when the Singers arrived with our wingmarks, but it helped.

  The other team marked Aliati quickly as a weak point in Mondarath’s formation and aimed for her. Fleet and lithe, she tucked her wings and rolled away from them, leading them into the path of two older Mondarath fighters, including Magister Macal. Aliati wasn’t as easy to knock into the nets as Viit had hoped, and Macal swooped around their assault like a born fighter.

  The crowd in the balcony rumbled and jeered at Viit. A few adults clustered in a corner and subtly exchanged bets, raising the wingfight’s stakes. I heard Aliati’s name, but not whether they were betting for her or against.

  A shout went up. Another Mondarath flier, his wing torn, tumbled into the net. A point for Viit already. The flier pounded the knotted fiber that kept him from plummeting through the towers. His Mondarath teammates reformed, one man down.

  The Viit cheers grew louder. “A moon’s worth of grains!” someone shouted.

  Viit attacked in a pincer formation, again going for the flier they considered weakest: Aliati. She dodged them again, and Macal almost trapped another Viit wingman in an attack from below. Mondarath’s strategy seemed to be to use Aliati as bait. From the looks of frustration on the Viit fliers’ faces, it would not work for long.

  The crush of the crowd and the scent of too many bodies too close together wore me out. I hadn’t eaten much since yesterday. I stepped back into the tier, searching for a morsel of food or tea. I unbuttoned the pocket in my sleeve and pulled my bone cup out, then smiled as Ceetcee approached me with Beliak in tow.

  She found a sack of water and poured me two sips, then offered me an apple the size of my fist.

  I devoured it, core and all.

  “You were hungry.” She laughed.

  “That, and unwilling to toss anything down into the nets today,” Beliak said.

  Ceetcee smiled at him. A wingtest friendship. There were songs about that. I left them to it and turned to see my mother join the betting corner. Nat landed on the balcony at the same time. The trader crowd shifted to avoid him, pressing closer around my mother.

  Nat spied me through the crowd and waved. He didn’t smile. Was I supposed to have waited for him, after he told me to go? I couldn’t tell.
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  Sidra and Dojha landed and swept between us, laughing. They didn’t greet Nat at all.

  “Are you all right?” I asked when I reached him. “Not too hurt?”

  “Not too much. My pride, mostly.”

  “What will you do now?”

  He paused for long enough that I raised my eyebrows. I wanted to keep talking to him, to show him, and everyone on this balcony, that he was not alone. That we were still wing-siblings. But I couldn’t stand here all wingfight. I also wanted to get Ezarit’s attention. To meet the traders.

  Finally, he said, “I’ve been thinking of Tobiat’s chips. Figuring them out.”

  “How? You can’t fly the city looking for the tower that matches the drawings.” I bit back my next words: not without a wingmark.

  “I bet they’ll let me if I’m escorted. You could fly with me.”

  A quest that could take days, or weeks. It couldn’t happen if I were to apprentice with Ezarit.

  “I have a plan,” he added, when I’d been silent too long.

  The crowd shouted as two Mondarath fighters hit the nets. Aliati and an older guard. Viit was now winning.

  “Tobiat was at Ma’s after the wingtest. He told me the design on the chips is a Spire secret.”

  “And you believe him? He’s addled, Nat.”

  “Ma said that too, but he knows more about the Spire than anyone I’ve talked to.” Nat lowered his voice. “He was born there, Kirit.”

  Given what Nat had been through, I nodded. I looked around to see if my mother was still betting. She was.

  Nat waved his hand in my eyes to get my attention. “Really. There’s something there. Tobiat was on about ‘Delequerriat’—remember from Laws? Something hidden in plain sight. I want to know what the secret is. Or trade the chips to the Singers for a chance to ask questions about Naton, at least.”

  I kept my eyes on Ezarit and the traders while I mulled Nat’s mad plan. “You’d have to challenge the Spire to ask your question, Nat. Like Ezarit did. Can’t trade secrets.”