by Fran Wilde
“We will pursue what happened,” Wik promised, when I asked him to elaborate on the windbeaters’ actions. “Not now. We must do things carefully.”
Not now. Tradition. Carefully. Wik’s discipline took patience. I had little to spare.
We flew the short span of night to the Spire. Sellis and I clung to wall hooks outside while Wik worked the gate. We were at a higher tier than the one Nat and I had tried to break into at Allmoons.
A predawn gust cut around the Spire cold and loud. The gate ground open just as sunlight tinged the horizon’s dark clouds. We crawled through and emerged on a windbeater tier.
Wik pointed for us to climb back to our tiers, but I planted my feet. I wanted to stay, to confront the windbeaters. To find my father.
He shook his head emphatically. “Too dangerous,” he whispered. “In case they’re targeting someone.”
“Why would they do that?” I was still chilled by the near catastrophe.
Sellis looked like she was too, her usual haughtiness banished. She hesitated beside me, desperate to know more about the windbeaters’ intent before reporting to Rumul.
“They can’t fly anymore, but they can still meddle,” she whispered.
I sat down on the tier floor, stubborn. I refused to move.
Wik’s face turned stony. He was unused to being questioned by his charges.
Sellis shifted from one foot to the other, then sat down beside me.
I returned Wik’s gaze. “If we may not talk to them because we are not yet Singers, then you must ask them why.”
Wik groaned. When we still refused to move, he went to wake and interrogate a windbeater, one he said he could trust.
As he walked away, Sellis stared at me, her eyes wide. “Novices don’t question Singers.” She didn’t look at all comfortable with what we’d done. But she wasn’t scolding me.
“We’ll get an answer, at least.” I hoped I was right.
“It wasn’t personal,” Wik whispered when he returned. “They couldn’t know who would fly those wings.”
“Rumul needs to know.” Sellis rose, picked up her nightwings, and hurried to the ladders.
Wik watched her go, but I kept my eyes on him. “Why?”
“A few windbeaters have become open to trading favors, though it is not often done,” Wik said. “In return for gossip from uptower. Your father, for one.”
“And trying to murder Singers?”
“Rarely. They are trying to influence something.” He seemed unfazed, which made me want to shake him. I balled my fists and focused on breathing while he continued, “I can’t tell who is behind this. I will find out.”
Influence. Meddling. That was what Singers called someone almost dying. I was not comforted, but I let Wik nudge me back uptower while I continued to ponder.
My father traded in gossip.
I could find a way to use that.
The next afternoon, the dining alcove rumbled with gossip, but not the kind that my father would need. A windbeater had fallen, tragically, into the Gyre.
“Who?” I asked Sellis.
“An old crone who thought she’d outsmart the council,” she replied. Her chin was up; her confidence had returned. Her hands were folded neatly on the table. She’d downed her meal with relish.
A crone. Not my father. Still, retribution came fast in the Spire. I vowed silently that this would not be my fate.
In the days after, as we continued to train, we saw windbeaters below, practicing wind shifts, as usual. The situation seemed to have settled. But I could not convince Sellis to let me go downtower again. She went so far as to post Lurai by my alcove. It was an honor, she said. An acolyte.
My refusal to obey Wik had alarmed someone, and Sellis was making sure I didn’t venture anywhere on my own. I waited for any chance to go back down to the windbeaters’ tier, but I was never alone.
We worked on Singer skills, checking our wings well each time. We studied advanced echoing. Sellis and I flew blindfolded. Wik and I practiced skymouth calls atop the tower and on the wing.
We fought more now, testing the younger novices or being tested ourselves against older, just-turned Singers. Bone-knife cuts and bruises from the walls of the Gyre laced my arms, legs, and face like Singer tattoos. Sellis was equally marked.
Some days, the wind patterns were too strong, too complex for us. I bent a batten when I crashed into a gallery. Skidded onto the tier. Sellis fell so far that she had to climb back up on the ladders outside the Gyre.
She was skittish when she finally made it back to our tier.
“I almost fell beyond the windbeaters. That’s forbidden. They caught me with a hook.”
“What did you see?” I asked.
“They are preparing rot gas below.” At my confusion, she added, “The windbeaters throw flaming balls of it into the Gyre during a challenge if it’s going too slow.”
We began to hear new rumors in the dining alcove, murmurs of arguments in council, of Rumul yelling at someone in his alcove.
Even Moc didn’t know what was happening. “Something big,” he said, peering over the edge of the Gyre.
Windbeaters gathered by the vents below, practicing new patterns with their huge silk wings.
The Spire’s quiet passages clotted with groups of gray-robed Singers who talked almost silently and scattered when approached. I tried to find Wik, or Rumul, but they spent their days on the council tier. By the next morning, Sellis did not appear at breakfast.
“Ciel”—I caught the girl as she sped along the passage—“what has happened now?”
She wordlessly pointed to the Gyre, just as the gusts within rose to a howl. There was so much wind, pushed and funneled through the Spire’s abyss so fast, that things not tied down near the balconies began to be pulled into the funnel. A few pieces of silk flew out through the apex. Singers and novices alike ran to grab precious objects and secrete them away.
Rumul appeared on the council gallery, and everyone stopped and turned to look. He spoke, and the wind carried his voice throughout the Spire.
“There has been a challenge. Singer Terrin wishes to address the city. The council has disagreed. He has issued the challenge.”
“Singer’s burden,” the groupings of gray-winged Singers said.
“He will fight for this right, and by fighting, earn his voice, or lose his wings, or forfeit his life.”
“Singer’s right,” the Spire responded. The deep tones of the group’s unified voice echoed across the tiers, through the galleries.
Sellis descended a ladder, eyes gleaming. She shouted, “Come on!” to me as she moved fast to find a good view in the galleries.
I followed in her wake, feeling rising excitement overcome the dread that had gripped the Spire for days. This was how Rumul had earned his tattoos. So many fights, like scars crossing his face. This was what my mother had done. And how my father became a windbeater. This was how, someday, I might earn my Singer wings. By fighting in the Gyre.
With everyone else, I turned and let the Gyre wind whip at my face.
* * *
The challenger had traded his gray robes for white. His wings were Singer’s wings, a lustrous gray. From where we sat, we could see Terrin had belted his straps double tight. He held a bone knife high in salute to his fellow Singers.
“In defense of the city,” Rumul shouted, “I will fight him.”
Beside me, Sellis gasped. Far above, Terrin looked paler than before. The rumble from the top tier grew so loud it sounded like the start of a city roar from the wrong direction.
Before anyone could move to stop him, Rumul dropped from the balcony, wings spread. He drew a worn, though still deadly sharp, bone knife from an arm sheath. He tossed it in the air from one hand to the other as he swept around the Gyre.
Terrin checked his straps and leapt, his wings spread full.
The two circled each other, sensing which gusts were powerful enough to lift them up and around. They worked the wind, full
of pointed determination.
“I will speak,” Terrin shouted. Then he dove, only to shoot up another gust and tear at Rumul’s foot, as Rumul passed by.
“Terrin will try to drop Rumul at first opportunity,” Sellis said. She paused, swallowed hard, and added, “It’ll be his only opportunity.”
To me, the challenge seemed much like wingfights at Densira. The fight was smaller: only two men struggled to knock each other out of the Spire, dead or alive. But here, the stakes were higher: the winner spoke for the city, the loser was forever silenced.
“One may win without killing an opponent,” Sellis whispered. Her eyes were lamp-bright, and she leaned side to side as Rumul turned. She knew his battle glides, apparently, very well. “He trained me,” she explained. “As Wik and I have trained you.”
I nodded, still not sure enough of the situation to speak. Asking a muzz-dumb question at this point—when Sellis had just begun to confide in me instead of reminding me how little I truly knew—seemed unwise. I let her continue talking, as it seemed to ease her nerves.
Rumul’s glides grew shorter and shorter as he narrowed the horizontal and vertical gaps between him and Terrin. Then he shot forward on a fortunate gust. The smoke of the windbeaters’ rot gas preparations had tinted a breeze just enough for him to see it.
Below, the windbeaters drums and the pulse of their wings punctuated the battle at increasing speeds.
“What is it,” Lurai asked, coming to stand beside us, “that Terrin wants to say?”
Sellis shushed him. “The Gyre will prove whether it’s worth hearing over council’s advice.” She shook her head. “Terrin was Rumul’s friend.”
I wondered if there was a song for fighting a friend in a challenge, but I kept my mouth shut.
Sellis kneaded her robes with her hands. She saw me notice and pressed her palms to her lap. “Rumul won’t let him live. But he won’t let Terrin fall while still alive either; at this point, that would be shameful. For both of them.”
Back at Densira, wingfighters fought together in a tangle of jewel-colored wings and glass-spiked feet, of bone and fists and blood and netting. But that was child’s play compared to the Gyre. This was the maelstrom.
Terrin tired. His arms shook in his wings; sweat poured down his face.
Rumul was lucky with the gusts, for sure. One caught and lifted him towards Terrin. He took a wide swipe with his knife and almost tore one of Terrin’s wings. Terrin turned just in time.
They whipped by our tier, rising, mouths grim, knives sharp. Light spilled over them as the sun broached the Spire’s apex. Rumul blinked, dazzled for a moment. Long enough for Terrin to take advantage and get above the head Singer.
Sellis stuffed her hand between her teeth. I leaned forward, watching.
Terrin dove for Rumul, lips parted to shape a high-pitched shriek.
Singers in nearby galleries covered their ears, wincing in pain. I winced too, but could not turn away. Rumul growled and flipped an impossible turn in the tight space, timed to catch a windbeater’s gust perfectly. He grabbed Terrin’s wing.
With a jerk, he tried to tear the wing from Terrin’s back. This angled his own wings against the wind, and he plummeted, dragging Terrin with him.
In a moment, the two men were one body, falling together. Terrin landed a lucky strike with his knife, and blood bloomed on Rumul’s robe near his shoulder. Singers were on their feet, mouths open, soundlessly watching. Sellis among them.
Then Terrin’s second wingstrap gave way and his left arm pulled, dislocated, from the wing. Rumul rose, four wings bellying with wind, two at his back, two in his hands.
Shrilling with pain, Terrin grappled for a balcony. His fingers scraped the tier as he passed us. The gallery leaned forward as if they too were falling.
A grinding sound. A new gust pulled at us. A gate had opened at the base of the Spire’s occupied tiers. Terrin was sucked out still shrieking into the bright city sky.
The gate slammed as Terrin’s voice faded into nothingness.
The Spire held its breath as Rumul gathered his strength and rode the remaining Gyre winds upwards to the top of the Spire.
On the upper balconies, two council members reached out to pull Rumul onto the tier. They addressed the galleries. “It is decided.”
The galleries replied, “It is decided.”
Robes rustled as Singers turned back to their alcoves, order restored.
The council members led Rumul away from the top balcony to tend his wounds. The windbeaters dropped their oversized wings to the floor with a clatter.
In the moment after the beaters stopped channeling the winds, an ear-popping reversal swung the Gyre currents. The force pulled at my cheeks and my robes. Older Singers leaned away from the Gyre to brace themselves.
Ciel, standing too close to the edge of the gallery, tripped and fell forward, over the edge and into the chasm. Her tiny training wings fluttered half open and useless.
She screeched, breaking the post-challenge silence of the Spire. Lurai and I rushed back to the galleries and looked down. A half tier below, Ciel clung to the wall, looking up with wide eyes.
Sellis shook her head slowly. She looked exhausted. “Clumsy.” The word echoed around the Spire like a death rattle. There were few worse names to be called in the city. One thing the Spire had in common with the towers. Moc ran to my side and looked down.
“Singers can’t fall in the Gyre,” he whimpered.
I didn’t think. “Help me,” I said as I stepped to the edge. Sellis and Moc followed. Lurai hesitated, then joined us.
“Hold my feet.” I loosed my wingstraps enough to loop one end around a bone post.
If I fell, if Lurai or Sellis let go my feet, I would fall past Ciel, knock her off her perch, and we would keep falling inside the Spire until the end of the world. “Tighter!”
The commotion I made attracted more attention than the fallen child. Behind me, the sound of running feet; above me, whispered words like tradition from the higher tiers; across the Spire, louder murmurs. But I was upside down now, my robes gathered around my waist and my under linens showing pale and undyed as I reached.
“Farther out!” I yelled, and Sellis and Lurai edged closer. I felt Sellis adjust her grip on my ankle and tensed, but she wrapped both hands more firmly, and I stopped dropping. My fingertips grazed Ciel’s hair.
“Reach up, Ciel,” I said as calmly as possible.
The fierce little girl whimpered. Her fingers clamped tighter around the wall of the perch. She looked up at me.
“You can,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt. “Just one hand.”
She shook her head again, but I could see her thinking about it. She knew she must.
Behind and above us, an older voice said, “Let her go. Singers do not fall in the Gyre,” but Moc was whispering, “Please,” softly, not wanting to frighten Ciel or me. I was aware by now that no Singer had jumped into the Gyre and glided over to help. If a novice did not learn to fly the Gyre like a Singer, it seemed they let you fall.
At least in the towers we had tethers for the unsure. Magisters who caught our friends and pulled them back from the clouds. Here, Ciel only had me.
“I won’t let you fall, Ciel.” I whispered it, but she heard.
First one finger, then more peeled away from the wall. They were rubbed with soot, the pads dented from her tight grip. The fingers hovered against the wall as Ciel checked her balance on her other hand, the place where she’d found to plant her feet.
Sturdy for the moment. Her hand shot up and grabbed mine, then slipped, and I clasped it tightly. Her foot slipped farther. She whimpered again. I tightened my grip and gritted my teeth hard.
Ciel swung from my hand, a tiny, winged pendulum. I dangled from the tier. Lurai and Sellis began hauling us both back up.
“If you were Singer-raised,” Sellis muttered. She stopped. “You and your tower-fed bones.”
If I’d been Singer-raised, I’d have been sl
ighter, for certain. But I also wouldn’t have leapt to save a clumsy child.
They pulled, and I held fast to Ciel, and soon I was back on the flat landing of the tier, my ribs and stomach scraped where they’d struck the edge. Ciel grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up and over, then lay next to me, gasping.
“Clumsy,” Sellis said, and stalked away.
Ciel took my hand, and we both looked over the edge of the Gyre, into the dark depths.
Lurai leaned back against a wall, catching his breath. Moc knelt next to his twin. Took her other hand.
The galleries began to clear in earnest.
“Don’t tell,” Ciel said, her voice rough. “I forgot windbeaters sometimes pull the wind, after. I was distracted.”
Moc emphasized every word: “They never did it like that before. That was too much.”
More sabotage from below? “Who shouldn’t hear of this?”
The twins looked at me as if I was cloudtouched. Many Singers had witnessed the fall. Except the council.
“Sellis has already gone to tell Rumul everything.”
Moc grumbled as Ciel watched us. “At least Rumul will play it down. Aunt Viridi would not.”
Ciel shook her head emphatically. “Please don’t tell her. I was clumsy, that’s all. Singers aren’t clumsy. Not in the Gyre.” Her voice did not quaver. She was determined to sound as tough as any Singer. As tough as Wik.
Realization dawned. Aunt Viridi, the older Singer with the silver-streaked hair who had attended my wingtest. A councilwoman. Wik’s mother. The twins and Wik were family.
And yet their larger family, the Spire family, had returned to daily tasks, as if nothing had happened. As if, with everything decided, order and balance had been restored.
I squeezed Ciel’s hand tighter. Saw Moc’s eyes narrow. “What is it?”
“I am not sure yet,” Moc said. He lifted a torn scrap of Ciel’s robe from where it had caught on the ledge. Balled it up in his fist. “But I will find out.”
“We,” I said. “We will find out.”
17
WINDWARD
In the emptied gallery, I got to my knees, then my feet. Ciel clung to my hand.