Updraft

by Fran Wilde

  Sellis seemed confused. She looked back and forth between the two women, trying to understand my alarm. In the time it took her to form the words “who’s this?” Ezarit had rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me, wings and all.

  Now I understood: Elna had stayed below not because she couldn’t rise but because of my mother, because my mother wished to see me. I stiffened, but Ezarit did not let go.

  “I am so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Kirit,” Sellis finally managed.

  I ignored Sellis. My arms came up from my sides on their own, and my palms brushed Ezarit’s shoulder blades. I thought of the scar that ran across her collarbone. From her fight with Civik.

  “I met him,” I said into her ear. “You let him live.” I couldn’t follow your example. My shoulders jerked with a single sob. I locked my arms against it.

  She whispered, so quietly I could barely hear, “I should have told you everything. I thought I was protecting you.”

  “Tradition!” Sellis pulled hard on my wingstrap. “You will bring shame on us. Rumul will have you enclosed when he hears you cannot keep silent. Cannot act properly.”

  I didn’t care. I let Sellis yank me away from the embrace, but I took my mother’s hand. Then Elna’s.

  I stood between them, taller and robed in gray. I felt their blood pulse behind the soft envelopes of skin that separated us. My mother’s words echoed in my ears. I thought I was protecting you.

  Sellis cleared her throat and glared. I thought of my vows, of the city. I released the two women I loved best in this world. I untied my terrible parcel and prepared for them to turn away from me as well. They would see the truth in my eyes.

  With shaking hands, I held out the wings.

  Sellis stepped beside me and spoke, because I could not. “Your son has done a service for the Singers,” she said. “His sacrifice elevated a new Singer to protect the city.” It was the third time we’d spoken the ritual of the honored fallen today. Now it sounded so hollow, so empty.

  I watched Elna’s face collapse.

  My resolve broke, and I began to shake. To reach out to her. Sellis gripped my arm and pushed it forward, but my mother was the one who took the wings from me. She passed them to Elna as Sellis and I waited for them to bow to us, to release us, as the other families had done.

  “Did he suffer?” Elna asked.

  I shook my head but did not look at her. Sellis squeezed my arm hard, reminding me of how much tradition I broke here.

  I could not breathe. By my hand. He didn’t burn to death. He wasn’t eaten by a skymouth. He fell whole and true, a failed challenger, a hero of the city. The song wound its way through my mind. I had asked for this. I’d made it happen.

  I looked Elna in the eyes. The light that filtered down to her tier through the tower’s shadows made her cloud-covered irises shine strangely. She might not have seen the guilt in my face. But my mother saw.

  “He did not suffer,” I promised them. Elna’s tears fell freely, and I rushed to give her what more I knew, hoping my words would help. “He was thrown out a vent.”

  The ceremony had gone completely awry. Sellis, in her anger, would tell Rumul about my actions the moment we returned to the Spire. There would almost certainly be punishments. Still, Elna’s face seemed lighter now. As if my words had helped. I could hope. I ached to tell them how sorry I was, but Sellis’s grip bruised my arm.

  My mother nudged Elna, and they bowed.

  Ezarit stepped forward and stared long and deep at me. We had no more time to talk. I hoped Ezarit could see what my eyes begged her to see. I wanted her to know that I was trying to do the right things, to make the best trades I could. To help the city. To keep her safe.

  We exchanged no more words, but I understood her better now. I hoped she could see that in my eyes before they filled with tears.

  * * *

  We left before I could give Sellis more things to report to Rumul.

  When I leapt, I risked a look backwards, beneath my wings. Elna’s and Ezarit’s faces glowed from the balcony, on light reflected from the clouds. Looking for a last glimpse of us.

  I did not blink or make a sound. I let the evening wind dry my eyes to salt. Hoped it was too dark for Sellis to see my face.

  She began to whisper at me as soon as we’d cleared the tower.

  “Too dark already, thanks to you. We will, for appearance’s sake, ask to sleep at Viit.”

  She had not suggested sleeping at Densira. That would have been too much mercy.

  “I will send a whipperling telling Rumul of your actions.”

  She had more than enough tradition-breaking to silence me now. To send me downtower or have me enclosed.

  I drew a jagged breath, composed myself. Thought about what would draw her attention away from me. What I could trade now.

  “I think we should risk going back tonight. The council should hear about Narath.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Narath? The first tower?”

  “You didn’t notice?”

  Her silence told me everything I needed to know. I’d heard pride at Narath in the celebration of their challenger. Not grief. Not hopelessness. The Singers would certainly see more dissent from them soon. I explained this to Sellis.

  “I heard nothing of the sort,” she said.

  “Rumul sees the value of my insights. He has forgiven my Lawsbreaks. Why can’t you?” I decided not to bargain with her. I would speak my mind, not caring whether I earned another punishment. Duty. “Spire-born are sometimes very deaf to what tower words mean. I might break tradition, but I can help you understand the towers.”

  A long silence as we flew nearer to Viit. “I see your point,” Sellis said. I hoped her flat tone meant she was giving my words serious thought. We angled around Viit. Headed for the Spire.

  Another few heartbeats, and Sellis began to echo. I joined her. Soon the shapes of the towers, grown closer at this depth, were clear around us. We found a breeze that would take us faster towards the Spire.

  We passed into the purple night, the towers glowing across the heights with warm lights. The city had grown so full while my heart had grown so empty.

  22

  ATTACK

  As we passed Viit, I heard a disturbance, an echo in the wind that should not have been there.

  Sellis fell quiet. She’d heard it too.

  Then she began to hum again, turning left, then right on the breeze. Trying to find the source of the echo. The disturbance sounded like bubbles in the air. Like occupants of the cages in the Spire.

  “Skymouths,” she said.

  We rode the darkness alone. No one in the towers could see well enough, or hear well enough, to know we were out here. Only the giant hungry mouths of the sky.

  “You could try to divert them,” Sellis added, her voice hopeful.

  “I’ve never done it for long,” I whispered back. “Or on the wing.” I wished Wik were there.

  “Look.” Sellis pointed around the curve of Viit’s lowest tiers.

  In the dark, I opened my mouth wide and echoed until I heard the curve of a tentacle. Then more. The enormous limbs, curling.

  A huge skymouth prowled Viit. My throat squeezed in fear. I heard Sellis swallow, hard.

  “There are more, Kirit.” She said it in a rush. “We need to get out of here.”

  I fought the urge to flee. We were Singers. We protected the city. “We must help them, Sellis. We should wake Viit. And Wirra. They can sound the horns.”

  “We can’t fight off an entire migration by ourselves.” Her voice edged with strain. She angled her wings to lift herself higher, preparing to race back to the Spire without care if she was seen.

  “Wait!”

  “What would you do? I can rouse the Spire.” Sellis and I carried no weapons beyond our short knives. Our flight was ceremonial. We weren’t prepared for a fight.

  But I’d heard something behind another, smaller skymouth in the migration group. I’d hea
rd the sound of silk in the wind. A skyshouter call.

  Against the purpling sky, two Singers appeared, their nightwings locked so that they could hold their weapons at their chests, arrows nocked to bows. Their faces were obscured by shadow.

  “Ah.” Sellis sighed, relieved. She circled, looking for a gust that would take her behind the Singers. “We are lucky.”

  But my own relief muddled with confusion. The Singers weren’t driving the skymouths away from the towers. The group rounded Viit and headed the direction we’d come. “What are they doing?”

  Sellis slowed her glide, angling up for a closer look, risking a stall. I did the same, then circled, still echoing. The three long bodies and sinuous tentacles revealed themselves clearly.

  “I’m sure they have a reason,” she said, finally.

  “The skymouths came from behind Viit and are flying towards Densira,” I said slowly.

  “Perhaps Singers are driving this herd out of the city,” she responded, too quickly.

  She thought the same thing I did.

  These skymouths could have come from the pens in the Spire.

  The monsters hovered, waiting for something. Waiting for their masters. Flying low.

  “Nat said something, during his challenge,” I whispered to her as fast as I could. “He said Singers would send a skymouth to kill him if he conceded.”

  “That’s mad!” Sellis said.

  “What if it isn’t?”

  We both fell silent.

  “If it isn’t,” Sellis said finally, “then there’s a reason. There’s a mystery we do not know yet.” Her voice was firm. “This is a Singer matter. If we’d needed to know more, we would have been warned. If we hadn’t lingered, we wouldn’t have been caught up in this.” Time to go back to the Spire like proper Singers.

  I would not obey, not here. Only a few Singers could guide skymouths. Wik might be there. But they were too close to Densira. My first tower. My family.

  “We must do something to chase them away,” I said.

  Sellis frowned and shook her head. “We must not interfere.”

  My frustration caused me to wobble out of the draft. Focus, Kirit. I hissed at myself. Managed to find a weaker gust. Sellis coasted above me, circling away from the path of the slow-moving skymouths.

  All I could hear was Nat’s voice. Send a skymouth. Was that possible? Would we do that?

  Sellis interrupted my thoughts. “The council talked about crowding after the challenge. During initiation.”

  So she’d been listening too.

  “They were. Go on.”

  She didn’t.

  A herding call from one of the Singers drifted back to us on the wind. The verbal nudging of “away” and “here” that Wik had taught me for use in the pens. With a sinking feeling, I knew that Wik was one of the Singers flying with the skymouths. And they were guiding a migration towards Densira.

  Finally, Sellis spoke again. “It is for the good of the city, Kirit. Whatever they do.” She was quiet for a moment. “We should offer assistance.”

  Pieces fell into place in my mind. Things Civik had said. And Wik. Then something Tobiat had said, long ago.

  Terrin had wanted to work with the towers. He didn’t have enough support to change the council’s direction on this. Cages. Delequerriat. Singers did their best for the city.

  Too many skymouths in the pens for just bridges and training. Too many.

  “Sellis! This is what Terrin challenged for. He wanted to change something. This!” I felt sick as I realized what this was. Another way to control the towers instead of working with them.

  Sellis shook her head. “We aren’t in the Spire, Kirit. We cannot argue a decision here. Challenge, if you want. See whether you share Terrin’s fate.”

  Some Singers and windbeaters had supported Terrin. Others had fought before him. Naton, once he realized why he was building the pens. Tobiat. Nat, even though he hadn’t realized what he was doing.

  If there was dissent within the Spire, there could be dissent outside of it too.

  I signaled to Sellis that I would not follow. Someone needed to warn the tower. To warn those on the lowest tiers especially, for they were most at risk. Elna. Ezarit. The salvagers. Tobiat.

  Sellis broke from my side to fly behind the Singers. Perhaps to witness what they did.

  I tried to think, keeping to my circuit. Witnessing was not enough. I had to try to help, to change their path.

  But how could I interfere besides throwing myself between the skymouths and Densira?

  If these were Spire skymouths, they might recognize me and turn faster from their attack. Then again, they were being goaded by more skilled Singers. They might not listen to me. Or hear me at all.

  And if the Singers turned them towards me? Could I stop them? I could be devoured, or I could fall from the sky like a stone if a tentacle struck me.

  If I did not die here, would the Spire throw me down? Or would I become Kirit Notower again? Worse than Lawsbreaker. I would be outside the city, apart from it.

  The skymouths were moving again, circling Mondarath on Densira’s near side.

  The Singers signaled. Sound struck my ears: Forward. They were on the hunt.

  A bat chased insects on an opposing air current to my glide. It darted fast on a tangential gust that carried it direct to the top of Densira.

  I followed it. Once the Singers saw me, no one would doubt my intent.

  But the Nightwing Singers dove, followed by Sellis’s bright day wings. They were not headed up the tower’s height, to attack from above as dawn broke. Instead, they circled closer to Elna’s tier.

  I dove lower, echoing.

  Elna emerged on her balcony, feeling her way among the few vegetables she’d grown. It didn’t matter to her that it was not yet light.

  One skymouth, a small adult, saw her and began a slow turn.

  “No,” I said.

  Sellis spotted me and hissed. Tried to block my path with hers. She missed as I dodged down and away, echoing to see better in the dark.

  Nat’s mother, my Elna, turned at the sound of wings passing close in the dark. At the sound of my clicks.

  “Who is there?” she said. “Tobiat?” The hope in her voice broke my heart.

  We dove past too quickly, and I had to turn again to reach her. Sellis, flying by my right pinion, tried to entangle me as I banked right, then up, then down. The tower was too close on my left.

  Trapped. She had trapped me as she’d done in Gyre practice. I cast about.

  Down, then.

  I dove.

  Sellis followed, hard on my heels. I tightened my grips, raked my wings back.

  I twisted until I was in a searing dive, the dive that Macal had dared me to do at my wingtest. This dive ended in a sharp parabola before I plunged into the clouds.

  Just as before, the airflow at the cloudtop was enough to power a climb. I pushed hard into it, using my grips to control curvature and angle. The battens tightened and formed new angles and arcs. It was glorious, all this speed. And now I controlled it with a Singer’s precision.

  I stretched my fingers painfully into the curve and shot upwards, faster than I’d fallen, headed straight for Densira and the skymouth that was opening itself up, a red tear in the sky that Elna could not see. She turned her head this way and that, trying to hear who startled her.

  I drew in breath, preparing.

  She could not see the danger, even as a mouth opened wide, then wider still, and neared her tier.

  I slowed enough to pass between her and the skymouth, and I began to shout the monster down.

  The sound of my scream echoed against the inside of my skull. It bounced off the tower. I breathed in through my nose and let more sound out of my mouth. As Wik had taught me, I supported everything from deep in my stomach and pushed out, so the very air shook with the noise.

  I tried to make a shield over Elna with my scream. To push the monster away with my voice. The sound expanded a
nd spread. The skymouth slowed. Elna stood openmouthed, stunned. I dove through the sound of my own voice and flew down, hoping the predator would follow.

  I heard Wik shout a warning from the back of the group. The Singer in the lead was cursing my name.

  Then I was through my wave of sound, and I could not hear behind me.

  I knew Sellis would draw her ceremonial knife and come for me, but would the rest of them follow? Would the skymouths?

  Looking back, I saw Sellis flying just above the skymouth that trailed me closely. Sellis’s knife glinted in the moonlight.

  I led both Sellis and the skymouth away from Densira. The night breezes were strong, and we moved fast on them, far from the tower that was my home.

  I did not care what happened now. Singers could take me and throw me down. Elna would live to see Allsuns and bid Nat a real good-bye.

  I realized that I cared about her more than I did the city. I would protect her against any challenge. Use myself as a weapon if I had to.

  With a scream, Sellis attacked my wing, a slicing arc aimed to break battens. She caught a wingtip, and I spiraled away, losing altitude and control as the silk tore. The rip stopped at the first batten. The rest of the wing held, but I could not control my fall. I spun away from the Singers and their monsters, and fell towards the empty tiers of Densira and the waiting clouds.

  The wind screamed in my ears. I grew dizzy with spin and fear. Sick welled in my mouth, hard terror against the dryness. I tried to work my legs from the footsling in order to use my feet to keep the rest of me from being dashed against a tower.

  The clouds rose quickly to meet me.

  I tangled in my wings.

  Fell, blinded by the rush of wind.

  * * *

  With a powerful jerk, my wings were nearly ripped from my back.

  Someone had hooked me. I dangled, then I rose.

  I was dizzy, but alive.

  Who had me? In the night, with my captor above and my wings in the way, I could not see.

  I tried to speak, but my voice was a croak, muffled by my wings. My throat felt like I had swallowed scourweed.

  From a slit in the mess of torn silk and broken battens, I saw a double shadow pass across the uninhabited tiers of Densira. One flier, one flown. We flew so far downtower, the bone core had nearly grown out to the balcony’s edge.