Updraft (30 page)

“I advise you to sleep well,” he said. “You will be Nightwings. You have one final rite of initiation.”

Initiation.

At mention of it, Wik turned away, but not before I could see his grim smile.

We bowed to the Singers. Then we lifted our wrapped wings and carried them with us back to our alcoves.

On the way, Sellis tucked her wings under one arm and grabbed the tender spot on my elbow with fingers shaped like pincers. “I thought you were true, Kirit.”

I stared at her.

By my hand, my friend fell this day.

She screwed up her face and stepped forward, until her nose was less than a hand span from my own. “This day was supposed to be perfect, my birthright. I was pleased to share it with you.” Her words came from deep in her throat, thick and angry. “But you break traditions. You sat with the city bared before you, your greatest charge, and you barely listened. You had no respect.”

“I was listening.”

“And trying to overhear the council's discussion too. You may have fooled Rumul and the others. You once fooled me. And now you think you are free to do as you like, but I will watch you, Kirit, every move. Until you reveal yourself a traitor again.”

She pushed me towards the ladders, gave me time to think while I descended. She followed me all the way to my tier, her eyes boring into the back of my neck. When I could tolerate it no longer, I turned on my heel and faced her.

“You saw what I did. That challenger was my oldest friend,” I said. “How could I hope to prove my loyalty beyond that?”

Her smile stretched thinner and wider as she thought over my words. “How indeed, if your loyalty is worth so little in the first place? You could not even keep silent.”

Her words were so loud that it felt as if the very Spire stopped and listened.

In the sudden quiet, she bowed her head. “I love the city, Kirit. And the Spire. All true Singers do. We respect it. I will sing with you tomorrow and honor the dead. But I will be watching too.”

I pulled my robes tighter around me. She turned to climb the ladder back to her tier, to await the next part of the ceremony.

“And your voice is still hideous,” she whispered over her shoulder as she climbed.

*   *   *

The sleeping alcove was heavy with the city's heat. In my mind, Nat fell again, and I could not reach him; then I did reach him; I was sucked through the vent with him; a skymouth opened like a red flower in the air and pulled us towards its maw; Wik shook his head at my stubbornness; Sellis glared at me for lying to her, for letting her think I was something I was not. Not her sister. Not a real Singer. Thoughts swirled and fought, keeping my battle-weary body awake. Drenching me with sweat.

Beyond my alcove, the Spire whispered to me until I could no longer fight to keep my eyes open.

In the midst of my troubled sleep, a dark-cloaked Singer came for me. The Singer bundled my quilts, binding my arms and legs, then leapt into the Gyre at a run, with me in her arms.

My scream was stifled by a rough silk stuffed in my mouth. My face was crushed to the chest of the Singer who held me. We fell, the rush of air battering against us both. She fell too fast to have her wings extended.

At the last moment, she opened her wings and we jerked from the fall, into a slow, downward glide.

I smelled the foul scent of skymouth. I could barely keep from retching.

My bearer whispered to me. Her voice was soft. Her heartbeat didn't break its careful rhythm. She hummed to the pen's occupants and opened a small gate. I could hear what was around us, though I could not see it. Soft tentacles brushed my feet. We were above the pens.

“A Nightwing Singer is born twice,” my bearer whispered. “Your past will never return. Only the Singer will return. Make no sounds, no movements.” The skymouths stirred at her whispers, and she began her hum again.

She tied me to a bone hook with thick, woven straps. Lowered me into the pen. Left me dangling among the skymouths.

I heard another voice saying the same words and knew that Sellis hung here with me.

My mouth was still crammed with silk, so I could not scream. A tentacle brushed my arm. Something soft bumped me from behind.

I tried pushing the fabric with my tongue, but that made me gag. The skymouths in the pen reached out and touched my arms with their invisible limbs.

A thrashing sound nearby drew their attention.

Sellis.

She could send them into a frenzy. She could kill us both.

I could not scream, or shout, but I thought I could hum through my nose. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back and managed a muffled, nasal, hum.

The creatures slowed. I kept it up, though I struggled to breathe. After a moment, I heard Sellis join her hum to mine.

As the sound we made echoed in the small space of the pen, mouths closed with slick sounds. Shapes of soft bodies smaller than my wings became apparent with my echoes. I stifled a laugh. The Singers had hung us in a nursery pen. I swung on my hook as the smaller skymouths nudged at me like baby birds. Their curious arms bumped and touched and turned me about.

They made not one sound.

Time came to a stop. I had nothing beyond now; I had been nothing before now.

Then I heard a skymouth call from above. I knew those tones. Wik's voice. The tentacles retreated. The young skymouths sank to the far reaches of the pens, pressing against one another.

The gate at the top of the pen opened, and Sellis and I, still on our hooks, were hoisted uptower.

Hands touched my back and sides; a Singer lifted me off the hook, took the cloth from my mouth. I could not stop shaking. My blanket bindings surrounded me, kept me from flying apart.

I heard Sellis gag, then start to cry.

The dark-cloaked Singer took my face in one hand and held me still. She kissed my cheeks.

“Welcome, Singer,” she said. Viridi's voice. Her cloak slipped, and I saw the silver streak in her hair, all tied back in braids. She did not release my face. “You bring new ways of thinking to our service. I value this.”

With her free hand, Viridi raised a brush and drew a circle on my cheekbone. I winced as the ink burned, and tried not to wriggle away; Viridi held my face tightly.

She gave me a drink in a brass cup, and I took it without question. Muzz. It would let me sleep again.

In the dark, I heard Rumul's whispers as he marked Sellis and welcomed her too. I heard what sounded like a kiss in the dark.

My vision faded.

When I woke in the morning, I was back in my alcove, on my sleeping mat. I rubbed my hair clean with ash and tied my gray robes as I'd seen Wik do. I passed by Sellis's empty room on the way to the Singer's dining alcove. Morning shadows had grown short on the Spire's walls.

The dining alcove was empty, save for Sellis. Her fresh tattoo looked red around its silver edges: a spiral in a circle, like the marks on our hands. I wondered what mine looked like.

I opened my dry mouth to speak, but Sellis beat me to it.

“Do you remember?” Her voice was kinder than it had been the night before. After the first ritual, before the initiation. Perhaps we were sisters again. That was safer for me, certainly. I doubted the peace would last past my next mistake, my next disruption of what Sellis thought her future would be like. But now I knew Viridi valued my presence. Perhaps Sellis would soften in time. Perhaps starting now.

I waited her out, cautious. I remembered too much. She waited too. She was better at it than I.

“The pens?”

Her voice a mix of fear and wonder, she said, “They brought a skymouth into the Spire. For us.”

My face must have given me away. She hadn't seen anything last night. She'd been too frightened.

“You've known? How could you know?” She thought for a moment. “You've been sneaking around the Spire. Going where you were forbidden.”

“I haven't.” This was partially true.

A few days ago, I might have told her about meeting my father, about the windbeaters and the vents below. We would have talked about what had happened the night before. I might have broken the silence and told her more. Now we stared at each other in silence. Not truly sisters after all.

“Why would Rumul not tell you?” I asked, finally.

She flinched. Looking down, she spooned grain mash into her mouth and chewed deliberately. My stomach growled. She swallowed. “I have decided not to go with you to return the wings. Rumul can send someone else besides us.”

This, after everything. After what we'd both been through. After what I'd done to help her survive last night. She would have panicked until they pulled her up.

“You dare, Sellis? When you have been sneaking behind the council's back with Rumul for how long? What would Viridi think? Wik? The others?”

Her cheeks darkened. A lucky guess, now confirmed. “You wouldn't dare.”

“Nor you. I am as dedicated to the city”—I put a heavy emphasis on the last word—“as you are. We will return those wings to the tower. Honor and tradition.”

Now we each held the other's secrets. It was a wary peace.

Wik found us in the dining alcove, chewing in silence. When we had finished, we climbed to the Spire's roof and knelt before the council.

Viridi took my hands in hers. She smiled, encouraging. Proud.

I sang the words, the ones that had echoed up the Spire each morning from the first day I was freed from the walls. “
I give myself to the city, to its rise, to ensure against its fall.
”

My voice's burr had been accented by my training. My hearing had grown sharper too. The combination was unsettling. I heard the tone I was supposed to sing, the one every Singer knew. I heard it underscored and slightly soured by a second tone, as if I spoke with more than one voice. That undertone was what the singers wanted. My skymouth voice. They would tolerate a voice that broke Silences, a voice that challenged and would not quiet, if it meant they would get what was needed. When I finished singing, Viridi smiled, then moved to stand before Sellis.

She sang clear and proud, her eyes on Rumul.

Then we stood, turning to face the council. We rehearsed once with them the song for those lost in defense of the city. I sang it true this time.

Singers came forward to check our wings for us. Strong fingers tightened straps. My wings tugged at my shoulders as someone adjusted a batten in its sleeve. We had a long flight ahead.

Rumul faced us. “You will fly southeast to Narath tower and present the second challenger's wings to her relatives. Then to Ginth, to present windbeater Vess's wings. By day's end, you will reach Viit and the new bridge that connects that tower to Densira. You will bless the bridge. You will not linger.”

A bridge for Densira. They had rewarded my tower for my sacrifice. I was glad to hear it.

“Once the bridge is blessed, you will cross to Densira,” he continued.
To Elna. To Ezarit.

A council member came forward, carrying Vess's wings, along with those of the Narath challenger. Beneath them lay a spare set of wings, the battens broken beyond repair. The silk torn.

Rumul explained, “Because we cannot return the Densira challenger's wings, you will take these.”

So Elna would have a pair of wings that no one could ever use.

The council spoke all around us. “Singer's duty.”

Sellis and I repeated the words. I felt them echo in my stomach.

It was time to fly. We lifted our burdens and strapped them to our chests.

Atop the Spire, the sun rose over our brethren. We unfurled our wings and engaged the fingertip grips, then soared for the first time as Singers among the towers, to show the city what we had become in its name.

 

21

RETURN

Narath tower was the height of the southeast. From our approach, we could see Narath had at least two tiers on its closest neighbors, and its gardens bloomed green and lush. Alerted by kavik messenger, residents had gathered on the top of the tower, many families' worth. Sellis's challenger had been popular.

Though I carried the challenger's wings, I realized that I did not know her name.

“Who was she?” I asked Sellis again as we prepared to land.

“A challenger,” Sellis responded in clipped tones. “They will name her.”

Unsettled, I stepped from my footsling and cut my glide, dropping to the tower with practiced Singer's grace. Sellis landed beside me at the same time. The Narath residents whispered. Bowed to us, but not too deeply.

The tower's councilman stepped forward. His robes were embroidered at the shoulders with green and purple chevrons.

“Our daughter Dita Narath dared challenge the city,” the man said, giving me a name to work with. My breathing eased.

“Dita fought well,” I answered. “She has honored your tower by elevating a Singer.”

“She would fight well,” the councilman said. “She was of Narath.”

The crowd murmured again, a soft, pleased sound. They were not shamed here by Dita's challenge. Within the murmur, my ears caught a sob and someone being hushed.

I passed Dita Narath's wings to the man who had greeted us, and Sellis handed them a silk banner to be dyed for Remembrances.

“Would you sing with us?” the tower councilman asked formally.

We would.

Sellis's voice was thinner than usual, but I carried us both. The voices of the tower flowed around the rough edges of my voice, until we all sang together. The sound was beautiful.

“We will return to sing her honors,” I promised. Beside me, Sellis nodded. The tower's gathered crowd stepped back from us. Turned inward to pass the wings to the center, where the sob had come from. We were no longer part of their grief.

Sellis took off first, and I followed. It had felt too easy, that.

When we landed on Ginth, our shoulders ached from the distance. This was how my mother flew. This was how traders moved, from east to west and then up around the gusts of the city.