by Fran Wilde
He opened his eyes for a moment and looked at us, confused and feverish. Closed them again. My heart broke in three pieces. How could I not try to help?
When I lifted Maalik from the warm roost, the bird puffed feathers and cackled softly. I tied a pale silk cord to his leg, taken off one of the meadow messages. Given a task to do, he calmed.
I knelt by Ceetcee once more. “Say the word and we’ll run instead.”
She brushed a dirty braid behind her ear. Smoothed Maalik’s feathers with gentle fingers. Finally, she looked at Beliak, then at me. “No more running. Send the message.”
Beyond the cave ledge where Doran waited, the city’s message chips still dropped in ones and twos, fewer now, but still falling. The half-light of the clouds was calm and storm-free. Overhead, shadows dappled the white sky. I rose and stepped outside.
Doran’s hand clasped my shoulder. “This is a tough thing you do,” he said.
I ground my teeth, but I let him say it.
“In time you’ll understand. This might not be what you want, but it’s what’s safest, and best. Dix will meet us in the meadow and then we’ll go back up to the city.”
Did he really think that? “How long do you think it will take to remove Dix’s influence from the city?”
He smoothed his hair. “That’s a tough question to answer until I get a good read on city politics. But this is a good first step.” He tied the message skein to the silk around Maalik’s ankle while I stared at him.
He’d made his plan up on the fly. “You convinced everyone you could.”
“I know we can get her attention. What we do next is up to us,” Doran countered. “I’m not perfect—she fooled me for a long time, but I’ve learned a lot from watching her these past weeks. I’ve drawn the same conclusions from her behavior at Laria that you have. And I’ve noticed the citizens’ reaction to her. If she’s too intractable, we have one thing that will help.”
Moc peeked around the corner of the cave. “We have Rumul.” He’d been eavesdropping. “Or at least Rumul’s cloak.” The boy held up the span of silk. He’d been going through my satchel again.
“Moc! Put that back.” I watched him do it. I’d sleep with the bag beneath my head tonight.
Though my skin crawled at the memory of Dix interpreting Rumul’s whispers, I realized that in this, Doran could be right. The cloak was spattered with blood. “She’ll want the last relic.” It could work. But never again would I trust that Doran had everything planned well in advance.
Doran tried to brush Maalik’s head with a finger, but the whipperling snapped at the air. He sighed. “Send him to Mondarath. Macal will deliver the message for us. Let’s hope he flies true.”
Maalik always flew true in the city, straight like an arrow.
When he flew today, the undercloud winds buffeted him until he disappeared into the white expanse.
* * *
While we ate the last of the gryphon down to the marrow, careful not to break the wings—an old city superstition, the message chips and Lawsmarkers finally stopped falling into the meadow.
“Hiroli’s kavik arrived,” Doran said. “They’ll be preparing.” He sounded so sure. Now I knew better. It wasn’t a bad theory, but it was a guess.
Still, the others followed his lead.
Kirit swept the gryphon carcass outside. The bird’s wings were all that distinguished it from the rest of the bone pile by the entrance. We no longer cared that fresh bones might attract animals. Our time here was short, one way or another.
“How will we know when Maalik delivers our message?” I asked.
“I suspect we’ll know very quickly,” Doran said. “I said we needed an answer or we’d assume she was attacking and take the necessary steps.”
Kirit sharpened her blades loudly.
“I suggest we sleep in shifts while we wait for a response,” Doran said. “Aliati and I will map which angles Dix might approach from, given the wind. Where best we can meet her in the meadow.”
“What about the depth?” I remembered how sick we’d gotten. “Dix and her guards will be disoriented from the descent. That could work to our advantage.” That had promising ramifications. Even so, I still didn’t like this plan.
“Dix needs to show the city she’s strong. She needs a decisive success,” Aliati said. “If Maalik doesn’t deliver our message, she’ll attack.”
Kirit and Wik walked outside to plan the tower and bridge defense. I flew Djonn and Ceetcee to survey the meadow and look for ways we could take advantage.
The two short towers and one full-grown one were good defense points, as Wik had already figured out, but the meadow that connected them? Ceetcee shouted and pointed at the bone growth supporting the meadow. It looked like a bone-sturdied plinth, woven with broad straps. Below it, moss hung down and blew in turbulent winds. When we flew close to the three tower trunks below the meadow, we saw bone-overgrown outlines of many bridge wrappings.
I imagined artifexes training the towers to grow ridge walls and tunnels crisscrossing the air between towers to weave a plinth between them. The towers’ closeness in the clouds made it easier. Over time, bone and moss had covered the plinth, or had been trained to grow there. As I stared at the meadow, I could almost see our ancestors walking across it for the first time.
If my vision was close to truth, it was an incredible feat.
To work on the meadow, Ceetcee tucked her feet into the ancient webbing of the underbridge and tethered herself to the platform. She cut out a hand-sized piece of the woven platform away and wove bone battens into the structure as a replacement, in a complex pattern. She did this repeatedly, the patch growing bigger, until it was wing-sized. The meadow did not give one creak of complaint. Djonn hung from the sling-chair and made adjustments to Ceetcee’s meadow supports.
It was a long drop from there to the next tower, the shadows of the abyss below shifted hungrily. Aliati arrived and we hovered around the undergrowth like fledge parents on first-flight day, ready to catch the bridge builder and the artifex. When they asked, I brought them more old bone wingsets from the Spire’s tunnel. The process took most of a day.
“What are you making?” Aliati finally said.
“A last-gasp option,” Ceetcee answered, though the wind played at her words. “In case we need it.”
The wingset spans and battens supported a section of the meadow where the woven platform had been cut away. Djonn rigged a bone hook to a particular point in the middle of the pattern’s intersections and pushed that through the undergrowth. Above, the bone hook was barely noticeable, sticking through the foliage. We climbed exhausted to the meadow and slept there, too tired to go all the way back to the cave.
When the clouds grew light again, I woke to see Kirit and Wik walking the other edge of the meadow. They leaned on each other, arms wrapped around waists, gray robes swishing over the lichen, like two towers growing side by side. They made a half circuit of the meadow, pointing at the bridge, the towers. After a moment, they climbed back into the cave.
After a decent pause, we followed them. Aliati went to the littlemouths’ cave, sitting against a wall. The littlemouths glowed softly in her presence, but didn’t signal.
Djonn joined her, leaning against the same wall. I lingered too. “What would you be doing,” he asked. “In the city today?”
“Exploring,” Aliati said. “Finding things people didn’t know they’d lost.” She took a breath. “But I don’t want to lose this place, Djonn. Dix will destroy it.”
“She’ll have to come through me, and Wik, and Kirit,” I said, startling her. There was something I wanted to ask. “You said before that scavengers wouldn’t be caught here. That scavengers didn’t stay.”
She shrugged. “It’s true.”
“Why are you still here? Why do you want to defend it? You could go back above the clouds at any time. You don’t need me to pay you. You’d be rich with all you’ve found here.”
The skin around her e
yes crinkled. “I guess I became a terrible scavenger,” she said. “Once I found something I wanted to keep.”
* * *
When we returned to the main cave, Aliati stirred a yellow mixture she’d been heating over the fire since after our meal. “I think it’s ready,” she said. “The poultice for Beliak.”
After Maalik flew, Beliak had worsened. He thrashed, half awake, his eyes bloodshot, his skin dry as bone.
Aliati looked at me. “After this there’s not much more I can do. If we don’t help him, he might not survive the journey back up to the city.”
Memories flooded in. Beliak playing the dolin while Tobiat and Ceetcee sang. His eyes when he laughed. The strong sinew of his arms, from twisting the rope that held the city together.
“He can’t die,” I whispered.
Ceetcee sat with her head bowed as Aliati placed the yellow lichen on Beliak’s wounds and bound them up with strips of silk from her own robe. Beliak groaned again when the heat hit his skin. I lay down on one side of him, and Ceetcee took the other.
Sometime during the darkest part of our watch, I fell asleep on Beliak’s shoulder. When I woke, he smiled at me; his eyes were clearer. He was groggy, but his fever had lessened. His wounds were less swollen.
Aliati clapped her hands, delighted and relieved.
Wik sat down beside us, heavily. “Hiroli’s asleep.”
Kirit followed. “Beliak looks better! I could have used you when I was ill,” she said. Aliati glowed.
“I’ll never forgive Hiroli,” Ceetcee muttered. “We should give Dix her body.” I’d never heard Ceetcee say anything like that. Kirit looked impressed.
“She says she only wanted to do what was right. That she was afraid. That she missed the city.” Ceetcee snorted. “I don’t buy it.”
Tendrils of color threaded the clouds. I wasn’t sure whether it was morning or night any longer. The light was odd down here: never completely dark except at night. Today, green shades played the mist, lightening and fading. Between evening and morning there were little more than different tints.
“I kind of understand how she feels. All I ever wanted was to do what was right.”
“You’re not like her,” Kirit said. “You’re family. You made mistakes, and you fixed them.”
“I don’t know that I’d call this fixed.” A cold cave, clouds. Friends, alive.
Kirit snorted. She nudged me in the side with her elbow, sharp as a wing. “I have your back this time. I’ll stick to the plan.”
“It’s not my plan,” I said.
Wik began to hum, and three littlemouths on the tower walls nearby glowed softly. In response, Wik’s tattoos glowed a soft silver against his olive skin and Kirit’s scars shone dully against her cheeks and beneath her hair. The clouds encased us like a wall of bone touched with light.
But the light was strange. I wanted my nights back, my days restored.
Clouds. I missed the stars so much it hurt.
31
BALANCE
Before the sky grew dark again, Maalik returned, with Hiroli’s kavik on his heels. Both had the same carvings on their message chips, the fronts marked with Dix’s sigil and the sign for Sinter. The law admonishing two towers to meet before they severed a bridge between them was clear. I’d helped write it, hoping to hold the city together. Now Dix was using it, even after she’d dragged the towers further apart.
On the back of each chip, another message: She’d hear us out, personally. She would see the wonders Hiroli had written about. And she would collect Rumul’s robe and the stolen plates, or Elna would pay the price.
Wik woke the fledges. “I want you to guard this tower with Ceetcee. Don’t come out until you hear one of us whistle Ciel’s windsign.”
Ciel made a face. She reached up and grabbed Wik’s little finger. “You don’t mean guard, Uncle. You mean hide.” She twisted his finger until he whimpered. “I know I’m young. But I can shoot. I flew the Gyre, a little. I’m allowed to try to make things better. Or make sure Dix stays below the clouds.” Her fierce words brought a sad smile to Wik’s face. “Since Moc has no wings, he’ll guard the second tower.”
“Ciel!” Moc protested. But he conceded.
“You should be soaring through the city. Learning. Not hiding in the clouds. But you’ll get hurt in a fight.”
“I am learning,” Ciel said. She tightened the sling on a spear launcher Djonn had made her, based on one of the brass plates’ images. Tested it so that the sling twanged the air.
Wik chuckled. “That makes me more afraid.”
I pulled him away from the twins. “I’ll wait on the bridge with Kirit.”
“I’ll cover you both from the third tower,” Wik said. He stuffed bone spears in his satchel until they rattled like a bone eater. “There’s a watergate about six tiers up. It’s got good vantage points, no matter what tower it is, or once was. If there are tunnels inside leading down to the meadow gate, I’ll try to sneak closer to where Dix will land.” Wik checked his wings.
Kirit put her knives in their sheaths and slipped a bow over her shoulder.
By the fire, Djonn worked on a last-minute adjustment. “We weakened the meadow in the middle, a bit left of center. Used the wingset battens to make it look stronger than it is. If you need to break the platform beneath it, pull out the bone hook. Put weight on it and it collapses.”
“That sounds like a good way to break off negotiations,” Wik said. “Or cause an accident.”
Djonn didn’t seem bothered by the critique. He went back to his drawings. “Consider it a secondary option.”
“If you see too many blackwings, guard here first. If they attack, we’ll drop the meadow.”
“Not until you’re off of it,” Wik said. “I’ll have clear sight of the bridge from the tower.” After a long pause, he said, “With Moc and Ciel.”
At next light, we all sat with Beliak. His color had improved, his temperature too, but he was weak. I touched my forehead to his and looked in his eyes. “I’ll return,” I said. I stood and wrapped Ceetcee in my arms. She would guard him here. I reached into my satchel and pulled out the pieces of my father’s message chips. “Hold these for me?” I swallowed hard.
A heartbeat, two. She bit her lip, but took the markers. “I won’t cry.” Her fist closed on the broken bone. “Bring news that Elna is safe, and that we’re going home.”
“I promise,” I said. My throat closed up. That, or I won’t return.
* * *
Long before there was any sign of the blackwings, the Singers took their positions in the towers and on the bridge. Doran and I rode the gusts above the meadow, searching the clouds for Dix.
Aliati and Djonn waited below.
Doran coughed. “I’ve been hard on you, but I admire your sense of honor, you know. It’s why I selected you as apprentice.”
“How is that?” Mist swirled at our wingtips. I was confused.
“You have principles. They get you in trouble, but people know where you stand.”
The wind whistled around the towers and picked up speed over the meadow. Finally, I said, “I tried not to have them. Tried to gain advantage when I saw weakness.” I weighed each word, wanting to tell him how his duplicity had harmed me. Harmed the city.
He surprised me by laughing loudly. “Nat, we all have principles. Some of us hide them better than others.”
“Another lesson?” It felt like a lifetime since I’d been his apprentice.
“Ambition and leadership fly together. Sometimes you have to trade on your principles to lay groundwork for the future, for the greater good of the city. Often, you have to seem more confident than you are, to hide your doubts.”
I kept silent. The groundwork he’d laid left the city vulnerable and wounded. But compromises weakened it as well. And all the losses from fighting. From not fighting. Allmoons had passed while Laria burned. Had Elna lit a banner in my name?
Around us, towers rose high in the air. A littlemou
th pulsed and disappeared on a wall: Ciel, marking her position. Another, on the third tower. Wik. Then two, brighter, for Kirit on the bridge. We were surrounded and guarded by friends.
Aliati whistled “defend,” and I followed the line of her arm to see a dark mark in the clouds, spiraling down. Behind the first flier, four more dots appeared in the clouds.
Five fliers. They held the heights, all the weapons. They didn’t need an enormous force to threaten us.
Meantime, we ten Lawsbreakers had only one advantage: ourselves.
* * *
All too soon, the dark smudges on the cloudscape resolved into Dix, diving hard in the swirling wind, followed by her blackwings, who bore a heavy net.
Descending to the bone bridge to take my place with Kirit, I took a breath and let it out slowly. My heart pounded; my stomach clenched.
Dix’s wings tilted, and her fingers tightened on cams and pulleys, preparing for landing. The heavy net that her guards carried now looked too big to be medicine or food.
As the group slowed over the center of the meadow, Dix circled. The blackwings dropped the net with a thump and took to the air again.
The net wriggled.
“Clouds.” Doran started running towards the net. “Don’t move!” A stray move might kick the bone-hook trigger Ceetcee had planted in the foliage. Might drop the entire field.
“Where is Hiroli?” Dix shouted, still in the air. “I want to see her.”
Moc led Hiroli from the cave on a tether and tied her to the bonefall. He scrambled back up to the cave lip. In the meadow, Doran opened the net and was untangling the figure within. He gently pulled the net from around the wingless woman. She stood with a hand raised, touching the air. White hair. Her cheek was bruised. Her eyes the color of clouds.
Proof of life. Dix had brought Elna here.
Elna’s confused laughter echoed all the way to the bridge.
Overhead, Kirit shot from her hiding place on the towers, heading like an arrow towards the meadow. I leapt from the bridge as all Doran’s plans fell away from me in shards. The reinforced meadow platform creaked in the wind.
