by Fran Wilde
The windbeaters accelerated their beats. Somewhere below, my father was among them. Civik, who betrayed Naton. The gusts grew more fierce than I’d ever experienced in the Gyre. The wind yanked at my hair, tearing it free. Nat’s black curls formed a tangled nimbus around his head.
They’d promised him answers if he won. What could I promise? A quick death, without falling forever. Or I could lose. I could banish myself to the Spire’s depths by conceding. They would keep me alive, but I’d never see sky again.
If Nat won, they had to answer his questions, but he did not know the right questions to ask. I did. If he conceded, perhaps then I could ask more questions. Change things.
We flew opposing courses now, sweeping past each other in tighter spirals. He looked for advantage. I sought a way out.
My first friend. My best friend. Why are you doing this? My initial relief at seeing him alive had become anger.
“You don’t know the truth, Nat! You have to give this up.”
“No.” The word was a sob. “You can’t win. Singers can’t win.”
I am not a Singer, yet. But I cannot lose.
He whirled around, furious again. “I thought you were dead! But you’re not! You’re strong—we nearly starved these months, with the Laws they gave me. Where are yours?” He was crazed, yelling. I saw the chips hanging heavy on his wrists. His arms were pale past the wingstraps. His hands gripped the bow hard. He was tiring, too weak. But desperate. I didn’t have much time.
What could I do to shock him, make him concede? I could tell him the truth. I could sing it.
I cast my voice to carry on the drafts. I sang The Rise to Nat. The real Rise.
The city rises on Singers’ wings, remembering all, bearing all,
Rises to sun and wind on graywing, protecting, remembering.
Never looking down. Tower war is no more.
For a moment, the galleries fell silent. Then a shout of outrage broke through the windbeaters’ drums, the swirl of wind. Rumul’s voice. “Stop this!”
I continued to sing. Hoped Nat could hear me. Would listen.
A voice on a nearby tier joined me. Then another.
Always rising, never failing. The city forever.
Rising together. Rising as one.
Nat’s eyes grew wide as the words filled the Gyre and he heard the difference from what he’d always known as unassailable fact. This is why there are Singers, Nat. To protect tower from tower.
I didn’t stop singing until he shot at me again, wildly, his last arrow nicking my wing.
“Stop this! Kill me already,” he screamed. He threw the bow. It spun in the air, hit the wall, and plummeted into the Gyre. I heard a cheer from the galleries.
Nat’s straps bit white against his shoulders where his robes had slipped. His face flushed deep red. Buoyed by the song, I circled in long arcs, looking for a way to knock him into the nets above the pens, to cut his wings open. To win without killing him. In the galleries, Singers leaned forward to see better. The fight had gone too slow for the windbeaters.
I smelled the rot gas before I saw the balls of flame. Heard them rise last of all. With a whoosh, one hand-sized ball flew up the tower, then another.
“Monsters,” Nat shouted, as a gout flew close to his face and rose out the top of the Spire. I smelled singed hair.
I could push him right into a rot gas ball and his wings would burn, but Nat would fall, alive.
I tried not to think about how Rumul would judge me for sparing Nat. I doubted it would be well.
I twisted in the jumbled wind. “I’m not trying to kill you, Nat!”
“You’ll let me go, then send a skymouth to kill me,” he yelled. “Tobiat warned me about Singers!”
“No! Tobiat is damaged! He’s…” I spun lower, losing altitude, trying to think. Nat followed me down, battling the gust patterns, and something suddenly made sense. “Tobiat was a windbeater.”
“What does that mean?”
“He knew Naton. He watched Naton work in the Spire! He’s the traitor.”
“Shut up, Kirit!” Nat dove for me, hands outstretched, trying to grapple my wings and drag us both down. We plummeted past gallery walls carved with Singers falling, wound round with flames.
We were well down in the Gyre now, too close to the novices and windbeaters throwing flaming rot gas. I heard Moc shout for me.
I fought my way to an updraft, hoping Nat would follow me, that he was strong enough to follow me.
He did. Barely. His pale wings filled with wind.
“I will tell you what I know,” I said. “But you must give up then, you must concede. Promise?”
He whistled. Our long-ago flight signal. Agreement.
I was about to break the Spire’s rules, but perhaps it would work. Nat would be left alive. I pointed down. Spoke fast. “Your father built pens for the Spire, Nat. That’s what the chips mapped. He built pens that would hold—”
I never got to finish my sentence. Two windbeaters began a new pattern. The Gyre’s winds spun me round and knocked me into Nat. My knife dragged across his wing.
Over the roar of the wind, the galleries screamed. And then the wind pulled us apart. I heard a gate open and braced myself for more wind. The windbeaters angled their wings anew, and I was borne up on a massive gust.
A separate gust sucked Nat towards the open gate.
I reached for him, tried to hook his wings, but my fingers could not span the widening gap.
He spun limp, his wings folding as he lost control and was flung into the wide-open sky.
But my wings filled. I was lifted by an opposing current. I’d won. Or the windbeaters had.
The challenger was defeated.
The galleries began to sing. Tradition. A second time through The Rise, this time to welcome a new Singer. Their song, which until that moment had been my song too, lifted higher, and the wind swept me up. I was truly theirs now.
I was a killer. I knew no greater pain.
* * *
“Come up, Kirit Spire!” Rumul shouted from the balcony.
Wik had to reach out with a hook and pull me onto the council tier. He let me lean against him while the council argued in a corner. Had I succeeded? The battle had been won, but by whom? And the secrets I had shared. The traditions I had shattered.
To my wind-deafened ears, their debate was just more noise. Then they parted, walked towards me, the full council following Rumul’s lead.
“Welcome, Singer,” he said.
The caustic sting barely registered as Rumul marked my right cheek with a new symbol for winning the challenge: a knife. Honoring my murderous deed. I let it burn, unflinching. I heard Nat’s scream again, an echo inside my head as he disappeared.
Now I was a Singer, marked with the death of my challenger.
Now I was Spire, locked within its walls no matter where I flew.
PART THREE
WHAT IS LOST
20
FALL
I released my wing grips and let my arms hang at my sides. My feet touched the bone floor of the balcony, and I wavered at the edge until Wik pulled me by the robe, farther into the tier.
A visibly pregnant Singer brought me water in a brass cup. Cold in my hand and against my lips. I could not swallow it without great effort. The Singer took the cup back and put a bowl in my hands.
“Eat,” she said, her brown eyes trying to look deep into mine. “The Gyre’s exhausting. You’ll feel better soon.”
I stared at the bowl. Stone fruit in honey. The sweet smell made my stomach growl, but my fingers gripped the bowl’s rim and did not reach for the fruit.
A gray-haired Singer patted my shoulder and handed me a clean gray robe. Another brought a sack of herbs and salve for my scratches and cuts.
Wik removed my novice wings, negotiating the straps and harness over my deadweight arms. I stared at his cheeks, his markings. He’d flown the Gyre. Faced a challenger. Many challengers. How did he go on after?
I didn’t ask, and he didn’t meet my eyes.
Behind the Singers tending and congratulating me, a low bone table held more of the stone fruit and two additional brass cups. Yes, I remembered. Three of us would fly today.
Even now, Sellis looked over the council balcony, waiting to fly. Vess, a novitiate an Allmoons older than Sellis, paced in the passageway between the tier’s galleries and large alcoves. We were on the newest council tier. The highest. The outcroppings of bone here were lightly carved, with areas marked for new carving by novitiates.
The noise from the galleries shifted from a discussion’s rumble to anticipatory hush. Sellis waited to be called forward, standing on intertwined symbols carved in the floor: sacrifice and duty.
Rumul stood beside her, right hand light on her shoulder. He looked my way and gestured to a fourth Singer elder, then turned his attention back to his acolyte.
After Allmoons, Rumul had given me a chance to change my life. He’d told me the past Ezarit had kept hidden. He’d put a burden on me: become a Singer or face the consequences of attacking the Spire.
The Singer sent over by Rumul lifted my wrist, examining my Lawsbreaks. Trespass, Bethalial, Treason. Heavy markers, bound with silk cord. Then she took her bone knife and cut through the skein. The markers fell into her palm.
With my challenge won, I’d proven myself. My burden—my Lawsbreaks—gone.
I’d accepted that bargain. I’d flown the Gyre. My friend had fallen at my hand.
Who was I now? Kirit Densira would have demanded to know how Nat’s loss served the city. Kirit Spire could not find the words to ask. Sacrifice. Duty. Tradition. I clenched my teeth. If I’d let sound escape my mouth, it would have been a scream. At the Singers. At myself.
Wik took the still-full bowl from my hands and cleared his throat. “It is not always this hard, Kirit. But if it were easy, Singers would be no better than monsters. Or the worst of the city’s Lawsbreakers.”
I looked him full in the eyes and opened my mouth, but no sound would come out. I choked on Nat’s name.
The gallery cheered as Sellis leapt from the council balcony to defend the city and defeat her challenger.
I looked over the balcony’s edge and watched her dive like a silent predator towards her quarry. The challenger circled the far wall of the Gyre.
Sellis drew her first knife. I could watch no more. I turned away.
A novice appeared on the ladder to the tier, carrying a long parcel. The gray silk wrapping glowed in the late sunlight. The knots of the package fell away at a touch to reveal a pair of Singer wings. Mine. No more borrowed novice wings. I did not reach for them. The novice looked at me, curious.
“Kirit?” Lurai’s voice. I hadn’t recognized him. He was once tower too, though he could not remember. I took the wings and vowed to remember Densira. My family.
“You did it,” Moc whispered, appearing by my side. He smelled of flame and rot gas.
Moc. Briber of windbeaters. Stirrer of disagreements that endangered all he loved.
Impervious to my despair, he laughed. “I knew you could.”
Of course I could. I’d hunted down my life as Kirit Densira, killed it right off, and had become this person. For what? For a pair of new wings and a gray robe.
I shook my head. No. For the good of the city too.
The tiers roared with satisfaction.
Lurai looked over the edge. “She did that perfectly. Fast. Without breaking silence.” A quick glance at me. “Sorry. You also did well.”
“Come up, Sellis Spire.” Rumul’s voice boomed in the Gyre’s slowing winds.
Sellis’s fight had finished quickly. Flawlessly.
She rose now on a draft, her hair wild across her forehead. Her eyes glittered from the fight. Her left hand still gripped a bone knife wet with blood.
She soared above the balcony and then landed by curling her wings just so. With a shrug, she furled the novice wings and stepped out of them. She took the robe from Rumul’s hands and smiled at him as she put it on over her fighting shift.
She turned her head to me, then looked down over the drop. “We did it.”
I licked my dry lips. Rasped, “Who did you kill?”
She paused. “I don’t know.” Turned to the table of food and drink before I could ask if she knew what the challenge had been.
I didn’t know what Nat’s challenge had been. I would never know.
Lurai held out another pair of Singer wings to Sellis, drawing her back towards us. She smiled brighter still and took them, brushing her fingers across the silk. She touched my wings next.
“We are like sisters now,” she said.
I could not find the words to respond. She waited a beat, then looked away, towards Rumul.
He waved her to approach the council members. When she reached them, he marked her hand as he had marked mine.
Novices brought more bowls to the table, this time containing apples and stone fruit.
“Pull yourself together,” Wik whispered, giving my arm a shake. “Come on.”
I hung back long enough that Sellis left the celebratory group.
“You aren’t having second thoughts now?” she asked. “You took your time, and you broke silence abominably, but you wiped your challenger out well at the end. Made me proud.”
I shook my head. Pull yourself together. Hid my bitterness behind a smile. If Rumul learned that I regretted my choice, I would be at risk again. Sacrifice. Duty. No second thoughts. My mind worked through the challenge again, slowly. The argument with Nat. It must have looked so different from above. Nat had been a strong fighter, and he got behind me. No one had yet mentioned what I said to him when we were far down the tiers, just before … I hoped the winds were such that they hadn’t heard my betrayal.
“You will feel better after tonight,” Sellis said, drawing me towards the assembled group. “When the city’s mysteries are opened to us.”
More mysteries. I smiled at her. She smiled back. Genuinely happy.
“You are no longer tower, Kirit,” Sellis said, embracing me. “You will find support in Singer traditions now.”
I hugged her back, but I was not comforted. I felt a long hollow drop where my heart should have been. I felt the voices of my mother and Elna crying out. Numb, I stepped forward to join the group on the balcony, looking over the edge.
The third challenge came to a draw. The council grumbled. The pregnant Singer said, “Both fighters fallen, both sets of wings broken. That is bad luck.”
Wik asked, “The novice, Vess, what to do with him?”
The group spoke in low tones. My Singer-sharpened ears picked up their words.
“Let him beat the winds,” said one gray-haired Singer.
“Return his wings to his tower,” said a council member.
A murmur of agreement. Wik cleared his throat. “Who will take the challengers’ wings to their towers?”
Rumul looked at the assembled Singers, young and old, arrayed around the balcony. His eyes lit on a man, already standing to accept the task. The third Singer from my quadrant’s wingtest.
I spoke first. “I will take the wings back to Densira.”
The gray-cloaked Singers around Rumul murmured and raised eyebrows. Sellis whispered, “That is not done.”
“I will do it,” I said firmly. To make amends. To try to explain.
“You can barely sing in tune,” Sellis whispered. “A few more months of practice.” Her smile had faded.
But Rumul looked long at me until I met his eyes. I did not blink.
“The families can never know whom their challengers faced,” he said, his voice hinting at permission.
“I can stay silent,” I said. I agreed to not say anything beyond the ritual phrases.
I could not believe they might let me go.
“You must take Sellis with you,” Rumul added. “You will return all of the wings and bless the new bridge as well. Two days after initiation.”
I nod
ded, happy to have his blessing before anyone could argue. Turning, I caught Wik looking at me, amused. Sellis’s face contorted in frustration.
“Do you know what you ask?” she said. “You are breaking tradition still, Kirit.” She paused, thinking of the task I had set for us. “We will have to sing for them. We might do it wrong. You will do it wrong. And the bridge? We are new Singers. How could you drag me into tower duties when we should be celebrating?”
I thought on it. When I spoke, my voice was loud enough for the room to hear. “Who better to sing for them?” Several Singers turned to watch me. “We know the words. We know the blessings. We know their last moments. We should sing.”
Rumul raised his brass cup. “Exactly. A fine Singer you make, Kirit.”
Now that the opportunity had presented itself, I resolved to connect with the towers as much as I could. Kirit Spire would do her duty for the city. The other Kirit would remember the towers and would speak for them when she was able.
Sellis continued to look at me warily. “You upset things, Kirit.” Then she swept away, as angry as she’d been when I first arrived. So much for sisterhood.
* * *
Within moments of Rumul’s decision, the slow drumbeat from below ceased. The windbeaters shut the vents, and the Gyre wind reversed. Slower this time.
When the winds had settled, singing from the lowest tiers reached my sensitive ears. I heard students’ young voices and the voices of the oldest Singers and teachers, all wafting up the everyday winds of the Spire.
Viridi approached our group, Sellis trailing behind. She spotted Moc jumping my shadow in the evening light of the Spire and shooed him away.
“You will come with me to meet the city, Sellis and Kirit Spire.” She took our hands in each of hers and drew us into one of the tier’s smaller alcoves, still in sight of the council balcony. “I keep the Spire’s records and maintain its history.”
Behind us, Rumul and several council Singers drew close in conversation. The rest of the tier cleared out as Singers returned to their duties.
I found I could make out Rumul’s low rumble if I concentrated. Viridi set candles and old carvings in a pattern on the floor. Sellis watched her, rapt. My eyes wandered on the carvings, all old city maps and numbers, while my ears traced the pattern of debate behind me. I heard bone chips click as they were passed among the council members.
