Fran Wilde - Updraft

“You made this?”

She smiled, proud. I hesitated. I’d need something to keep the cap on.

I unfolded the cap from what it concealed. A glint of aged gray-yellow metal, a shimmer of well-polished glass. My mother’s lenses. She’d paid a courier to bring them, but could not come herself.

No matter. Part of her would fly with me today. The lenses had survived for who knew how long, handed up, the straps replaced, dents carefully pounded from the frames. She considered them her good-luck charm.

Hope twisted the corners of my frown. I put cap and lenses on. Tightened the straps myself, until the padded rims pressed against my eye sockets. The lenses guarded my tired eyes from everything I saw: they framed and contained the sky.

A second warning sounded from the four towers.

The Magisters and their council assistants would have secured the testing plinth between the towers and raised the second wingtest flag by now: a blue banner edged in gray. We had to hurry.

Nat and I unfurled our wings and moved to the edge of the balcony. Elna whispered, “Go higher,” behind us.

A strong gust swept round the tower. Densira’s Allmoons banners kicked red arabesques on balconies above us. They streamed up and towards the plinth. A rising gust. A good sign indeed. We leapt together and caught the wind.

As we rose on the gust, two sets of brown wings emerged from Wirra and another three, gray, green, and brown, from Viit. We were halfway to the plinth when the air grew sloppy. An eddy spilling from the lee of Mondarath soiled the gust. I dipped, then Nat wobbled. We had to shift to another updraft, quickly. My mother’s lenses slipped down my nose as I turned my head left and right.

Then I spotted a strong breeze marked by a line of coasting whipperlings. Whistling to Nat, I rolled for the new vent. He followed.

By the time we climbed above the towers, on approach to the plinth, we were drenched in sweat.

“We could have called for a ladder,” Nat yelled, his wing’s left pinion close to mine.

I shook my head. No ladder. Not for me. No matter how tired I was. I cupped my wings to slow my approach to the testing plinth. Checked to make sure the path was clear. The tests might not have started, but the Magisters and councilors already watched, and judged.

The bone horns sounded. Three warnings.

My arms ached, and the back of my neck. I hoped we would have time to rest between challenges.

My feet touched the woven plinth. The warp and weft of it gave slightly when I landed as close to Densira’s Magister, Florian, as possible. He dipped his head to me, his face carefully blank.

Nat circled once more and, instead of sinking, executed a flip that cut his wind and dropped him square between the two Singers at the center of the plinth. They pretended not to notice. Nat grinned ear-to-ear.

I adjusted my lenses so they wouldn’t slip again. Not during the tests.

The Singers faced away from me. I couldn’t tell if the taller one was Wik, the Singer who had rescued and then threatened me. Their bodies were gray turrets in the colorful swirl of wings and nervousness. I would learn soon enough whether he’d come today.

Around us, students rested and stretched. They recited tower names to themselves. More than a few looked worried.

The four Magisters stood at the plinth’s four corners, symbolizing the four quadrants of the city. Florian for Densira. Viit’s able instructor, Magister Calli. A young Magister from Mondarath, so recently arrived no one knew his name. And Dix as Magister for Wirra. She grinned at me, showing as many teeth as she could manage.

A net stretched below the plinth, strung between the four towers and tied by sinew. A brown-robed member of the traders’ guild landed beside the Singers at the center of the plinth. The Singers dipped their heads, but did not bow. Finally, a crafter landed, her embroidered wings glittering in the morning light. The city and its towers were now represented. The plinth creaked and swung in the wind. The bone horns sounded a fourth time.

Two more students skidded to landings and found their towers, mumbling apologies. The Singers split from the central group. They carried four silk bags to the Magisters at the corners: one Singer walked south and west; the other, north and east. As the Singer carrying Densira’s and Mondarath’s bags approached, my breath caught again. Wik.

His profile in the sunlight threw me off guard; I was mesmerized by the silver tattoos. They made him look sharper, more imposing. They accented his cheekbones and his chin.

He smiled at Florian and the group. “I wish you all luck in your knowledge and in the sky.” He did not look at me, but the corner of his lip twitched.

My throat tightened. What could the Singer do to me, here under open sky?

He could do anything he thought would help the city, I realized. Anything at all. My exhaustion heightened my panic. At a loss, I hummed Elna’s song from two nights ago to myself. It worked surprisingly well. I calmed enough to thank the Singer with a clear voice. He paused to look at me, sending a shiver down my spine. Then he continued his slow circuit of the plinth.

“Don’t worry about the test, or Dix,” Nat whispered. “The guild is watching. The Singers are watching. The Magisters look out for their towers. You’ll be fine.”

I bristled because Nat didn’t understand, before I remembered that he couldn’t understand. I hadn’t told him anything.

Florian pulled a bone marker from the bag, but did not look at it.

The observing guilds and Magisters ensured the Singer could not fail me overtly. But the Spire had ways of meddling with outcomes. Ezarit had always been especially careful in her dealings with them. I fretted the possibilities, then realized that was exactly what they wanted me to do.

The temporary plinth and the net beneath swayed in the wind. Bone cleats that had been carved into the tower tops of Mondarath and Viit anchored the thick ropes that held the plinth firmly in the sky. Secondary ties looped through moorings cut in Densira’s balconies and Wirra’s. The lines were temporary, made of fiber and the strongest silks, not spliced with sinew. They would hold for our needs and be used again for the wingfights. The plinth was not permanent, not like a bridge. Only Singers could provide the skymouth sinew necessary for a bridge. With it, they bound the city together.

The towers below us twisted slightly at each tier, each level a little wider than the one above it, lower levels darkening with age and garbage.

I looked around, praying the skies would keep clear. Several other students did the same. I saw my cousin, the talkative Dikarit, who’d failed Laws and Solo last year. He gestured to me to stand with him, but I waved back, choosing to stay by Nat.

Seven students had arrived so far from Densira. Six from Viit. Only two from Mondarath, and both looked nervous. Nine from Wirra.

At a melodic laugh high above us, everyone looked up. Sidra descended, glorious in her wings, visible from any of the towers. Dojha, following her, looked less sure of her own new wings. The fifth warning sounded just as Dojha’s feet touched the plinth. She shook her head at Sidra’s back, but didn’t say anything.

Florian cleared his throat and addressed his Densira class for the last time. “Welcome, flight,” he said formally. He smiled at Dikarit, but not at me. The cold dawn air ruffled the thinning hair on top of his head. “You are well prepared. Make Densira proud.”

Three other flight groups gathered on the platform, tight knots around their Magisters. I imagined those teachers giving similar encouragement to their students.

The Singers hummed a low, slow song: a variant on The Rise. Then the older Singer reminded us of the rules: no talking beyond what the test required, no leaving the plinth, no quarreling with the results. When they finished, the Magisters bowed to us and stepped away, looking for the first time at the chips they’d drawn.