Fran Wilde - Updraft

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 nodded, 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.”