Fran Wilde - Updraft

I hoped this bridge between Viit and Densira would last that long.

Singers whose focus was on bridge building and working with artifexes had attended and assisted the work on Viit and Densira. Our blessing was a formality. An honor for any young Singer, yes, and not just because of tradition. The first Singers to cross would test the bridge for all and take on the burden of risk. Our sacrifice for the good of the city.

The skies above the bridge were clear. I wondered if Singers waited beyond the towers, watching. I wondered if they would intervene if a bridge ever failed during a crossing. I suspected they would not. Tradition. Sacrifice.

The ties looked secure. The braiding, careful. The secondary cables taut but not straining.

Ceetcee and her superiors watched me carefully. Confident in their work.

Beneath the ties, the bone core felt cool to my touch. So different than the heartbone. I was supposed to look for discoloration or signs of strain. There were none. The release points that would allow the artifexes to widen the wrapping’s girth as the core expanded looked much like my wingstraps, but thicker and heavier. Viit’s and Densira’s artifexes had a lifetime of bridge tending ahead of them.

When I completed my inspection, Ceetcee helped me remove my wings. Her eyes were wide, but her hands held steady as she placed the silk and battens in my arms. We would hold our wings, showing respect for the work of the artifexes.

Across the span, at Densira, I knew Sellis had gone through the same steps. It was ritual.

“Singers risk everything for the city,” I sang, knowing Sellis had done this also. I saw her gray shape appear at the top of her end of the bridge. We mirrored each other, from across the towers, so that our feet would touch the knotwork and sinew of the bridge at the same time. Tradition.

I felt the towers watching as I began my slow walk down the bridge’s curve. The careful pattern of ties and woven fiber kneaded my feet in their soft gray wrappings. I did not use the handrails. My hands were full.

“Be well, Singer,” someone — I thought perhaps Beliak — whispered behind me.

The gap between Viit and Densira was wide. The two towers were hung with washing, with blackberry vines on Densira and small apple trees growing in buckets of guano and silage on Viit. When the bridge was opened, Elna would be able to cross almost unassisted, to see friends and take work in Viit, and even to cross from there to Wirra on a lower bridge if she wished. The bridge meant greater freedom for all of Densira, and new connections for Viit, as well.

The span creaked beneath my feet. The sound of new cables. As time passed, it would become more pliant, until the artifexes tightened it. Neither Sellis nor I sang as we crossed the new span. We were supposed to ponder the span and its broader purpose.

The bridges served a second purpose: the connections they made strengthened the towers. One of the Singers’ bridge building songs carried a dark reminder of what could happen if those towers did begin to grow apart: they could list, develop cracks, and worse. Bridges were occasionally awarded on the basis of those calculations, often conveniently timed for a novitiate’s rise to Singer. It wasn’t necessary for all towers to have bridges. After all, Densira had been growing fine without a bridge for a long time. A generation, I now realized. Naton and Ezarit. Their punishment.

A punishment I’d erased with my sacrifice.

Sellis had stopped to examine a series of knots on one of the vertical cables that kept the bridge from flipping or twisting in the wind. I waited for her, unable to move until she did. She took her time, knowing I could not continue to Densira until she let me.

My mind wandered. If traders were able to see some of the patterns of power and connection as they flew the city, had my mother seen where bridges were constructed and known that Densira’s lack of one was her punishment? Her tower’s reprimand? Would she answer me honestly, if I were ever able to ask her my questions?

At last, Sellis began walking again. We both echoed now, as we descended out of the tower’s hearing, searching for weak points in the pattern the bridge cast on the wind, the shadow it threw below it. I heard only the sounds of the towers, strong and true.

When Sellis and I passed in the middle of the bridge, we turned back to the artifexes waiting on Viit and Densira. We sang, pitching our voices, “ This bridge will keep the city strong. ”

The artifexes cheered. A distant Ceetcee kissed a distant Beliak in celebration.

The corners of my eyes crinkled painfully close to my new tattoos. Their joining made me happy.

Sellis and I walked backwards for the second half of the crossing, eyes on each other, and on the way the bridge moved beneath the other’s feet. Sellis moved achingly slow now. Densira. I was so close. The artifexes of Densira had woven this half of the bridge plinth. I wonder who had apprenticed as artifex there, and who had trained them. Naton had been Densira’s previous artifex.

Half this bridge may have been Viit’s work, but everyone watching our gray forms cross knew the bridge was Densira’s honor. Densira’s luck. A gift from the Spire.

The sinew creaked again and the base swayed beneath my feet. The pliant spans felt so different from the Spire’s hard edges. The careful knotting and studied connections, the expanse of cloud below: the opposite of the Gyre.

Above us, the sky sparkled, blue and simple. The sun hung lower than when we began. Our robes looked lustrous in the light.

Walking was much slower than flying. Especially when one walked with Sellis. She had stopped again, studying a knot intently.

Turning briefly, I saw a child’s face looking over the edge of the highest tier with a scope, watching from Densira. Growing up on a tower without a bridge meant many things. Isolation and privation. Risk, as Densira creaked alone in the stronger winds. The child above me would know less hardship and more connection to his neighbors. I envied him already.

For once, the sky between Viit and Densira was clear of flight classes and the brightly colored wings of the young. In a few days, there would be a market here, and the new honor would brighten the city. Children would fly crimson kites from the tiers and the bridge as Allsuns drew near. Nearly a half year had passed since my wingtest.

I’d had a kite, long ago. A bright bird on a string. Flown with my nearest wingmate, whose wings I now bore to his mother.

On the other side of the bridge, Sellis cleared her throat loudly. I’d paused in my walk, remembering, and she could not move until I continued my backwards approach to Densira. She waited on the bridge, bored with her game now. Eager to reach Viit and finish our tasks. My reflection, robed in gray.

My arms tired from holding my wings before me, and I suddenly longed to reach the other side as well, if only to be able to wear my wings again. Against my chest, the pair of wings that replaced Nat’s wings pressed and rubbed as I walked.

Families gathered quietly around Densira’s bridge tier, waiting to cross the bridge, to shake hands with their friends in Viit. Our passage had made it safe. Only a few more steps.

I could hear already some of the discussions from Densira’s upper tiers. I heard Sidra’s voice, I thought, saying the size of their tier had been reduced by the bridge ties.

Already frustrated by Sellis’s slow passage across the bridge, I was angered by this minor infraction. Complaining while Singers risked their lives.

But no, I heard another voice, this one more like Sidra’s, begging for silence. The first voice had sounded older. The younger voice spoke of honor, saying, “Mother, for once, be reasonable.” Silence fell again.