Fran Wilde - Updraft

I didn’t care. I let Sellis yank me away from the embrace, but I took my mother’s hand. Then Elna’s.

I stood between them, taller and robed in gray. I felt their blood pulse behind the soft envelopes of skin that separated us. My mother’s words echoed in my ears. I thought I was protecting you.

Sellis cleared her throat and glared. I thought of my vows, of the city. I released the two women I loved best in this world. I untied my terrible parcel and prepared for them to turn away from me as well. They would see the truth in my eyes.

With shaking hands, I held out the wings.

Sellis stepped beside me and spoke, because I could not. “Your son has done a service for the Singers,” she said. “His sacrifice elevated a new Singer to protect the city.” It was the third time we’d spoken the ritual of the honored fallen today. Now it sounded so hollow, so empty.

I watched Elna’s face collapse.

My resolve broke, and I began to shake. To reach out to her. Sellis gripped my arm and pushed it forward, but my mother was the one who took the wings from me. She passed them to Elna as Sellis and I waited for them to bow to us, to release us, as the other families had done.

“Did he suffer?” Elna asked.

I shook my head but did not look at her. Sellis squeezed my arm hard, reminding me of how much tradition I broke here.

I could not breathe. By my hand. He didn’t burn to death. He wasn’t eaten by a skymouth. He fell whole and true, a failed challenger, a hero of the city. The song wound its way through my mind. I had asked for this. I’d made it happen.

I looked Elna in the eyes. The light that filtered down to her tier through the tower’s shadows made her cloud-covered irises shine strangely. She might not have seen the guilt in my face. But my mother saw.

“He did not suffer,” I promised them. Elna’s tears fell freely, and I rushed to give her what more I knew, hoping my words would help. “He was thrown out a vent.”

The ceremony had gone completely awry. Sellis, in her anger, would tell Rumul about my actions the moment we returned to the Spire. There would almost certainly be punishments. Still, Elna’s face seemed lighter now. As if my words had helped. I could hope. I ached to tell them how sorry I was, but Sellis’s grip bruised my arm.

My mother nudged Elna, and they bowed.

Ezarit stepped forward and stared long and deep at me. We had no more time to talk. I hoped Ezarit could see what my eyes begged her to see. I wanted her to know that I was trying to do the right things, to make the best trades I could. To help the city. To keep her safe.

We exchanged no more words, but I understood her better now. I hoped she could see that in my eyes before they filled with tears.

* * *

We left before I could give Sellis more things to report to Rumul.

When I leapt, I risked a look backwards, beneath my wings. Elna’s and Ezarit’s faces glowed from the balcony, on light reflected from the clouds. Looking for a last glimpse of us.

I did not blink or make a sound. I let the evening wind dry my eyes to salt. Hoped it was too dark for Sellis to see my face.

She began to whisper at me as soon as we’d cleared the tower.

“Too dark already, thanks to you. We will, for appearance’s sake, ask to sleep at Viit.”

She had not suggested sleeping at Densira. That would have been too much mercy.

“I will send a whipperling telling Rumul of your actions.”

She had more than enough tradition-breaking to silence me now. To send me downtower or have me enclosed.

I drew a jagged breath, composed myself. Thought about what would draw her attention away from me. What I could trade now.

“I think we should risk going back tonight. The council should hear about Narath.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Narath? The first tower?”

“You didn’t notice?”

Her silence told me everything I needed to know. I’d heard pride at Narath in the celebration of their challenger. Not grief. Not hopelessness. The Singers would certainly see more dissent from them soon. I explained this to Sellis.

“I heard nothing of the sort,” she said.

“Rumul sees the value of my insights. He has forgiven my Lawsbreaks. Why can’t you?” I decided not to bargain with her. I would speak my mind, not caring whether I earned another punishment. Duty. “Spire-born are sometimes very deaf to what tower words mean. I might break tradition, but I can help you understand the towers.”

A long silence as we flew nearer to Viit. “I see your point,” Sellis said. I hoped her flat tone meant she was giving my words serious thought. We angled around Viit. Headed for the Spire.

Another few heartbeats, and Sellis began to echo. I joined her. Soon the shapes of the towers, grown closer at this depth, were clear around us. We found a breeze that would take us faster towards the Spire.

We passed into the purple night, the towers glowing across the heights with warm lights. The city had grown so full while my heart had grown so empty.

As we passed Viit, I heard a disturbance, an echo in the wind that should not have been there.

Sellis fell quiet. She’d heard it too.

Then she began to hum again, turning left, then right on the breeze. Trying to find the source of the echo. The disturbance sounded like bubbles in the air. Like occupants of the cages in the Spire.

“Skymouths,” she said.

We rode the darkness alone. No one in the towers could see well enough, or hear well enough, to know we were out here. Only the giant hungry mouths of the sky.

“You could try to divert them,” Sellis added, her voice hopeful.

“I’ve never done it for long,” I whispered back. “Or on the wing.” I wished Wik were there.

“Look.” Sellis pointed around the curve of Viit’s lowest tiers.

In the dark, I opened my mouth wide and echoed until I heard the curve of a tentacle. Then more. The enormous limbs, curling.

A huge skymouth prowled Viit. My throat squeezed in fear. I heard Sellis swallow, hard.

“There are more, Kirit.” She said it in a rush. “We need to get out of here.”

I fought the urge to flee. We were Singers. We protected the city. “We must help them, Sellis. We should wake Viit. And Wirra. They can sound the horns.”

“We can’t fight off an entire migration by ourselves.” Her voice edged with strain. She angled her wings to lift herself higher, preparing to race back to the Spire without care if she was seen.

“Wait!”

“What would you do? I can rouse the Spire.” Sellis and I carried no weapons beyond our short knives. Our flight was ceremonial. We weren’t prepared for a fight.

But I’d heard something behind another, smaller skymouth in the migration group. I’d heard the sound of silk in the wind. A skyshouter call.

Against the purpling sky, two Singers appeared, their nightwings locked so that they could hold their weapons at their chests, arrows nocked to bows. Their faces were obscured by shadow.

“Ah.” Sellis sighed, relieved. She circled, looking for a gust that would take her behind the Singers. “We are lucky.”

But my own relief muddled with confusion. The Singers weren’t driving the skymouths away from the towers. The group rounded Viit and headed the direction we’d come. “What are they doing?”

Sellis slowed her glide, angling up for a closer look, risking a stall. I did the same, then circled, still echoing. The three long bodies and sinuous tentacles revealed themselves clearly.

“I’m sure they have a reason,” she said, finally.

“The skymouths came from behind Viit and are flying towards Densira,” I said slowly.

“Perhaps Singers are driving this herd out of the city,” she responded, too quickly.