Fran Wilde - Updraft

“You sent me these,” I said, holding his hand to the lenses. “Why?”

“They’re yours now. Not mine. I can’t do anything with them.” His fingers traced the lenses’ edge. Then one finger touched my nose. Hovered away. Then his hands covered my face. Softly, he used his fingers to see me.

I held still, hoping Wik would come soon. I’d never talked to Civik alone. When he didn’t move his hands from my face, I stepped back and caught his fingers in mine.

“It is time to do more,” I said, squeezing his hands. “I need you to get windbeaters who share your views out to the Gyre at dawn.”

He nodded. “I can do that. They know what’s possible now that we have Naton’s chips. We looked at the holes he drilled in the walls. The weak points he created but never had the chance to finish. But Rumul still has influence down here. We have to be cautious.” Civik hesitated, caught between hope and doubt.

At the sound of footsteps tripled by a bone cane and the swish of robes on the passage outside the alcove, we both fell silent. We barely breathed until the noises passed. Where was Wik?

I tried to think of something that would make him act beyond his fear. “Do your rumors tell you who they’ve caught and brought to the Spire?”

Civik shook his head. “Who?”

I paused, thinking of Ezarit’s scars, of what she did to Civik in the Gyre. I didn’t know how he’d react to the news.

“Who?” He tightened his grip on my hand. Then, as if he could read my mind, he said, “Ah. Yes. Ezarit.” The way he said it gave me no comfort. I should have stayed quiet.

“I can’t let them hurt her either.”

The old windbeater frowned. Then he tapped my lenses again. “You are right. Now is time to fight, and to speak.”

I breathed out, relieved. I would have his support if I fought in the Gyre. I hoped he could gather enough of the others. But I needed more than that. “I need better wings, Civik. And a good blade.”

My father let go of my hand. Rolled back and forth on his cart. “We do not have those things down here. The Singers took all the nightwings we’ve made. And there are no blades among the windbeaters. You must get them elsewhere.”

There was a scuffling sound, and Moc tumbled into the alcove. “They’ve blocked off the council tier. I can’t get past the guards. Can’t get to Wik.”

“They kicked me out earlier,” Ciel said, appearing behind Moc. “No flying, either.”

New plan, then. I couldn’t use the ladders to get to the council. I couldn’t fly. And Wik was somewhere up there.

“Moc, you need to help me sneak into the pens. Right now.”

He started to argue. “They’ll see you.”

But Ciel said, “I know how,” and pulled me from the alcove, towards the galleries where the windbeaters worked the Gyre. She grabbed one of the ropes that ran down the Gyre’s sides and handed me a large bucket. It still smelled of stink, but it was empty, and big enough to hold me, if I kept very still.

But the bucket couldn’t hold my patchwork wings. I stripped them off. Felt the small skymouth wrap itself tighter around my shoulder.

I tucked myself as best I could into the bucket. Both twins and Civik, working the ropes together, lowered me down on the cable to the knotted ropes of the pens.

They worked fast, and when the bucket came to rest, I rolled out and ducked into the shadows beneath an overhanging gallery. They reeled up the bucket and disappeared.

Alone in the dark, once all had grown quiet again, I crawled to the center of the nets and let myself into the core of the pens. Felt the captive skymouths bump against the ropes and poke the thin points of tentacles out as I passed. I hummed, and the tentacles receded.

When the skymouths settled, the littlemouth still at my shoulder loosened its grip. “Oh, no you don’t,” I whispered, then tucked it into my robe, by my ribs. I tightened the fastenings to secure it. “You’d be like dinner to your cousins.”

Too close beside me, someone coughed, and I jumped. In the darkness, I could make out a tall form with broad shoulders.

“You made it,” Wik said.

“I did.” My heart pounded from the scare. “How did you get away from the council tier?”

“I told Rumul someone needed to check on the pens. He told me to get them ready to migrate again tomorrow and then return. The council will discuss Ezarit’s fate in a few hours.”

Worse and worse.

“How did you know I’d come here?”

“I didn’t. I’d planned to ask Moc to help find you, but he’s made himself scarce.”

I wanted to laugh, but it was too awful. “He was looking for you. You passed each other. One going up, the other coming down.” I grew serious. “We need to get back up there.”

He wrapped a hand around a thick rope. “They will try to stop you from reaching the council and issuing a challenge, Kirit. Rumul says that the city is already angry. That a sacrifice needs to be made.”

“Did you try to challenge?”

Wik bowed his head. “I began the process. No one would support me. Not with another Conclave possible if the city keeps rumbling. They are frightened. They don’t want to lose my vote on council, if I fail. We were so close to breaking him before the city—” He stopped. Dragged his fingers through his hair. Exhausted. “Instead, I tried to blunt Sellis’s attacks on you, tried to keep them from tearing apart the towers looking for you, the traitor Singer. I told her I’d disposed of you already, but that did not satisfy her, or Rumul.”

I couldn’t imagine it would. “They wanted to dispose of me themselves.” Cloudbound. The first sacrifice at Conclave.

“Yes.”

“Why should I believe you? You led the attack on Densira.”

“I was trying to foil it, Kirit.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. But I saved you. And brought Elna to you.”

That was true. “They have Ezarit now, up there.”

He met my gaze. “She’s being held in Rumul’s enclosure.”

I thought of Ezarit, encased in the walls of the Spire as I once was. “I can’t get to her there.”

“If you win your challenge, you can free her.”

“And if I lose?”

Wik was silent. The nets creaked. “Then I will challenge without support. Like Terrin. And more people will die tomorrow.”

I thought of Nat, and my mother. Of the enclosure’s carved walls. Of the skymouths. I had to try.

Wik reached into the sleeve of his robe and removed his knife and its sheath. He handed these to me. They were heavy in my hands, and the glass blade was dark as the night. I bound the sheath to my arm.

He said, “I’ve been down here too long. They are watching everyone. Every tier. How will you get to the council?”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

He stared at me. “You are a Singer, Kirit. Truly. The kind we need.” He leaned close, his eyes fierce. “Don’t let them tell you you’re not.” He climbed quickly from the pens and onto the next tier. Then he was gone, leaving me alone, surrounded by skymouths.

When I echoed, the Singers’ skymouths sounded like soft objects, bobbing in the pens. Their tentacles trailed across each other. In the far corner of the pens was a different shape, less buoyant. Not moving.

Any breeding program had successes and losses. I thought of Nat’s whipperlings, his search for the fastest ones. Of my own silk spiders. We didn’t feed the ones that didn’t make enough silk. There were always culls.

I hoped I was right, that it was the same here. Skymouth culls didn’t need their skins any longer.

The rigging and cages designed by Nat’s father for these pens almost seventeen years ago filled the center of the Spire. I stood on the side, echoing, until I found more still shapes. Beyond them, I could hear the harder objects, the pulleys and cams that raised the pens when the Spire rose.