Fran Wilde: Updraft

The Singer turned to look at me. Who was I to speak?

Wik said, “Listen to her.”

“She’s won the right to speak,” Viridi agreed, silencing any doubts.

“Skymouths are loose in the city.” My doing, in large part. I knew this. I would make it right.

Macal ran up to us. “The Spire may stand, but everyone knows its secrets now.” He gripped my shoulder in thanks. I winced, then spoke again.

“So now the city knows. And now the city suffers. We are still Singers,” I said. “We must do our duty. We must catch the skymouths.”

We would be stronger working together. No more separation between tower and Spire. I spotted Beliak on the council tier, helping clear large pieces of bone. “Tell the nearest towers to spread the word. Skymouths are loose.”

Beliak yanked at the Bissel trader’s robe and they climbed onto the roof of the Spire, unfurling their wings as they went.

I turned back to Viridi. “My mother.”

“She is safe. Lurai and the traders pulled her from the enclosure when the Spire began to crack. They’ve taken her to Varu, to let her rest.”

A shout from the Gyre. Singers climbed the pulley ropes laden with weapons. More gathered on lower tiers. They waited for instructions, ready to fly.

What if they would not follow me?

“What you did…,” Wik whispered.

“They’ll sing of it,” Viridi finished for him.

“Not yet,” I said. “Not unless — not until — the skymouths are caught.”

Beliak returned. “Varu is sending as many people as it can to warn the nearby towers, and the traders are flying to the city’s edges. Guards and hunters are ready to fight.”

“We have to work together.” I turned to Wik and Macal. “All of us.” They would follow the three of us, united in purpose. Spire, tower, and me — who was both at once.

With a worried look, Wik ran his hand through the air near my cheek, where ugly welts had replaced the rashes raised by skymouth oils. They no longer burned, but I could feel the passage of air across them, and it made me shiver. I steadied myself as his green eyes met mine and then looked to the horizon, which had emptied of birds.

Sacrifice. Duty. This was what we shared.

From around the city, we began to hear the klaxons. Bone horns sounded warnings, at first from Varu and the towers near the Spire, but soon rippling out. So many.

“We must fix this,” I said.

Wik shouted over the edge of the balcony, to the Singers and older novices assembled below. “We will catch the skymouths. Save the citizens first. Worry about the Spire later.”

* * *

At Wik’s words, the Spire’s chaos was replaced by years of training. Singers grabbed weapons and found their fighting groups. I returned Wik’s knife and found several of my own, along with a bow and a quiver of arrows. Beliak lifted a set of drugged spidersilk nets.

“Eat,” Ciel said, holding out a fistful of dried goose meat, a sack of water in her other hand. When I took some, she circled the tier, making sure Singers drank and ate before they flew.

I chewed, exhausted. The food gave me strength, for now. “We need more fighters, more guards.” I grabbed Macal’s sleeve. “Get the whipperlings.”

To my surprise, he ran to do what I’d said. The Spire’s whipperlings were dispatched with hastily carved message chips. Anyone who saw them could read the danger, the need to fight together.

Viridi found me another new pair of wings, Rumul’s own spare set. They were big on me, but tightened fine to my shoulders.

Wik strode past, on his way to assemble his own flight of fighters. Hunters had begun to land on the roof. I caught up with him.

“We have to warn Elna and Tobiat and Nat. Lith isn’t safe.”

He frowned. “I’ll make sure they know.”

Around me, Singers snapped into action as they’d been trained to do, protecting the city at a moment’s notice.

Soon fliers flew formation from the top of the Spire. We heard horns blowing farther away. In the distance, on Amrath and Ginth, I saw Allsuns banners and gardens being hastily pulled in. Atop many towers, guards’ glass-edged wings sparkled in the sunlight as they massed for a fight.

The Singers rose to join them as the sun climbed high into the sky.

It was Allsuns. The day when towers remembered their fallen. Looked up in their honor.

But this year, the traditional Remembrance songs would have to wait.

Flight teams joined, not tower by tower, but as groups. Singers and traders, Varu and Naza, Grigrit and Viit. Mondarath guards flew with Amrath councilwomen.

We flew, and the city flew. Wings of all colors, gray and yellow, bright-dyed and faded. Flew to fight, to protect, all of us, together.

I leapt from the Spire. Five Singers, three able older novices, and two council elders followed me. We were joined by two hunters and a trader from the south.

“Flew with your mother once. Hope you’re as good as she is,” the trader said grimly. She locked her wings for fighting.

We spread out in a chevron pattern, sweeping around Varu, then southwest, searching for monsters.

From the closest towers came whoops as the hunter-Singer teams netted the first skymouths. Then a scream, hastily cut off.

We found our first skymouth tangling with Ginth’s guards. They circled a turbulent space in the air, just out of reach of its arms.

One of my hunters, armed with a bone spear and a set of nets, began to climb, his spear at the ready.

“Go with him,” I shouted to the councilors. I took the novices and the second hunter and circled to reinforce the guards.

The hunter could not see where to aim his spear. I looked at the guards. They circled, guessing where to fire their arrows. We’d wind up shooting each other this way.

“Use your nets,” I yelled.

Soon, the skymouth was trapped in a confusion of spidersilk and fiber nets. It yanked at its traces until I hummed it calm.

“What do we do with it now?” a novice asked.

What indeed. Taking them back to the Spire and tying them down would only repeat the problem. I circled the group once, thinking. The hunter with the bone hook yelled, “It’s getting loose!” and threw his spear. The net stopped jerking.

My heart broke. This was not right. None of it was. “Make sure it is dead, then leave it on Ginth, with a guard.”

The sun stayed high, and the net, as they tied it to Ginth’s rooftop bone cleats, glistened pink and damp. As the long day stretched on, I realized that the hunters and guards who fought with us were in danger. It was not night, but they still flew blind.

A shadow passed overhead, then Wik circled to position on my left pinion.

I smiled at him, then heard another flier on my right. From beneath a borrowed pair of nightwings, Nat grimaced, pale and determined.

“Elna and Tobiat are safe,” he said in response to my startled look.

“Nat, you can’t fly now!”

“Everything’s braced and bandaged,” he said. “Once I got up in the air, I was fine. The challenge will be landing.”

I shook my head, angering him.

“I’m a hunter, Kirit. I have to fight.” He set his wings and nocked an arrow to his bow with a wince. “Besides,” he added sadly, “someone needs to help you clean up this mess.”

The two flew on either side of me, Singer and Lawsbreaker, my future and my past. One in Singer gray, one in black silk: Allsuns and Allmoons.

They flew as if they were my escorts. I did not want to be elevated like that. Like Rumul had raised himself above his peers. Above reproach. I set my jaw, stubborn. It was a protection I would not — could not — allow. We all fought as equals.

“Fine. We will each lead a flight. We need fliers who can see skymouths with each group.” I scanned the flight following Wik. He saw what I intended. Signaled a skilled Nightwing to team with Nat. I heard the Nightwing begin to echo as Nat and his Singer eyes peeled away from us.