Updraft (29 page)

I didn't ask, and he didn't meet my eyes.

Behind the Singers tending and congratulating me, a low bone table held more of the stone fruit and two additional brass cups. Yes, I remembered. Three of us would fly today.

Even now, Sellis looked over the council balcony, waiting to fly. Vess, a novitiate an Allmoons older than Sellis, paced in the passageway between the tier's galleries and large alcoves. We were on the newest council tier. The highest. The outcroppings of bone here were lightly carved, with areas marked for new carving by novitiates.

The noise from the galleries shifted from a discussion's rumble to anticipatory hush. Sellis waited to be called forward, standing on intertwined symbols carved in the floor:
sacrifice
and
duty.

Rumul stood beside her, right hand light on her shoulder. He looked my way and gestured to a fourth Singer elder, then turned his attention back to his acolyte.

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-f 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.”

Rumul raised his brass cup. “Exactly. A fine Singer you make, Kirit.”

Now that the opportunity had presented itself, I resolved to connect with the towers as much as I could. Kirit Spire would do her duty for the city. The other Kirit would remember the towers and would speak for them when she was able.

Sellis continued to look at me warily. “You upset things, Kirit.” Then she swept away, as angry as she'd been when I first arrived. So much for sisterhood.

*   *   *

Within moments of Rumul's decision, the slow drumbeat from below ceased. The windbeaters shut the vents, and the Gyre wind reversed. Slower this time.

When the winds had settled, singing from the lowest tiers reached my sensitive ears. I heard students' young voices and the voices of the oldest Singers and teachers, all wafting up the everyday winds of the Spire.

Viridi approached our group, Sellis trailing behind. She spotted Moc jumping my shadow in the evening light of the Spire and shooed him away.

“You will come with me to meet the city, Sellis and Kirit Spire.” She took our hands in each of hers and drew us into one of the tier's smaller alcoves, still in sight of the council balcony. “I keep the Spire's records and maintain its history.”

Behind us, Rumul and several council Singers drew close in conversation. The rest of the tier cleared out as Singers returned to their duties.

I found I could make out Rumul's low rumble if I concentrated. Viridi set candles and old carvings in a pattern on the floor. Sellis watched her, rapt. My eyes wandered on the carvings, all old city maps and numbers, while my ears traced the pattern of debate behind me. I heard bone chips click as they were passed among the council members.

“Five towers are crowded to capacity in the southwest, and three in the north cannot be managed much longer. The numbers are to hand,” one voice murmured. A long silence followed.

Another asked, “Not enough time for new tier growth?”

“It is too soon,” agreed Rumul.

“What about recruiting?” the first man asked. “We need novices in the Spire.”

Rumul muttered, “Too late for that. The growth is in the older groups.”

More muttering. Terrin's name came up. Then the group walked away from where we sat, and their conversation faded.

Sellis elbowed me.

A response was required. Something to do with the tablets laid before me.

“Kirit, I ask you again, do you know what you see before you?”

I was able to answer honestly that I did not know all of what I saw. Viridi pointed again to the bone panels. “This is our history. The few survivors of the clouds. The loss of so much. And new knowledge.” Her fingers touched a panel showing a Singer scouring a tower-top to make it grow.

“Knowing how the city grows is a great Singer mystery. Protecting it from harm, our greatest challenge.” She put down the bone chips and pulled aside a silk hanging to reveal a small discoloration in the Spire's wall.

I looked closely. The outer layer of bone had been cut away from the wall. It revealed a deep yellow marrow that seemed to throb.

“You cannot do this on a tower, because the outer layer of the tower's core is much thicker than our wall,” she explained. “Even on the Spire's lower levels, the walls are too thick to reach the city's heart any longer. Here, though, we can show new Singers what they fight to preserve.”

The marrow was darker than the lymph that sometimes oozed from new grown bone. Viridi gestured us close. The air smelled richer here, a little like my father's lenses.

Viridi took Sellis's hand and held it above the marrow. “Swear, Sellis Spire, that you will guard the city before all else, even yourself.”

Sellis did not hesitate. “I so swear.” She closed her eyes and held her hand cupped in her other hand.

The voices returned behind us. I twisted my head slowly, looking for Rumul's group. I wondered what they were planning. I could not see them, so I turned my attention back to Viridi and Sellis. Viridi gestured for my hand.

Sellis glared at me from beneath her eyelids as Viridi pulled me closer and held my hand before the city. I startled at the sensation: heat pulsed from the bonecut. The metal smell was stronger.

“Swear, Kirit Spire, that you will guard the city before all else, even yourself.”

I thought of the oaths I'd already sworn, the promises I'd made so far in order to keep living.
Pull yourself together.
I considered what I'd learned in the Spire. That there was good here. And sacrifice. Important work, not all of it pleasant. I thought of the city's beauty, as only Singers know it. I pictured myself flying in Singer gray, helping maintain city order and peace. Helping the city. I wanted that. Still. Always.

I imagined flying the Gyre again and standing watch at Conclave, or, worse, escorting a cloudbound Lawsbreaker to his or her release. My hand froze in Viridi's grip.

“Kirit!” Sellis said, teeth clenched. “Singers do not hesitate.”

We did not, it was true. “I so swear,” I said, emphasizing each word.

Finally, Viridi rose and bowed as Rumul and Wik joined us. She made no mention of my hesitation.

Sellis and I climbed to our feet. She stood first before Rumul so he could make the next mark: the oath tattoo on her left cheek. She looked unflinching into his eyes and waited for him to mark her Singer for all the towers to see. Tradition. We saw the evidence all around us. But Rumul held nothing in his hands. No ink. No brush.