Updraft (28 page)

Behind us, Singers stood together, a wall of gray. “You must not fail.”

Far below, the windbeaters readied their giant wings, their rot gas. The vents opened, and the Gyre gust swirled up until it reached me. I leapt into the maelstrom.

*   *   *

Singers watched from the galleries as I swept around the Gyre, seeking my prey. The challenger who had come so far and dared too much. The one who did not understand what Singers were willing to sacrifice.

I locked my wings in position and took a knife from its sheath on my arm. The wind kept pace with every move I made, lifting me as I circled. The galleries rustled with whispers as I glimpsed a flash of white from the corner of my eye. The challenger, behind me. They must have clung to the wall below the council balcony until I leapt, then followed me out.

Sneaky. Just as some claimed the Lawsbreaker would be. Just like the Lawsbreaker I had been. I could do a service for the Singers, ending this danger to the city. Prove myself. As soon as I got the challenger off my tail.

An arrow arced wide past me, then clattered against the Gyre wall. Their aim was off. The enclosed space and strange winds gave me an advantage. Still, I swallowed hard and tightened my grip.
Hurry, Kirit.

The windbeaters' drums quickened, and I heard the wind whistle through the galleries. There was a drop coming.

Another arrow seared far too close, the fletching scraping my ear. The bone point missed its mark, but I was windbit already from the Gyre's howl. The brush of the weapon stung my skin.

By arching my back, I angled my wingtips and slowed my glide. The challenger hurtled over me, into my wind shadow. I angled away as the challenger dropped like garbage, spinning out of control.

As they fought to find a stronger gust, I moved in above. Looked for the best place to slash the challenger's wings. To end this quickly. To succeed and gain my birthright.

I raised the knife. It glittered from the sun and spun as it split the air.

The challenger turned fast. Shadow and wing, strong arms bent hard to the elbow hooks. Fingers wrapped tight around a bow.

We nearly collided.

Dark curls. Angry eyes.

I spun away at the last minute. Knowing the Gyre helped keep me from dropping us both into the pits.

But it was far too late. I'd seen his face. Knew the shape of it from just one glance.

Black hair; those eyes. His earnest look turned gaunt and scarred.

Nat lived.

He had challenged the Singers? He'd threatened the city?

I searched for a gust to take me higher so I could think.
Not him. Not this.
I found none. The windbeaters stirred the gusts to drive us together again.

Wing against shadow. Arrow against knife. Untried Singer against her challenger. Me to my best friend. Kirit to Nat.

My fight dissolved, crippled by relief at seeing Nat alive. But he, righted now, and flying fast, nocked another arrow.

Perhaps he hadn't realized who he fought. He wouldn't shoot, would he?

I banked fast, trying to reach him. Sheathed my knife. The galleries groaned in protest.

Nat's wings dipped and wobbled. He didn't know how to fly the Gyre. He was tiring fast as well. But he held his bow horizontal. Drew back the arrow. He looked up to aim as we circled.

When his eyes met mine, his hand wavered. I saw his mouth start to form my name. Then he clamped his lips shut. His fingers tightened on the bow.

Ducking my head and bending my knees slightly, I dropped fast. The arrow hummed past me, disappearing into the Gyre's shadows.

I took hold of the wing grips and twisted into a sharp turn. The windbeaters saw my maneuver and stirred up gusts to add more force. I rocketed past Nat and circled above him again, locking my wings in fighting position.

My fingers brushed the next knife hilt. How could I even consider it? Elna would have two fallen men.

One of those men was currently shooting at me. Trying to kill me to win a challenge.

The galleries erupted with stamping feet to match the windbeaters' drums.

What did I want? To be a Singer, I had to defeat him. To be Kirit, I could not.

I took a deep breath and swerved to avoid him. Shouted as loud as I could over the roar of the Gyre.

“Nat! What are you doing?”

He drew another arrow from his sleeve quiver.

“I thought you were dead!” I could not stop myself.

“You might as well be,” he answered. “A Singer!” The way he said it warped across the wind. To me, the word sounded more like “murderer.”

He found a fast-moving gust and tried to rise above me.

I ducked beneath him and cut off his wind. When he wobbled and started to fall, I dodged out of the way. One last chance. We flew side by side for a moment, my right wing grazing the gallery wall.

“You don't have to do this. I have so much to tell you.” If I could get him to drop his weapon and concede the challenge, then perhaps everything would be all right. The Singers would punish him, but he might live.

Though they would certainly punish me.

“I know enough. Your Singers lie, Kirit. They killed Naton for their lies!” He started to pull away, then leaned towards me instead, trying to drive me into the galleries and crush me.

“Your father stole secrets! He broke Laws!” I angled my wingtip until it slipped beneath his. White silk shuddering, battens shrieking. I held him there, then rolled hard, flipping his wing up in the process.

He tottered, dropping the arrow. I flew away straight.

“Maybe some Laws need breaking,” he shouted after me, righting himself. “What secrets did my father die for?” He pulled another arrow from his quiver. He only had a few left.

The Singers in the tiers around us rose to their feet, angrily gesturing. On my next turn, I saw Rumul far above, looking down. His face still as bone. The realization hit me. He'd planned this.

He wanted to test me, to see if I was a true Singer. As my father had been tested.

I wove and dipped so that Nat could not aim. My throat ached from the exertion of talking while flying the Gyre.

The windbeaters accelerated their beats. Somewhere below, my father was among them. Civik, who betrayed Naton. The gusts grew more fierce than I'd ever experienced in the Gyre. The wind yanked at my hair, tearing it free. Nat's black curls formed a tangled nimbus around his head.

They'd promised him answers if he won. What could I promise? A quick death, without falling forever. Or I could lose. I could banish myself to the Spire's depths by conceding. They would keep me alive, but I'd never see sky again.

If Nat won, they had to answer his questions, but he did not know the right questions to ask. I did. If he conceded, perhaps then I could ask more questions. Change things.

We flew opposing courses now, sweeping past each other in tighter spirals. He looked for advantage. I sought a way out.

My first friend. My best friend. Why are you doing this?
My initial relief at seeing him alive had become anger.

“You don't know the truth, Nat! You have to give this up.”

“No.” The word was a sob. “You can't win. Singers can't win.”

I am not a Singer, yet. But I cannot lose.

He whirled around, furious again. “I thought you were dead! But you're not! You're strong—we nearly starved these months, with the Laws they gave me. Where are yours?” He was crazed, yelling. I saw the chips hanging heavy on his wrists. His arms were pale past the wingstraps. His hands gripped the bow hard. He was tiring, too weak. But desperate. I didn't have much time.

What could I do to shock him, make him concede? I could tell him the truth. I could sing it.

I cast my voice to carry on the drafts. I sang The Rise to Nat. The real Rise.

The city rises on Singers' wings, remembering all, bearing all,

Rises to sun and wind on graywing, protecting, remembering.

Never looking down. Tower war is no more.

For a moment, the galleries fell silent. Then a shout of outrage broke through the windbeaters' drums, the swirl of wind. Rumul's voice. “Stop this!”

I continued to sing. Hoped Nat could hear me. Would listen.

A voice on a nearby tier joined me. Then another.

Always rising, never failing. The city forever.

Rising together. Rising as one.

Nat's eyes grew wide as the words filled the Gyre and he heard the difference from what he'd always known as unassailable fact.
This is why there are Singers, Nat. To protect tower from tower.

I didn't stop singing until he shot at me again, wildly, his last arrow nicking my wing.

“Stop this! Kill me already,” he screamed. He threw the bow. It spun in the air, hit the wall, and plummeted into the Gyre. I heard a cheer from the galleries.

Nat's straps bit white against his shoulders where his robes had slipped. His face flushed deep red. Buoyed by the song, I circled in long arcs, looking for a way to knock him into the nets above the pens, to cut his wings open. To win without killing him. In the galleries, Singers leaned forward to see better. The fight had gone too slow for the windbeaters.

I smelled the rot gas before I saw the balls of flame. Heard them rise last of all. With a whoosh, one hand-sized ball flew up the tower, then another.

“Monsters,” Nat shouted, as a gout flew close to his face and rose out the top of the Spire. I smelled singed hair.

I could push him right into a rot gas ball and his wings would burn, but Nat would fall, alive.

I tried not to think about how Rumul would judge me for sparing Nat. I doubted it would be well.

I twisted in the jumbled wind. “I'm not trying to kill you, Nat!”

“You'll let me go, then send a skymouth to kill me,” he yelled. “Tobiat warned me about Singers!”

“No! Tobiat is damaged! He's…” I spun lower, losing altitude, trying to think. Nat followed me down, battling the gust patterns, and something suddenly made sense. “Tobiat was a windbeater.”

“What does that mean?”

“He knew Naton. He watched Naton work in the Spire! He's the traitor.”

“Shut up, Kirit!” Nat dove for me, hands outstretched, trying to grapple my wings and drag us both down. We plummeted past gallery walls carved with Singers falling, wound round with flames.

We were well down in the Gyre now, too close to the novices and windbeaters throwing flaming rot gas. I heard Moc shout for me.

I fought my way to an updraft, hoping Nat would follow me, that he was strong enough to follow me.

He did. Barely. His pale wings filled with wind.

“I will tell you what I know,” I said. “But you must give up then, you must concede. Promise?”

He whistled. Our long-ago flight signal. Agreement.

I was about to break the Spire's rules, but perhaps it would work. Nat would be left alive. I pointed down. Spoke fast. “Your father built pens for the Spire, Nat. That's what the chips mapped. He built pens that would hold—”

I never got to finish my sentence. Two windbeaters began a new pattern. The Gyre's winds spun me round and knocked me into Nat. My knife dragged across his wing.

Over the roar of the wind, the galleries screamed. And then the wind pulled us apart. I heard a gate open and braced myself for more wind. The windbeaters angled their wings anew, and I was borne up on a massive gust.

A separate gust sucked Nat towards the open gate.

I reached for him, tried to hook his wings, but my fingers could not span the widening gap.

He spun limp, his wings folding as he lost control and was flung into the wide-open sky.

But my wings filled. I was lifted by an opposing current. I'd won. Or the windbeaters had.

The challenger was defeated.

The galleries began to sing. Tradition. A second time through The Rise, this time to welcome a new Singer. Their song, which until that moment had been my song too, lifted higher, and the wind swept me up. I was truly theirs now.

I was a killer. I knew no greater pain.

*   *   *

“Come up, Kirit Spire!” Rumul shouted from the balcony.

Wik had to reach out with a hook and pull me onto the council tier. He let me lean against him while the council argued in a corner. Had I succeeded? The battle had been won, but by whom? And the secrets I had shared. The traditions I had shattered.

To my wind-deafened ears, their debate was just more noise. Then they parted, walked towards me, the full council following Rumul's lead.

“Welcome, Singer,” he said.

The caustic sting barely registered as Rumul marked my right cheek with a new symbol for winning the challenge: a knife. Honoring my murderous deed. I let it burn, unflinching. I heard Nat's scream again, an echo inside my head as he disappeared.

Now I was a Singer, marked with the death of my challenger.

Now I was Spire, locked within its walls no matter where I flew.

 

PART THREE

WHAT IS LOST

 

20

FALL

I released my wing grips and let my arms hang at my sides. My feet touched the bone floor of the balcony, and I wavered at the edge until Wik pulled me by the robe, farther into the tier.

A visibly pregnant Singer brought me water in a brass cup. Cold in my hand and against my lips. I could not swallow it without great effort. The Singer took the cup back and put a bowl in my hands.

“Eat,” she said, her brown eyes trying to look deep into mine. “The Gyre's exhausting. You'll feel better soon.”

I stared at the bowl. Stone fruit in honey. The sweet smell made my stomach growl, but my fingers gripped the bowl's rim and did not reach for the fruit.

A gray-haired Singer patted my shoulder and handed me a clean gray robe. Another brought a sack of herbs and salve for my scratches and cuts.

Wik removed my novice wings, negotiating the straps and harness over my deadweight arms. I stared at his cheeks, his markings. He'd flown the Gyre. Faced a challenger. Many challengers. How did he go on after?