In the tumult that followed, Doran dispersed guards to the tower tiers to quell the fighting and Ezarit raised one hand for silence, fingers sifting the air. The council platform quieted. Then the towers did as well. We’d narrowly escaped another riot. Ezarit chewed her lip. Doran glared at me.
When it grew quiet enough to hear her, Ezarit spoke.
“There are many issues the city must address. The Spire’s condition and its new dangers. Rumors about stalled tower growth. Complaints from the southeast about certain southwestern dealings. The situation with the Spire. But we cannot now proceed until we resolve the Singers’ situation,” she said. I shifted, uncomfortable, and ready to acknowledge where I’d been wrong. “The Singers preserved our history. They saved our culture from the clouds. But they made grave mistakes, committed horrible crimes. What can be salvaged from this? What is required to heal?”
Angry muttering from the councilors. Angrier sounds still, when her words reached the towers, but the guards stood firm. There were no more fights.
Ezarit waited until the platform quieted a second time. “A vote was taken while I searched for my daughter, Kirit, while Councilor Nat Densira was missing. Not all voices were heard. We cannot continue to lead through fear. Nat will speak now.”
Those on the nearest tower balconies leaned forward, some using scopes to see.
An angry rumble came from Varu. The Singers had punished that tower many times over, and their proximity to the Spire had meant a heavy toll when the Skymouths escaped.
Vant gestured to the towers. “The city does not want to wait.”
Ezarit pointed to the protesters and their nets. “The city is a family. But even a family disagrees from time to time. There is dissent now, and that is valuable to hear.”
Vant’s face colored. He gestured to where the remaining Singer council waited: Wik, Viridi, the Grigrit Singer, and seven others I didn’t know well. Plus Moc. They looked back at him, bone faced. “Consider too, that if these Singers do not face justice, the city will remain caught in arguments and riots. The very towers will—”
“Let us not go to extremes,” Macal said from where he stood. “This is rhetoric, and I would like to hear Nat’s proof.”
“Proof,” Vant spat. “Your brother is covered in Lawsmarkers. You should have no voice here.” His tone indicated that if he had a choice, Macal would have no voice in the future.
Once, not that long ago, I would have been by their sides as they shouted down an opposing argument. Especially one made by a Singer. I’d seen Doran design a plan of decisive action. But now I recognized the strategy they’d worked out. Uniting a group not by fear, but by singling out a common enemy. A successful tactic, yes. But with a terrible toll.
A single Conclave wouldn’t satisfy the towers for long.
Macal seethed. Though Wik was his brother, he’d left the Spire for the towers long ago, and renounced the Singers to stay on the council.
I spoke again, raising my voice to reach as many as I could. “Listen! What I saw yesterday when I fell below the clouds is a more immediate danger than what happened in the recent past.”
“Distraction and lies!” Vant cried. Now another tower, Naza, began to chant again. “Throw them down.” I was no longer clear on whether they meant the Singers, or me. Hiroli’s face reddened. Her tower.
Doran stepped forward. “I understand a young councilman’s desire to speak,” he said, his tone suddenly conciliatory. “I’ve felt the same thing myself. But here, after the council has already voted? And inciting a near riot in the process?”
I met his gaze. Held it. “It was a rushed vote.”
“You say this when you yourself helped organize the vote beforehand?” Doran looked around at the gathered council, at the guards relaying every word to the waiting tiers. To Beliak and Ceetcee, who stared at the plinth surface, eyes wide. Now they knew the depth of my mistake. Now Ezarit knew too.
My answer to him, and to them, was my feet firmly planted on the council plinth. My unwavering gaze. I say this. I will fix this.
“You ask for more time, and according to council tradition, we must consider this, despite the urgency. You’ve stirred ire in the towers, but offer no way to calm the dispute,” Doran continued. His anger had cooled; he’d found a plan. Doran clapped his hands together, raised his voice in contrast to Ezarit’s calm. Across the platform, silk robes rustled as councilors turned to listen to him. Two repeaters circled overhead, alternating their departures so they could relay his words to the rapt towers. “And you also now claim Singer traditions are important to understand. Their codex, their … ‘heartbone.’” He gestured at the container I still held.
“You’ve made the same claims yourself.” I nodded, despite Ezarit’s fingers clamping down on my shoulder. Perhaps if I showed the towers I was willing to listen, Doran would have to listen to me also.
“Ah, but that was before I learned that Singers still plot against the city, even now.”
“What does he mean by that?” Ceetcee said. Two councilors behind me whispered to each other, echoing Ceetcee. What does he mean? My heart pounded in my chest.
“You wish to delay the city’s healing at the very moment when it is ready to move forward.” He held his hands out to the towers, “When the slightest dissent brings fighting. The city can wait no longer; it is time for the guilty to be punished. Then we must move on, together.” Doran turned from me with a sweeping gesture that included the whole city.
I drew a deep breath. Confronting Doran, halting a council? That had been terrifying, but now I had to do it again. But instead, Hiroli stepped in. She was speaking above her place, just as I had done, but she was Ezarit’s apprentice, and she spoke as one who had lost everything after Spirefall. The council gave her their attention. “We can move on, but perhaps it will be most fair, and most unlike the Singer judgments, to allow further discussion from all sides.” She gestured to me. “Even if we do not agree on every point.” Doran glared at her, but other councilors nodded agreement.
The towers listened, quiet.
Doran thought for a moment. Ezarit held up a hand to interject, but Doran spoke over her. “Perhaps your newfound dedication to Singer traditions will win your request for you. Singers battled in the Spire for the right to speak, did they not?”
The world slowed around me. The flags flapped against the wind with hard beats. I heard an echo of Gyre winds and saw again my friend strike at me, and I at her, trying to wound, to kill. I had walked right into this trap and not seen it, though Ezarit had. “They did.”
“It was called a challenge, and if you won, you gained the right to speak your truth to the city,” Doran continued. “You attempted one yourself, and lost. Perhaps you see yourself now as a bridge between tower and Spire? As your friend Kirit Skyshouter did?” He hesitated. “Or still does? Perhaps you can rescue those Singers so far fallen into crimes against the city, and restore them?” Doran gestured to the assembled Singer council.
“I do not pretend to forgive the Singers their crimes,” I said. “But Elna is right. And we have greater problems right now. The council, the towers, must hear!”
Doran would not easily be dissuaded. He narrowed his eyes.
“Then you will need to fight to be heard over the council’s decision.”
Me. The fighter who’d already lost, Nat the game piece. Justice. Balance. Gravity. “If I must, in order to speak a truth to the city, I will fight. But how does adopting Singer rituals make us a better city?”
Doran was ready. “If it’s a question of the city’s safety, we do all that we must, without hesitation.” He turned to the waiting council. “Who will fight this brave young man?”
Ezarit was by my side, whispering, “Don’t do this.”
“He can’t tolerate dissent—but he wanted me to go to the Spire with Kirit. Why won’t he listen to me now?” Had my mentor had used me?
She shook her head. “You cannot be sure. It is possible he meant well, but now, given the opportunity, he is using the situation in the way he knows best. To build advantage. To keep moving forward. He is a trader at heart.”
That at least was true. “He won’t find anyone to fight for him. This is too far. He’ll have to concede.”
But she pointed. Already, several blackwings had stepped forward.
Doran lifted his hands. I held my breath. Would he concede? The look on his face said no. “The councilor is right. A fight to the death is Singer ways. In the tower we will do it differently. More civilized. A wingfight. One on one. But will you fight for those who have plotted rebellion while they were nursed in the towers? Who have colluded with fledges to weaken us at our very heart?”
Did he mean Dix? Blackwings shifted and muttered around us. But no, Doran pointed at Moc, then at Wik. “These Singers have been conspiring to siphon the city’s lifeblood from beneath us! I have proof.” He pointed to the sky, to the southwest. We looked to the sky, saw a large flier approaching. The bulky outline resolved into black wings, carrying a burden.
Had one of Doran’s guards discovered what was being done to the Spire on their own, or even found Kirit?
Beside me, Ezarit held her breath. But instead of Kirit, it was Dix who landed on the platform and dropped her burden: A larger container of heartbone. A pair of Singer wings.
Before Ezarit or Doran could speak, Dix held out her hands, towards both items. “The rebellious Singers have drained the life from the city!” she cried. “They are weakening the Spire to collapse it on the towers. They are why the city has been so unlucky!”
“Not true! You did these things! You were there!” Moc shouted before the blackwings silenced him.
Ceetcee lunged forward, but Beliak held her back.
“I saw her in the clouds, sabotaging the Spire! So did the fledges,” I shouted. “She’s the traitor. Bring me Lawsmarkers!”
No one moved to help me. Dix looked at us as if she pitied our ignorance. “I’m no traitor. I believe in the city and am willing to do what’s needed to help rebuild its order, its strength. Unlike some. Where do you stand, Doran?”
Doran bristled at the question, and at the attention focused on him by Dix. For a moment, he seemed trapped by her words. He finally shook his head slowly. “I cannot believe one of my own blackwings is a traitor—not without more proof than the word of a councilor who couldn’t even attend an important vote yesterday. What of you, Nat? Did you help Kirit Skyshouter escape before she could be called on to renounce the Singers?”
Dix coughed into her hand to hide a triumphant smile.
I shook my head. “We fell out of the wind!”
Around me, the towers laughed.
“Do you still demand your stay?” Doran said.
“I do! I will show the city what I found.”
He shrugged. Turned to the towers. “As the challenged, I accept,” Doran said. “Unfortunately, I cannot fight, due to a Spirefall injury. But I will name a flier who must fight in my stead.”
Not Macal, I thought. Please do not test his loyalties. Not Hiroli either. So many dangers here.
“I name Dix Laria, of the southern guard.” Doran’s voice rang out, and the repeaters carried his words to the balconies. A roar went up.
Dix. Didn’t Doran know she lied? How could he not know what happened so near his own tower?
“You are a loyal guard in service to the council, are you not?” Doran asked her. Confusion jarred my confidence. Were his words for show? Or was Doran’s bigger plan Dix?
“I am.” She bowed, then straightened and tugged at her wingstraps. Already preparing.
“Then you will fight to protect it.”
That look in her eye. She relished this. She knew now that I’d stolen her fledges, the heartbone, her platform. She would fight me, and it would be to the death, no matter what Doran said.
“Concede, Nat,” Ezarit whispered. “That one has been dangerous since the Singers rejected her when we were fledges. She’s so conflicted.”
I remembered Dix’s history with Ezarit, and how she’d disliked Kirit too, long ago. Remembered also her tone at the Grigrit gaming table. But how could I concede? I couldn’t give up and let this go. I’d win and make them listen. No. More than that. I would set right my mistake.
At an angle to the plinth, and slightly lower, Varu’s guards took the nets from the protesters and tied them into wingfighting tethers on the towers.
Dix and I met on the side of the council plinth and bowed to each other as challengers, and my heart began to beat in time with my memories of the Gyre.
I did not want to do this. And there was no other way.
Kaviks took to the air to share the news of a wingfight. I watched the frenzy, allowing my mind to focus on the birds, rather than what I was once again about to do. To fight a flight Magister for the right to speak to the city.
There were no windbeaters here, no one to throw rot gas in the wind to add to the challenge. There were no galleries or walls either. A wingfight was not intended to kill or maim. We were supposed to knock each other from the sky, not kill.
“The fight terms?” I asked. I doubted any terms would be obeyed, but I wanted the towers to hear them and judge Dix’s actions accordingly. Perhaps she would help make my point if she did betray the terms, and I still won.
“Best out of three,” Dix said, naming her terms as was her right, but grinning at me. I would have one chance, at best, to win decisively. Unlike the Gyre, a death during wingfight combat was rare, but that wouldn’t keep Dix from making a “tragic mistake” in order to win.
“Agreed,” I said. Doran half nodded. Dix and I walked together to the plinth’s edge, then leapt from it to go to our places at opposite ends of the speedily rigged wingfighting nets. As we flew, more tower citizens scrambled to gain vantage points near the nets. Several headed to Naza, where the shocked residents quickly moved furnishings to the backs of their quarters to create more seating. Ceetcee and Elna joined Beliak by the fledges. Ezarit stood near them.
The last time I’d done this, I’d lost. My mentor knew this. That Doran could demand it of me was one thing. How could I have agreed? I realized I’d known what Ezarit warned about: that Doran’s political skill and desire to win cut both ways. His ambition had once helped me, but I’d crossed him. If I lost now, Dix could continue her lies, and Doran could proceed with Conclave.
Circling above the wingfight nets, readying my knives, I made myself a vow. I would win this fight. I’d get more time for the Singers’ defense and the search for Kirit. I’d pushed for the vote, without understanding the consequences. Then Kirit had shown me the truth. I had to make it right.
The protesters settled at Varu and Naza to watch the wingfight. They cheered my name. Someone on Varu blew a horn, making a semblance of a wingfight call. The net was ready. Dix and I both saluted and turned to each other.
“Good luck, Brokenwings,” she said, which was not tradition.
“I would wish you luck, Dix,” I said in the traditional way. “And windblessings on the city.”
“I’ll make my own luck,” she replied. With those words, I was made aware again that Dix had flown wingfights, and she was good. I’d seen her fight before last Allsuns, while Kirit still recovered. A match between Mondarath and Grigrit. She’d broken Aliati’s knife before the fight, a dirty move.
Dix finished her salute and dove for the net’s center, trying for the best position. I dove to meet her.
We clashed in the air. Dix’s wingtip dipped below mine, and she executed a spin that turned me sideways in a heartbeat’s time. A knife flashed and missed. Dizzied, I let air spill from my wings, and once again I could not right myself. I crashed to the net.
Varu’s horn blew one point, in Dix’s favor.
But I could still fly. My wings were whole. At the net’s edge, I spotted a feather rising on a nearby draft and leapt for it, slowly circling to put myself back on the fighting level, while I regained my breath. I tried to pull my mind away from the feeling of the fall. Dix had already regrouped and was preparing to dive again, waiting only for me to signal my readiness.
I tried to strategize on the wing. Dix, the last time she dove, had done so with a slight veer to the left. That was how she’d lured me in and flipped me so fast. I decided to try a Singer trick I’d seen Kirit use once. I dove and she followed, meeting me, wings locked and arms ready to grapple me and throw me from the air. I curved my wings hard and shot up over her head, then began a tuck and roll, to arrive behind her.
But Dix reached up at the last minute. She sliced through my footsling with her knife. My glide plane—that flat plank the body took when flying, arms in the wingstraps, feet supported from the footsling—broke into right angles and I spilled from the air, missing the net.
I could not control my fall. I heard a cry, and a shadow circled, diving like a hawk. Tea-stained wings blocked the sky. Ezarit hooked me and lifted me back to the council plinth. Her eyes were angry suns.
The tower rumbled again, and the horn blew. Two points, the match lost, though the towers’ cheers were muted. It seemed many disapproved of the outcome, both the cut footsling and my rescue.
Ezarit kept her grip hard on my shoulder once we landed. Dix, hearing the boos, flew away from the plinth, back towards the south. No matter. It had been my fight to win, and I had lost the fight. I had failed Kirit.
Ceetcee hurried to me, Elna at her side. With quick stitches, they repaired my footsling for safety’s sake. Elna’s skill as a seamstress had not been damaged by her blindness. She sewed by touch. Her breathing was labored. Angry.
I pulled Kirit’s satchel back over my shoulder and reached out to them both. “I am sorry,” I said.
“It won’t hold long,” Ceetcee said. “Clouds take Dix.”
Elna kept sewing, not bothering to look where her eyes could not see. “You tried. You gave the towers a chance to see what Conclave could mean, to reconsider. To see that Doran is compromised. That is what you needed to do.”
But a look around the council platform revealed what Elna could not see: councilors congratulating Doran. Stepping away from Ezarit. Siding with the winner. In the stretch of time it took to patch my footsling, Doran’s power in council doubled.
He shook hands and patted shoulders, then turned with a swish of his embroidered robes and approached me, holding out a conciliatory hand. Every muscle in my body tensed against taking it, but Ceetcee poked me with her needle and whispered, “Nat.”
Politics. Yes.
I shook his hand, expecting him to crush the bones of my fingers in his grip. Instead, he patted me on the back. “That was a tough lesson to learn, apprentice. But a more important one is coming. You wished to speak for the city, but can you be loyal to its decisions?”
I waited for Ceetcee’s needle to strike my foot again, but it did not come. Instead, she and Elna kept sewing, directing rough jabs at the cloth. I was on my own.
“How can you make this decision, knowing what Dix does? She enslaves fledges, Doran. And is killing the Spire. Did you know?” I met his eyes and held them. I could tell by now when Doran embellished in order to win someone to his side.
He met my gaze. “I will look into your claims. I promise.” His eyes were troubled, but he was not lying. He hadn’t known. “But you know what we must do now.”
Ceetcee bowed her head. I nodded, swallowing back the bitter taste in my mouth.
“The Conclave will proceed,” Doran shouted. The guards in the air repeated his words while the guards on the plinth turned to the Singers, checking their bindings, offering them muzz. All refused. Even Moc.
This time, none on the towers cheered.