Heartbeats counted loud time on the quiet tier. I grabbed for the kavik to see the message for myself. The bird was large, and when it opened its wings in panic at my approaching hands, it seemed for a moment to block the sky. A rude bird. But it didn’t take flight. It snapped its beak at me, a stranger with no food. Tilted its head. Cackled.
So different than Maalik. Who was safe, I hoped. Beliak had sent him to the protesters. To Ceetcee, I knew now. Maalik knew her by sight. And Ceetcee was safe.
But I wondered at this kavik. “It doesn’t know me.” Kaviks of the same quadrant knew almost everyone. Like whipperlings, kaviks remembered faces. They seemed to share information among themselves as well: who carried food, who threw bone chips at them. There were no strangers. We were in the northwest, barely. “I’ve flown this quadrant since I was a fledge. Why does this kavik not know me?”
Hiroli shook her head. She didn’t know. She’d woven a few glass beads into her dark hair, like Ezarit. They sparkled cheerfully in the light, but her face was smudged and scraped. “Sent from the south, maybe?” She bundled up the message skein so Moc could not see that he was named, and flapped her hand at the bird until it flew away. “The messages blame the Singers for Spirefall and for this attack, both. They sound sure of it. But I think the surviving council needs to know what you saw.”
Hiroli was already tightening her wingstraps. “We’ll go up to Ezarit’s tier, uptower. She’ll stop this.”
Ezarit hasn’t been able to stop anything, not for a long time. Not even a vote within her own council.
Viridi groaned; the side where she’d been snared by the bone spur oozed dark blood.
“I don’t think she’ll fly well,” I said.
“Then you have to leave her.” Hiroli didn’t flinch at the thought. She was accustomed to obeying Fortify: towers must secure themselves, and people too.
But the Law didn’t end there. Except in city’s dire need. This certainly qualified.
“I won’t leave her. This tier would turn her in or let her die alone. She doesn’t deserve that.” As Moc watched with wide eyes, I bent to whisper to the Singer, knowing these might be the last words she heard. “Risen, we must move again. You’re injured. If you choose to go with us, I regret any suffering this causes you.”
“I am tired, Councilor,” she slurred, her eyes still closed. So soft was her speech, I wondered if I imagined her words.
“We’ll go up,” I decided. To the towertop. Eight tiers, maybe. There might be medicine up there. Water.
I lifted her again in my arms. She felt lighter now, her face still, frozen in a mask of pain. She’d died rather than fly again. I closed my eyes and lowered the body to the tier floor, unable to look at Moc.
“Aunt Viridi?” Moc whispered.
I barely kept myself from falling to my knees on the lowtower balcony. I’d wanted to take her to safety. Instead, I’d carried a Singer to her death.
Stifling my grief made my headache worse. I envied Moc’s barefaced sorrow. He’d sung to her. He’d watched her die. His family. He looked suddenly very young, his face a mask of snot and tears.
I understood the feeling, even if I kept my emotions barricaded now. If anything had happened to my family … Though I knew they were safe, or had been, my heart raced at the thought.
My family. I had to get to them, but couldn’t move as Moc sobbed. The whispers behind the shutters increased.
Moc turned from Viridi’s body and rushed at the doors, his fists balled as if intent on breaking them down.
Hiroli grabbed him and tried to calm the boy, but he sobbed louder. How could I calm him? Wrestling him into the sky wouldn’t do that, no matter how badly we needed to leave.
What would Elna do? She’d feed Moc. Get him water. We had none. She’d sing. That took time. Meantime, my heart pounded questions: Who survived? Is my family safe?
I knelt by the fledge and put my hand on his head. “We’ll sing Remembrances for her.” It would have to be quick.
Moc sniffled. “Singers don’t have Remembrances.”
“What do you have?” Hiroli asked. Did you have, I silently corrected her.
Moc bowed his head. “Their passage was marked in the codex. Their body fed the clouds, like everyone.” He stopped crying, but his face was mottled with red splotches.
Tobiat had told me once that the Singers kept our culture intact when we rose through the clouds. “The Singers trained in every tower song and Remembrance tradition, for the towers.”
Moc shivered. Wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His eyes, blue like his sister’s, were ringed bright pink. “Ciel was studying those, before.”
Very gently and still trying to think how Elna would talk to the fledge, but feeling every moment pass, I asked, “What’s a favorite ritual, from any tower?”
He shook his head, so mired in grief, he couldn’t help us help him.
We were so close to the clouds here. So close to death ourselves. I sang Remembrance softly, under my breath, the way Densira and its neighbors did these things. I tried not to rush it. Hiroli joined me.
Return on the wind, friend.
The city marks your passage.
We let silence hang in the air when we finished singing, and we all looked up to say good-bye. The sun was still high above us. We didn’t look down, not at the clouds, nor at the smoke still lingering, patchy, in the sky.
I heard Moc gasping beside me, trying to stop crying. I bit my cheek hard.
“That was good,” he finally said.
“I can let her go into the clouds, all right? You fly with Hiroli to Bissel’s lowtower. Hide there. Aliati should be back from her search for Kirit soon. She’ll need to know about the attack.”
Moc nodded again. Hiroli stared at me. I took her aside.
“You have to guard him. They’ll take him. He had nothing to do with this.” She wore black wings. I was betting she could fend off the searchers. I couldn’t take the fledge where I needed to go next.
She pressed her lips together. “We’ll wait for you there.” She lifted Moc and flew him away, closer to the clouds.
I used a tether to lower the Singer from the tower. Viridi’s body disappeared into the clouds, carving a hole in the mist that slowly closed up as the air forgot her name.