As I pulled myself up through shifting gusts towards the top of Varu, my shoulders ached like I, too, was once more draped with Lawsmarkers. Smoke and sorrow pressed painfully against my temples.
I circled until I found a clear draft to Ezarit’s tier, where she’d likely be protected by guards. If blackwings searched for me, they would find me there. I’d make the hunt easy for them.
The sky had emptied of fliers. Towertops and tiers nearest the missing council platform, once crowded with colorful robes and wings, now stood stark and nearly deserted. This portion of the city had obeyed the order to Fortify.
A small clutch of people remained on the balcony of Varu’s topmost tier. Ezarit’s quarters. As I coasted closer, I spotted Ceetcee’s yellow wings wedged tight between two sets of black.
Blackwings hunt traitors. The tier was not being protected. It was being guarded.
Blackwing guards circled wary above Varu. I set aside my exhaustion, determined to take the hawk’s path. Silent and dangerous. Sharp and sudden.
They wouldn’t see the junior councilor; they’d see a hero of Spirefall.
The nearest guard met me in the air. Though I approached alone, she whistled to her fellows to warn them. I rolled, letting her streak past as I slashed out with my knife hand. My blade nicked a black silk wing, and I heard a satisfying rip.
I didn’t look to see where she tumbled.
Fighting to regain my flight angle, I almost overshot the tower. Instead of circling again, I tucked my wings and spilled air, dropping fast. Only at the last minute did I extend the spans to slow my fall, landing hard on the balcony.
I shook off the impact and moved faster, not bothering to furl my wings. Silk seams fluttered in the wind as I strode towards the little group. They stood before a seated man wearing torn, embroidered robes. I pushed the next guard who rushed at me with the blunt handle of my blade. I didn’t want to hurt them. They were watching for attacking Singers. Not a lone councilor, with a singular goal.
They will let Ceetcee go, or they will take me in her place. I rounded on the group and saw Elna seated on a stool, bracing her back against my partner’s legs. Elna also. The two women shivered in the cooling air, Ciel kneeling between them.
Could I convince the guards to let them go? Beliak sat on the tier floor, wrists bound, eye swelling, as if he’d already tried to free them, and lost. And Beliak. All of them.
Could I convince Ezarit and the council to free them?
While the guards in the air had been patrolling the sky, the guards on the tier were caught between watching their charges—Ceetcee, Elna, Beliak, and Ciel—and coming after me.
Ezarit was nowhere to be seen. Her tier was wide open, unfortified. Furnishings from inside her quarters—several cushions from Amrath, two bone stools, had been repositioned so that Doran sat beneath the towertop’s shelter, while Elna and the others remained outside. I heard the notes of Ezarit’s scavenged metal wind chime from somewhere deep inside the tier.
Doran had arranged the seats so that he could speak eye-to-eye with Elna. It was considerate, and put him at a disadvantage.
I was beside him in three strides. As he turned, I sheathed my knife. Still, the guard to Ceetcee’s right immediately lifted a blade to her shoulder. The blackwings in the sky circled closer. Another guard shifted their knife grip, preparing to throw, if necessary.
Doran held a hand up wearily. “The councilor isn’t our enemy.” He turned his ash-smudged face to me. “Are you?”
He’d named me a councilor still. Confusing, given the message chips. Given everything that had happened today.
“Where is Kirit, Nat? Did you help her escape? My own apprentice?” Doran rarely asked so many questions. He preferred to know answers before a discussion. His clothing, too, was in disarray.
“I didn’t collude with anyone. I’m loyal to this city. As is everyone here, and Kirit too. I don’t know where she is, but I know she wouldn’t attack the council, or her family.”
At least, the Kirit I’d grown up with wouldn’t do that.
“And you, Doran? Are you loyal to the city?” I inclined my head towards the guards, forcing calm I didn’t possess. Dix was nowhere in sight, but even so, asking was a risk. Still, I had to know.
A heartbeat passed. Another. Doran bowed his head and waved “stand down,” to the guards. Then he stood, shakily, lifted a water sack, and sipped at it. He held the sack out, offering it to me. I drank my fill, and the pain in my head began to release.
He bowed, formally, and I could see the pain it caused him. “This is a day of great tragedy. You are welcome here, Councilor Densira. You flew well today, in the city’s name. I am loyal to the city, same as you. And yet I may have trusted in the loyalty of others too much.” From Doran, it was a powerful apology.
It was also a strange greeting for a guest from another tower. “Where is Ezarit?” She should have greeted me, not Doran.
“We haven’t found her yet. She disappeared chasing a Singer.” He spoke truth. I’d seen the same. “Macal leads the search for her. Meantime, I’ve quartered here by necessity, to be close to the scene of the attack and await her return.” His words were quiet and tinged with despair. But as the drink cleared my mind, doubt began to nag again. Had Doran been surprised by the attack, or was he pretending?
He sounded truly concerned for Ezarit’s safety, though he’d tried to outmaneuver her.
Beyond Doran, Ceetcee met my gaze, her clear brown eyes set and determined. She’d spoken her conscience today. I knew that look. She would take their censure and plan to speak her conscience again, no matter how many Lawsmarkers they gave her. But as long as I was still a councilor, there’d be no such punishment. She’d had a right to speak, as every citizen did since Spirefall. As they had, at least, until the council attack.
The two guards I’d pushed through to get to the tier landed, one carrying the other. They glared at me. Beyond Doran, Elna looked exhausted, but she was unharmed. Beliak’s left eye was now swollen shut. No one spoke. Ceetcee’s lips shaped silent words: “We are fine.”
That calmed me a little, as she’d meant it to do.
“And the fledges?” I didn’t see the children I’d rescued from the Spire.
“Taken to Mondarath, so Macal’s people can watch over them.” Doran shifted in his seat. At his shoulder, a wound blossomed beneath a bandage. “Nat, I thought we’d prepared for Conclave; we took the Singers’ wings away, sequestered them. That we could not be attacked like this.” He was right. We had done all those things. “How could this happen?”
“How, indeed?” Kirit hadn’t trusted him, and I hardly could either now, but I needed his help. I tested him. “With respect, you seem shocked by the day’s events, Councilor.”
“Weren’t you? This is a terrible day.”
Dawning possibilities. Doran had played Ezarit into a corner with the horns and Conclave. But the attack had foiled his plans to assume full leadership. Perhaps he was as surprised as the rest of us.
“I made many mistakes today,” he said. He had been caught off guard: Doran didn’t admit mistakes. But he continued, “I should have hunted down every single Singer and kept them from colluding. Their secrets and lies endangered us all for too long. Now I have endangered my council. My city.” His words outraged me, but his grief didn’t seem to be an act.
I weighed what I knew of him—that he loved the challenge of council leadership, the give and take of debate, that he had a vision for the city that demanded compliance and loyalty. Ezarit had spoken about him bargaining for advantage, and Kirit had warned that Doran did not like to be opposed in his own tower.
Elna had opposed him with her speech, and Ceetcee, by rousing the protestors, but they hadn’t scuttled his wind entirely. Conclave would have proceeded, until the attack. This hadn’t been his doing.
“So many are missing.” Doran’s shoulders bowed. Someone had nearly pulled the wings from his back. He put his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands. “I thought we knew where every Singer was. I thought you were tracing the runaways.”
He suspected the fledges now? “Those were adults on the plinth. Singers had nothing to do with the attack.” What I’d seen—and hadn’t—was proof. “The attackers’ faces? I saw no tattoos.” I pointed at the guards. “They might as well have been these blackwings. And where are all the confiscated gray wings stored? How would anyone get hold of more?”
Doran looked up at me. Made as if to rise, but sat back down heavily. “Kirit goes missing and then there’s an attack. The towers can see that she wears gray wings. They want a simple answer, so they can move on.”
The smoking remains of the council platform had no simple answers. I doubted there was a simple enemy.
The nearest guard cleared his throat. “I didn’t see tattoos either.” Doran frowned at him, then nodded, considering his statement.
Pitching my voice so everyone assembled on the tier could hear me, I made my proposal. “Someone wants the city to blame the Singers for this. If you’re not behind the attack, Doran, you’re playing right into their hands.”
The nearest guard drew her knife again. She closed her fingers around the grip. “Don’t speak that way, Densira.”
“Let him speak.” Doran’s order weakened to a smoke-filled cough at the end.
Keeping my eyes on Doran to better see his reaction, I made a plain shot, right at the matter’s heart. “I believe Dix is behind this.” No preamble. “Your fighter. How are you not involved?”
He frowned. “Dix is many things, apparently. But how could she launch an attack when she was been busy battling you in a wingfight?”
The guards looked at me, impassive. Ceetcee’s mouth was a sharp line of distaste. She’d never seen Doran in a council debate until today. He might be weakened by surprise, but he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to throw an opponent off balance, just like on the council platform. By reminding everyone that I’d lost, again, he’d tried to discredit me once more. But I didn’t relax my focus. “Dix left right after the fight. There was enough time, barely, to fly south. To signal or send a bird.” I waited a beat to let that sink in. “And she’s been weakening the Spire below the clouds. Making a gas that would float a platform like that one.” Just like that platform. Doran knew.
A long pause. Overhead, a kavik screeched at us, then flew towards the northwest. “I know of Dix’s operation,” Doran acknowledged. He tried to keep his voice low, but everyone heard.
Silence barricaded the wide-open tier, like shutters sealed the tiers below; the guards’ faces were expressionless.
My friends looked between us in confusion.
“You knew?” Beliak rose, as if to move towards us. A guard grabbed his arm.
Doran shifted, uncomfortable on the stool now that he was under scrutiny. “It was for the future. At some point, towers will stop growing as we need them to. The city’s too crowded to sustain that. The Singers knew we were close. They saw the towers slowing, their tiers getting more crowded, more brittle. We need the gases from the heartbone—”
I raised both hands in frustration, then lowered them slowly, calming Beliak. Kirit had been right not to trust Doran. “You knew of it. Who’s to say you didn’t know of the attack in advance too? You were pleased to see the Spire in danger, called it advantageous. Why not escalate?”
“I don’t agree with Dix’s methods, some of which I’ve only recently learned. But the heartbone was a necessity. And, Nat, I would never. An attack on the council is an attack on myself.” He put his head back in his hands, then scrubbed at his hair with his fingernails. “So many of our people hurt.”
He sounded truly unsettled, matching my own feelings. I remembered now that in the confusion, Doran had been among the first to shout, “Fly!” the first to sound the alarm. He’d seen the danger and thought of the people’s safety. And was as sure now that the Singers were behind this.
Was I still certain they weren’t?
Yes, he was manipulative and angry enough to pit me against Dix in order to fight to speak, but seeing him in disarray underscored the possibility he hadn’t planned for this. Was it an act? Kirit would say maybe. I wavered. His wording still felt wrong: “necessity.”
He saw my indecision and gripped my forearm. “I’ve made mistakes and trusted the wrong people. Now there is no time to waste, Nat. There are few enough guards, and fewer councilors who can keep the city from falling into chaos. There are calls for Macal to step down, and I need his vote. I need your help.”
My family, assembled between the guards, watched us. “You have an odd way of showing it.”
“Nat, your family aren’t prisoners!” He looked shocked that I thought so. “I kept them here for their protection. The towers are raging, Nat, at what’s happened to their councilors, their friends and relatives.” He reached to pat Elna’s hand. Elna gently pulled her fingers away from his touch.
“Spurred on by the kavik messages.” I gestured for the message chips. Held them up on their yellow silk cord.
Doran looked at the chips, brow wrinkling. “Those aren’t from me. Show me the bird?” He hadn’t sent the message.
“Hiroli sent it back.” The bird hadn’t recognized me, and I hadn’t recognized the bird. Curious.
“I’ll look into it,” Doran said. “Angry towerfolk—including from Densira, where Vant is missing—have already tried to attack the protesters in the air. They might have forged message chips as well. Your mother and Ceetcee were in danger, so I kept them here. I did that for you, Nat.”
Doran’s heavy brows arched over his dark eyes. Worry for the city and confusion about what was happening etched his face. The attack. The message birds. Someone had gotten the drop on him. Were they Spire or Tower?
He continued, “We are holding the surviving Singers. We’ll find the rest soon. And then we will have a true Conclave. End this once and for all.”
A Conclave, still. “You are making a mistake,” I said. “That won’t end it. You have a traitor in your midst. Even after a Conclave, the traitor will remain.”
“But who? Dix? Where is the proof? She’s done important work for the city, and has her own following in council. No one should accuse her without credible proof. Besides, she’s sent a bird already. During the attack, her most talented artifex was kidnapped.” He shook me lightly. “Don’t you see? Perhaps there is a traitor, but it can’t be Dix. She is loyal to me.” I tensed so I would not shake him back. I was more sure than ever that it was Dix.
Whether his intent was good didn’t matter right now. Doran had created a culture where power needed an enemy to work against. Now it seemed to be working against him. For a moment, I’d thought he’d heard me. But then he shook his head.
“You’re reacting out of shock, Nat. The towers will demand justice, as soon as possible. And, if you are loyal to the city, I need you here. You are a hero. You showed compassion today, but now you need to help lead us out of this.”
He needed me still. Was that a ripple of worry beneath his bravado? I pressed my case. “What if attacks continue after the Singers are thrown down? Who falls under suspicion next?” The fledges? The protesters? Macal? I couldn’t allow that.
Doran pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. Worry building, I continued. “I see other possibilities. As head of council, you can give me time to investigate. To bring back proof that the Singers didn’t do this. That someone else plots against the council, and against you.”
He leaned back, intertwined his fingers into a towertop. “Your point about attacks continuing is a real risk. And perhaps showing myself to be fair during difficult times cannot hurt me. I’ll give you until Allmoons to make sure I’m right.”
Allmoons was only two days away. I had to figure out where to begin and how to keep my family safe. Doran looked at where the council plinth once hung, then down over the tower’s edge. “Although I am afraid what you seek is lost in the clouds.”
Memory of falling through mist and smoke. Of being pulled down and fighting free. I took a deep breath. “Then I will go into the clouds.”
For a moment, the tier was so silent, we could hear the family below lighting their cook fire and preparing dinner behind their barricade.
“You can’t be serious,” Doran said.
I’d survived the clouds twice already, even if I hadn’t gone very deep. And that was where the fallen council plinth would be. That was where I’d find answers. “I’m very serious. I’ll start from the remains of the attack, if I can find it, and work backwards to prove that it wasn’t the Singers. That it was Dix.”
“And I’ll go with him,” Beliak said. He shook his guard free and came to stand beside me. Maalik wriggled from Beliak’s pocket and flapped to my shoulder.
Beyond the balcony, the sky turned pink at the clouds’ edges. These were shorter days as we approached Allmoons. Any survivors unfound by now would be stranded in the clouds’ dark chill.
Below us, the city rumbled.
Doran stood, shakily. “Until you prove otherwise, I must hold the Singers responsible for attacking the council. They will be hunted in the city and punished on Allmoons. I cannot go against the city’s will any longer than that. But I will give you until then.” He waved at a guard, who gently raised Elna to her feet, then pulled Ceetcee forward.
Every muscle in my body tensed. “Leave them out of this.”
“On the contrary, Elna put herself into it, with her rousing speech,” Doran said. “She must be protected. She’ll wait with me, and will be well cared for while you search for your proof that the Singers aren’t behind this attack.” A marker held as a guarantee against us escaping? Perhaps. But he would not harm her. I believed that. “And you, Ceetcee Densira. What will we do with you?”
Beliak tensed beside me. I twisted the silk cord at my wrist until my pulse throbbed against it. They could not keep her, but I wanted her safe.
“I will go with them,” Ceetcee said. Not a drop of fear in her voice. “And we’ll take Ciel. She can echo, and in case the towers turn on the Singer fledges, she’ll be safer with us.” She took the fledge’s hand and walked to stand with us without waiting for permission. Her fingertips brushed the heel of my hand.
Doran bowed his head. “Very well. You have two days until Allmoons. You will go beneath the clouds immediately. No lingering, or I’ll worry that you are in danger, or colluding. Send me a message by whipperling if you do find answers, or come here. And I will do one thing more, because I want you to know how important you are to me. I’ll give you supplies: tethers, food, grappling claws. The clouds are dangerous, and few return. You may find answers there, or you may find something sharper of tooth. I’d like to see you come back to the city and help it grow past this tragedy.”
Worry blew through the tier like an eastern wind. Cold and ruthless. I’d convinced him to hear me, but at what cost?
Ceetcee stood to my left, her long braids glittering, her clear brown eyes and long eyelashes the things I loved to see first each day. Beliak’s rope-strong arms rippled beneath his robes too. His cropped hair and gap-tooth grin made him look younger than his twenty Allmoons.
Below the city, the clouds had swallowed Kirit Skyshouter, my wing-sister, the council, and all those on the platform who had not escaped.
Now the city held my mother hostage while two I loved most in the world were headed with me below the city, into the all-devouring clouds.