Cloudbound Read online

  Aliati stared at the map. “Channeling wind is easier than making it disappear.”

  “I saw what they used. I didn’t understand how it worked, but I saw it. Like windbeaters’ wings, but on a spindle. They made the fledges turn it.”

  Ciel backed me up. “This is what happened.”

  “Can you draw it?” Beliak held out a bone tablet and a piece of charcoal, but Ciel knelt in the dust instead. She drew the mechanism. “They used it to get more fledges. Pulled them right from the sky. Like they knew where we were.”

  Like they knew when they’d be flying past.

  “Nat?” Ezarit stared at me like a hawk. I’d made a noise in surprise.

  “Doran had asked Kirit when we’d be leaving Grigrit, and where we were headed. We were bringing the codex—”

  I stopped. The codex. My hands went to the satchel I’d carried through the clouds. It was light. The flap was loose. No. Not like the arrows. I said a windprayer and opened the bag.

  One bone page and several cracked pieces remained where once there were four hard-won codex pages.

  My mouth tasted sour as I lifted the remaining page from the satchel. It weighed what a large gosling would, and was as awkward to hold. The left side was drilled for a binding. Marks scored both sides, carefully carved in Singer script.

  Wik whispered, “Conclave.” He peered into Kirit’s satchel, searching for more. Tugged a brass plate loose from the lining. His finger tapped the metal but didn’t pull it from Kirit’s bag. “Where are the rest? Where did you find this?” He whispered so low I suspected that Aliati couldn’t hear. But I could, and Moc. Ciel too.

  “In the Spire.”

  He closed the satchel tightly. “Singer lore only hints about metal plates, brought up from below, stolen by thieves. Dangerous myths. Best not to show those to anyone right now.” He meant before the vote.

  More Singer secrets. This time, one I was carrying. “I don’t like secrets, Wik.”

  He looked at me, green eyes set deep above his hawk nose. “Sometimes secrets are dangerous. Sometimes they keep people from harming one another.”

  Ezarit lifted the Conclave page from my hands and flipped it over. The other side held transactions with nearby towers. “I can’t read much of this, but I see the time line.”

  She could trace back Conclaves. The two before Spirefall. Then a long stretch of peace with one Conclave. Before that, a large one, with many marks. Her finger rested there. Below her finger lay a mark for my father. Even now, so many years later, I felt fear, anger. This codex page would not be the balm Kirit had hoped for with the council. Instead, it would fuel Doran’s drive for our own Conclave.

  “We have to find another way to stop the vote,” I said. Looking up, I realized Ezarit might or might not know I’d been involved, but she would soon. “The vote for appeasing the city.”

  She stared at me. “That vote happened yesterday. It passed.”

  You missed council. You never miss council!

  “Birds went out this morning,” Beliak said. “The towers are split. The city’s been rumbling for days.” He frowned. “This is what you were advocating for, not too long ago.” He said it gently, though we hadn’t talked about it ever at home. I’d obeyed Doran and kept my mouth shut. Not now, though.

  “I was wrong.” We were, all of us, wrong.

  Beliak let out a deep breath. “Much of the northwest is protesting. Sending messages. Organizing.” He looked about to say more, but stopped. Focused on Ciel’s dust-drawing again.

  “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” I asked.

  Beliak didn’t look up from the drawing. “Why didn’t you?”

  I groaned. “I’ll fix this.” This was my doing, and Doran’s. We’d convinced the south and the east to vote for Doran’s proposal. “I’d hoped to tell the council what I’d learned from Kirit. To talk about how the Singers and fledges are faring now and how they’ve been punished enough, especially the ones who weren’t Singer leaders. I should have listened more, earlier.” How they were blamed for things they didn’t do. Now what? Would a protest make a difference?

  “You’re not the only one, Nat,” Ezarit agreed. “Good people were swayed. I’d hoped Kirit would—that the codex would…” Her words trailed off. “But it may be too late now.”

  It couldn’t be too late. “The city has enormous problems, and a Conclave isn’t going to solve most of them. Won’t Doran, of all people, understand that?”

  “You’re Doran’s apprentice, you know how determined he is,” Ezarit began. “I couldn’t take you on myself, and you needed a strong guide.” Her words made sense, somewhat. The couldn’t still burned.

  “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” The words left my lips before I’d thought through their impact.

  Ezarit winced. “It was politics, taking on Hiroli. A favor to Doran for keeping Kirit’s seat open. But I should have watched more carefully.”

  I nodded. That made some sense.

  She continued, “Doran’s vision for the future is powerful. But, Nat, you must understand, he can get caught up by his goals and lose sight of what’s important. He’s easily tripped up by his need for loyalty. I’d hoped you might help moderate him at some point, once you learned enough. Instead, we’ve been working at cross purposes for some time.”

  “Doran’s good at maneuvering around dissent.” And instead of moderating him, I’d helped him maneuver. “Why didn’t you tell me?” But how could she have, without undermining a fellow councilor? Doran hadn’t been entirely wrong that action was necessary. “Your patience, your compromises won’t fix things quickly enough either. Not with the riots above the clouds; not with what is happening to the Spire below.”

  She tapped her lips with a finger, thinking about what I’d said. “Maybe not. But I wanted to try, to give the city a chance to heal. The whole city. Kirit taught me that.”

  Kirit. Her name kicked the wind from my chest. They were searching for her, I knew, but it didn’t matter. I’d lost her. “On the net, after we fell, she fought her way free and was gone. I didn’t go after her.” Gone, into the clouds, with a bad leg and a torn wing. On my watch.

  She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be.

  “She’d risk a fall in order to fight, yes.” Ezarit stared out at the clouds, her face unreadable. The balcony was quieter now that the fledges had lain down to sleep. “You’ll understand soon. There’s nothing you won’t do to protect your own.” She spoke to me and to Beliak now. “At his best, Doran’s that way too.” She chewed her words, thinking her ideas through before she spoke. “I regret what I said to you when you landed.”

  “I’m sorry for not telling you about the vote.” A secret of my own. I’d kept things from Kirit too. I was not so much better than the Singers. And Ezarit—knowing now that she’d had plans for me, but had been waiting to tell me—that was the hardest secret of all. All for politics. Had it been worth it? What had we lost?

  Ezarit frowned, speaking to everyone now. “It’s the secrecy that causes so many problems. Lining up game pieces—and allies—to win a vote or a point. We can’t move forward with a future bartered on secrets. And we cannot erase our past. We might as well ban singing.”

  “Doran considered that.” The surprise on her face caught me off guard. “He decided it would be a ridiculous gesture,” I added. “We need the songs. All of them—even the lost ones.”

  Wik, Aliati, and Beliak had stopped looking at the map to listen. Several fledges watched from the sleeping mats. Ezarit stepped back and included everyone in the tier when she spoke next.

  “The Singers did many wrong things.” She looked at Wik, who nodded once. “But they kept the towers safe. They knew we lived on the knife’s edge here. Now we know it too. And there are different ideas for how to proceed. Different is not bad; it just takes longer.”

  Her words were conciliatory. Doran’s had never been so. “I thought Doran a good mentor. A good leader. I wanted to do as he asked.” I couldn’t rais
e my eyes from my hands. I twisted the silk message cord into tighter knots.

  “Councilor Densira,” Ezarit said with so much grace in her voice my breath caught, listening, “you were doing your duty for the council. I understand that you did your best in extraordinary circumstances.”

  I looked at her then. My mother’s best friend. My second mother, if I was honest with myself. They’d made a family out of pieces left by tragedy. I’d hero-worshipped her from infancy, even as I fought with Kirit. I’d been jealous that she hadn’t chosen me to mentor. But she’d spoken words of understanding, while her daughter was missing and I wasn’t. This was leadership too. Grace in times of great pain. Attempts at compromise, when I suspected anger and fear for her family rippled beneath her breast. I hadn’t understood that you could feel both at the same time, not until recently.

  Ezarit had always seemed as if she knew her path, and Kirit’s, a long rise, straight up. That path hadn’t seemed to include me, nor Elna, and I’d longed for that kind of direction. But families didn’t always work the way they looked, and they were complicated. Ezarit was family too, and Kirit. I’d not forgotten, but I’d been blinded to it by the turmoil in the city. By what I’d wanted for myself.

  My family now was a complex construct, a web of sinew and bone, bridges and chasms. The missing were as important as those who had always been there, and those whom I’d grown close to over the past few Allmoons. We might rise, but we could also fall. Same as any family. Someone threatened family of mine? I’d take them down as far as they could go.

  Ezarit spoke again, this time to everyone still awake in the tier. “The council is souring. The towers are close to turning on one another. We cannot lead the city the way we need to. We need to stop leading out of fear and anger.” She meant the vote. She meant me. “But we do need decisive action. On that point, Doran is correct, and I am prepared to act also.”

  Was she advocating for Conclave? I must have looked shocked.

  “We can never undo a Conclave,” Wik said, speaking my thoughts. The fledges watched Ezarit intently.

  “I don’t want a Conclave,” she said. “I want the city to come together, and a Conclave provides only a false resolution. There are too many disturbances. The riots show there are many wounds left unhealed from Spirefall. We must address that directly.”

  “But first,” Aliati said, “we need to stop the Conclave.” She touched Ezarit’s shoulder. “Get everyone looking for Kirit. Singers too. We’ll find her.”

  Ezarit’s shoulders sagged.

  “The protest tomorrow at the council plinth,” Beliak said. “I don’t think it will stop the Conclave, but some are hoping to try.” He looked guiltily at me, as if he’d kept a secret, or planned to join them. Then he said, “Ceetcee and Elna among them.”

  The thought of Doran shouting at my family for interfering brought me to my feet. “They can’t. Elna’s too ill. Ceetcee could get hurt.”

  “Elna’s frail, and skyblind,” Ezarit said. “But she wants to speak, and we should hear her. She’s taught me much over the years, and she’s stronger than you know. Ceetcee too.”

  She was right, and I knew it.

  Ezarit pointed to the bucket of heartbone and the fledges. “If we combine strategies, Nat, and add your proof of what’s happening beneath the clouds, we could stop this. We have to try.”

  * * *

  A kavik and a whipperling landed one after another on the balcony and chattered at us. Sunlight laid rainbows on the kavik’s deep black wings and mottled the whipperling. The bone chips at their ankles dragged on the tier floor.

  Aliati bent to release the yellow silk cord from the whipperling’s claw. “Hiroli is bringing wings for the fledges,” she said, nodding at Ezarit. “Your apprentice is resourceful.” She lifted the next message chips from the kavik. The red cord dangled from her fingers as she groaned in alarm. “Guards are coming for the Singers. Soon.”

  “Already?” Ezarit’s face fell. “They didn’t want to wait and risk more dissent.”

  In the past, when Singers called for a Conclave, there had been little warning, and less resistance.

  Beliak scratched a message on the chip’s flat side. “I’ll let Ceetcee and the protesters know.” He began to tie the message to the kavik’s leg.

  “Use the whipperling,” Ezarit said. “Kaviks have been unreliable lately.” Her brow wrinkled. She was thinking hard. “I need to return to council. Let them know you have been found. Try—” She paused. Pressed her lips together. “When Hiroli brings the wings, you must hurry.”

  The fledges gathered around her, but didn’t press. They watched her tighten her wingstraps. Within the furled silk, we could see the beak of the tea-dyed kestrel that marked her wings. Not a whipperling leader, after all.

  She hugged Beliak and me. Pressed Wik’s tattooed hand between hers, and then put her arm around Ciel. “It will be all right. You’ll see.”

  Then she turned from us and unfurled her wings. Leapt from the balcony and swept a strong gust around Bissel, north and east towards the council plinth.

  When she was gone, the tier seemed smaller. Emptier. Wik and Beliak spoke softly to the fledges and looked at the map.

  Aliati nudged me. “Let me see the plate that Wik found in your satchel,” Aliati said. “The one he doesn’t want anyone to see.”

  “I thought you were going to look for Kirit.”

  “I am. As soon as Hiroli arrives with the fledges’ wings and the guards come for Wik.”

  I hoped Hiroli would hurry. That the guards would be slow. Opening the satchel, I pushed the codex page back to reveal the brass plate. Tilted it to the sunlight so that Aliati could see.

  Across the tier, Wik rose from where he and Beliak studied the search map and started to protest. But then he quieted and knelt again, the Lawsmarkers rattling his shoulders. Beliak came over to us.

  “I can’t read these symbols,” Aliati complained. “There are a few scavenger marks. This one says ‘trade’ but not what for.”

  “I can’t read any of it,” I said. “Wik said to keep it hidden.”

  Aliati frowned. “Do you think that’s a good idea? Singer secrets. We could tell Ezarit, tomorrow.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t imagine what tomorrow would be like, if Conclave happened. What had I done? A lifetime ago. I wished I could go back and fix it all. That Kirit were here. She could stop them.

  But they had me instead. And four fledges. We would have to stop the Conclave with the truth. No more secrets.

  Three guards landed first. Two wearing hunter blue wings, with a net. One blackwing. The blackwing pulled a small bladder of muzz from his belt. Carried it to Wik.

  “You drink that,” Wik said.

  The blackwing held up his free hand, as if to strike the Singer.

  “Leave it,” the first hunter said. “His choice.” They hauled Wik to his feet, scattering the map of flight paths.

  “Let him go! Let him fly on his own!” Moc rushed the guards and tried to pry their fingers from his uncle’s arms. His face was fierce, but his eyes swam with tears.

  The second hunter lifted Moc off his feet. “You’re that Singer fledge?” Moc’s Lawsmarkers rattled at his wrists. “Danger to tower?”

  “Bring him too,” the blackwing said.

  “No!” Beliak and I moved to pull Moc away, while Ciel and Aliati yelled at the guards, calling them monsters, skytouched. Worse than Singers. Fledges dragged at guards’ robes, their wings. Beliak landed a punch and was pushed to the ground.

  “I’m a councilor!” I shouted. “Stop this.” But the guards bound Moc’s wrists and ankles with spidersilk. They tied Wik too. Made him climb into the net that all three guards dragged to the edge.

  We shouted more, but the guards held us off. Even me. A councilor.

  The blue-winged hunters leapt in tandem, pulling the net from the ledge behind them, and circling up, working the gusts hard until they flew level with the tier again. The blackwing attached Moc
to a bone hook and strong-armed the struggling boy off the ledge with him.

  Without another word, they were gone. Flying towards the council platform.

  “I’ll follow them,” Beliak said. We raced to tighten his wingstraps. He met and held my eyes. “You’re back. You’ll stay? No more clouds?” He didn’t look worried that I was skytouched any longer. Instead, he looked worried that I’d disappear.

  “No more clouds,” I said. Until I led the council to investigate Dix’s Treason, I could keep that promise. He gripped my arm, tight, then turned to the sky.

  Time slowed as Beliak unfurled his wings and leapt from the tier. By the time he’d found a strong gust, the guards and their burdens were already black specks on the far horizon, disappearing fast.

  10

  THE COUNCIL

  By the time Hiroli arrived from the southeast with five pairs of fledge wings strapped to her chest, the six of us who remained at Bissel stood arrayed on the tier, staring out.

  “Where’s Ezarit?” Hiroli asked. “I have messages for her.”

  “Council plinth,” Aliati said. “Urgent business.” She’d been gathering the map and markers from the tier floor. Now she straightened and, with the air of someone who’d rarely done it but knew what was proper, bowed to the junior councilwoman. “You are welcome here, Risen.”

  Hiroli blushed, then untied the wingsets. She counted fledge heads. “I thought you said…”

  Ciel stared at her, cheeks streaked with spent tears. “Give me a pair, quick.”

  With a confused laugh, Hiroli handed the girl a wingset. “We’ll all go together,” she cautioned, as Ciel fumbled with the straps. We quickly told Hiroli what had happened.

  When she’d finished, Ciel took the remaining wingset and tied it to her chest. “For Moc.” Her eyes defied anyone to challenge her.