Cloudbound Page 5

  “What preparations?” I asked, forgetting we weren’t in private conversation. I’d not heard Doran mention any preparations.

  The Councilor ground his teeth. I began to see why Kirit had stayed bowed. Doran at home in Grigrit was not appreciative of, or accustomed to, being crossed. He was much more malleable in council.

  But at the same time I’d asked my question, Kirit said, “And I found it. You must keep your end of the bargain.”

  For the first time in a long time, I was almost completely in the dark. That seemed to happen a lot around Kirit. She’d mentioned a bargain in the Spire, although Doran hadn’t brought it up when he’d first proposed I accompany her on the expedition. But Kirit hadn’t explained what the bargain was. I hated being a game piece. Honesty was the only way out. “What bargain?”

  Neither of them looked at me. “That you did,” Doran said. “But the council leadership won’t know what to do with the pages.”

  “How do you know what to do with them?” I asked, but Doran gave me a look that said, Let me work. I knew that look from council. I’d obeyed it many times and watched admiringly as Doran maneuvered a situation to his advantage. Now my concern about whatever arrangement Kirit had tried to make with him deepened. “What was the bargain?”

  Doran raised his voice. “Councilor Densira. This is not your tower. Nor are these your citizens.”

  He’d used the honorific, but I’d touched a nerve. Interfered with a plan. And it frustrated me that I didn’t know what the plan was. No one spotted my discomfort. Doran had turned back to Kirit and was preparing to lecture her too. Kirit looked tired, her head bowing. I hated seeing that.

  My fingers caught up the chip I’d tied to my wrist; I brushed the etched surface beneath my thumb. “With respect, Councilor Grigrit,” I said. “Kirit Skyshouter is still under my protection, as she has not yet discharged her duties to the council. She must still help translate the codex.”

  Now I had their attention. Kirit’s eyes were wide, but a small smile played at the corner of her mouth. Doran’s glower deepened.

  I’d stepped into trouble again without knowing what I was up against.

  Doran calmed himself after several long moments. “You are correct, Councilor Densira. My thanks for the reminder. Will you accompany me to the balcony?”

  He turned on his heel as he said it, his half-furled wings nearly clipping me in the process. I followed him out.

  “You’d best keep an eye on the codex,” he muttered as we left the relative shelter of Kirit’s quarters. “And on your new friends.”

  “I did what you asked. I’ll keep doing it.”

  He shook his head slowly. “For the city to survive, everyone needs to cooperate, not proceed according to their own wishes. The towers that have threatened to sever their bridges? The violence that has already taken the markets? We can’t let that grow or destabilize the city. We need to rise above it.”

  “What about the Spire?” I asked. “What we saw—”

  He waved a hand. “This is much bigger than the Spire, Nat. I’ve kept you out of much so that you can deny involvement if we lose. It’s risky to do what I do—working for compromise behind the scenes—but the reward is faster action. Stick to your duties, don’t lose sight of the codex, and it may all work out anyway. After the vote tomorrow.”

  I had more questions than before. “The vote still has precedence? Even with the danger to the Spire?”

  I could barely see his face in the dark, but I knew Doran shook his head as if I were a fledge who’d wondered where the wind came from. He hadn’t used that look on me since my first few weeks on the council.

  “If the Spire falls—when it falls,” Doran said, “the Singers will be blamed for that bad luck too. As well they should be. We’ll have done our duty to the city by removing them. And if it falls after Conclave? It becomes a symbol of the city’s new hierarchy. Let it fall. We’ll keep safe the citizens in its shadow. I promise, Nat. I have a plan. And you are not, at the moment, helping me keep that plan on track.”

  I wasn’t good at duplicity. My father’s legacy to me was Spire walls riddled with holes in protest of something he thought wrong. Doran’s tone increased the suspicion I might be a game piece in a greater plan. I composed myself carefully, so he would think I was cowed but still loyal. I wasn’t sure what I was, really. “I’ll try to stick with the plan, Doran. Though it would help to know more of—”

  “Excellent. Thank you, Councilor.” Doran clamped his large hand on my shoulder. Every inch of him, down to his fingers, was taut sinew. He spun me around. “You’ll guard your charge tonight then, and see her safely to council in the morning.”

  With a push, I was back inside the tier. Seething. A moment later, with a flutter of silk unfurling and battens settling into place, Doran and his guard left the balcony.

  Kirit rose from where she’d been sitting with the novices, her back to the elder Singer.

  “Birdcrap, Kirit, what was that about?”

  She put her finger to her lips. “Nat, I need your help.” She leaned close to me. “Tomorrow, we need to find safe places for the fledges, then we must go to speak with my mother. Doran has not been honest with us. With any of us.”

  “Look, I know he is ambitious, but it’s to protect the city. He wouldn’t—”

  She interrupted me. “You saw him tonight? That is the Doran who this tower knows. No dissent. Few beyond Grigrit understand how much ambition he has. Yes, he wants to unite the city, but on his terms.”

  “The market riots are destroying the towers. Tearing the council apart.” How could she not understand the need?

  The riot at Viit especially had left the market smoke-damaged, several dead, and many citizens unnerved. I’d searched the tier in the aftermath and could remember clearly the smell of burnt stalls, even moons later. When I’d finally found Ceetcee and Beliak barricaded in their market-tier quarters, we’d bundled their things into panniers, rolled their sleeping mats, and moved them into Elna’s and my quarters at Densira that night. At Allsuns, after the tower had approved our living arrangements, we’d lit a mourning flag for Tobiat, the four of us feeling safer together. “Nowhere, not even Densira, will remain truly safe without order, Kirit.”

  “You’re right,” she said slowly, weighing each word. “And we need answers to heal the city. I thought I could bargain with the codex in order to gain more time, to help Singers and the towers work together to fix things. But hearing about the vote, and seeing Doran’s reaction tonight to the Spire news, I worried he might not keep up his end of the bargain.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you noticed the new council guard?”

  I nodded. “We need them, given the unrest. The riots.”

  “Perhaps. Some of them have fine wings for fighting.” She eyed mine. “As do you, but theirs are darker. Is the council preparing for a fight?”

  “Not that I know of. But when Singers have stirred up rebellious towers—”

  She shook her head. “Doran’s guards here are as well outfitted, maybe better, and there are many more of them here than a usual tower complement. I can’t see it straight yet. But I know now we’re barely welcome here; we’re becoming everyone’s bad luck. All of us. Tomorrow, we fly. After we find safe places for the fledges. All four of them.”

  She was counting Moc too. And Ciel. I’d forgotten to ask Doran about which tower Ciel was staying in. Tomorrow.

  “Singer?” whispered the youngest novice, Minlin, suddenly at Kirit’s elbow. Not Spire-born. Minlin had been taken by the Spire as an infant, from Viit. Now his former tower didn’t want him back. None of the northwest towers wanted to house Singers, or their fledges.

  “It’s just Kirit now.” Kirit put a hand on Minlin’s head.

  “Could you sing The Rise? I can’t sleep.”

  The city’s greatest song. Many times, Elna had used it to comfort us as children. But now there were two versions—tower and Spire. Both hinted at fighting and de
speration that had threatened our ancestors’ survival before the Singers pulled them from the clouds. The tower version was sung as a message of hope. The Spire version had reminded Singers morning and night of their united purpose—so they claimed—and sacrifice, how our history was only rosy because it was tainted with blood. That heroes sometimes fell alongside those who would harm the city.

  Which one would Minlin want? “I’m not so great at singing quiet,” Kirit said.

  He giggled. “I remember. You sang it wrong once too—” He stopped, his eyes filled with tears.

  “Shhh. It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll help.” We walked to where the fledges rested. Moc lay on his mat, grumbling at us.

  But when we sang, I began the first verse of the tower Rise:

  The city rises on wings of Singer and Trader and Crafter,

  Rises to sun and wind, all together,

  Never looking down.

  Meanwhile Kirit began the Singers’ Rise. Our words passed over and through each other, a jumble. Soon, Moc and Nadoni joined her song, their sweet voices honeying the burrs and sharp edges of Kirit’s voice, and the Singers’ Rise took hold.

  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.

  Always rising, never failing. The city forever.

  Rising together. Rising as one.

  As I let my melody drop, I remembered Elna’s soft voice shaping the hopeful tower Rise—the only Rise we’d known then. Now everything was different. Songs were split in two, towers broken, families far-flung.

  Throughout the song, the elder Singer kept silent. Then he spat on the ground. “Tower against Spire? No more. It’s tower against tower now. You’ll see.”

  5

  BALANCE, GRAVITY, JUSTICE

  When the sun rose above the cloudtop the next morning, damp air turned to vapor. The Singers’ lowtower quarters steamed. I wondered whether I’d ever feel truly dry again. These quarters were the least habitable on Grigrit and far too close to the cloudtop. The tier’s central core had grown too far out for the living space to be remotely comfortable.

  Across the city, my family woke and prepared for the day. I could almost smell the chicory warming, hear Elna singing, see Ceetcee combing and braiding her hair. Instead, I sipped a spare mouthful of stale water at Grigrit.

  A ladder dangled by our balcony. The bony overhang that ran an uneven circuit around each tier was narrower than those above because the core was so thick. We climbed carefully, our wings half furled, knowing that a fall could send us into the clouds: first Moc, then Minlin, Nadoni, Kirit, and me.

  The market tier hummed with activity. I smelled fresh-roasted stone fruit from a stall and ached for it. The families who kept quarters on this tier had pushed their belongings together to make space for vendors. Even at this early hour, haggling and gossip rippled through the crowd. I heard vendors discussing the Singers loudly with their neighbors. When I drew close, they quieted, or shifted the discussion to the winds.

  My stomach growled again. I hadn’t gone hungry for this long, ever. Even when we were in the downtower of Densira as children, Elna and Ezarit had always made sure Kirit and I had enough to eat. Even when I hid from the Singers after I’d lost my fight in the Gyre and was nearly sucked into the clouds. Tobiat, Elna, and even, secretly, a rebellious Wik had kept me fed.

  Now I reached into the small drawstring purse at my waist for markers. Handed one of the Spire markers I’d found the day before to the vendor lifting the first pieces of flatbread from a heating plate. She looked at the sigil carved on the bone disk, showed it to her partner. Both women shook their heads. No good.

  The vendor selling fist-sized apples also refused the markers. I shifted the satchel on my shoulder. More unwanted Spire markers rattled against the broken codex pages inside.

  “No one takes Spire anymore,” Moc said, returning from another stand. “Last market, a few vendors took them still, but today, no one.”

  Long ago, downtower at Densira, Elna and I’d been short tower markers many times. Ezarit and Kirit too. My heart went out to Moc, a little.

  “Dying tower, dead markers,” I said. Dead tower, dead markers, if I was honest. Moc looked at me quizzically, as if I was being cruel. I reached in my small purse. “Can you use these?” I offered a Grigrit marker and two Densira markers. “Here.”

  “I have two from Naza, also,” Moc added.

  “Where did you get Naza?” Kirit sounded afraid to hear the answer. Moc had no wingmarks yet. Tower rules. No wingmark, no flying beyond the quadrant.

  Naza was on the other side of the city. Clouds, Moc.

  “A couple of council guards asked me and Ciel how to echo,” he said, proud. “They paid in advance. That’s why she went.” His pride faded. “I couldn’t go. Not with the new Laws. Not with these wings.” He flicked at the fledge wings furled at his shoulders.

  Kirit’s ears pricked up. “Which guards? The ones that came for the old Singer now and then? They were rough with him. You should have told me.”

  Moc looked hurt. “I want to help. Or at least eat. I’m starving.”

  I had Densira markers as well. And council markers. “You don’t need to use your money.” Besides, the shopping was a cover for what Kirit and I needed to do before we left. Find safe havens for the fledges.

  I used one Densira marker to buy the apples. Nadoni took the apple I offered and gnawed it down to the core. Moc seethed at Kirit’s elbow.

  “Still no word from Ciel?” Trying to take his mind off the snub.

  Moc shook his head. “No birds from her in days.”

  “Did you fight before she left?”

  He shook his head again, and this time, he did not meet my eyes. “And our last whipperling never came back.” I’d given Kirit three of Maalik’s fledges as a get-well present.

  “All of them, gone?” The boy was beyond irresponsible. But perhaps the whipperling had returned to Densira … Fledges sometimes went to their birth tower by mistake. I let it go, for now. Moc was in enough trouble already.

  Moc lifted the message chip on my wrist, tentatively. “A councilor with a Lawsmarker? What did you do?”

  I pulled the chip away, annoyed. “It’s not a Lawsmarker. It’s an artifex’s drawing.” A message from the past. I may have spoken more sharply than I meant to.

  Loud throat-clearing behind me made me jump. I turned to find Doran Grigrit, standing at the next stall with his arms crossed over his elegantly beaded robe. How much had he heard?

  He beckoned us over calling, “Good to see you’ve returned, Skyshouter. Welcome to Grigrit, Councilor Densira.” As if we hadn’t spoken the night before. As if I’d never insulted him. I tried to return his smile but worried my eyes were as cold as Kirit’s, next to me. “No worries of riots here.” He looked proudly over the safe space of the Grigrit market.

  Kirit looked too. Her face indicated her doubt of his sincerity.

  We needed to get the fledges safely placed, then get out of here. To the council. We had big problems. Was one of them Doran Grigrit, my mentor? Was Kirit right? I wasn’t sure. I hated not being sure.

  “I’ll buy those Spire markers from you, Moc Grigrit. Ten for each one of my tower marks.”

  Moc sputtered, tense. Because Doran gave him a tower name? Or for the ridiculous barter. “Spire markers might be worthless, but I can sand them down into something I could sell. Like message skeins!”

  Kirit grabbed Moc’s arm in quiet warning. I sucked my breath. Moc was playing the sharp edge of the knife when we needed to fly away clean.

  “Of course, if you have better things to trade,” Doran continued, “we could get you and your fledges better quarters uptower.” He’d cast his voice loud enough for all the stalls to hear.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have anything to offer.” Kirit’s voice didn’t waver. Her hand gripped her satchel, k
nuckles pale on the strap.

  She’d forgotten we hadn’t switched satchels back. So had I, almost.

  “If you’d spend your time helping the city heal, rather than herding refugees, perhaps you’d know which side to stand on too,” Doran said. His voice remained friendly, but he stepped closer. Now a hint of amusement touched the edges of his eyes.

  We weren’t going to get away clean, not at all. Nadoni and Minlin circled around our bone-still trio like worried dirgeons. Their worn gray robes flapped in the market breeze.

  I faced Doran again, trying to gauge whether he was maneuvering for influence or truly angry. “Let’s discuss the Spire markers, before we draw a crowd?” Even on Grigrit, we were still Kirit Skyshouter and Nat Densira, who helped save the city. No matter what, that was still true. “If they are so worthless in the market, why would you want them?”

  Doran laughed so sharply, nearby vendors peered over their tiny stalls, trying to guess what we’d done to provoke the towerman.

  I took an involuntary step backward, blocking Moc’s attempt to move between us and Doran. I hadn’t heard the councilor speak with that much controlled anger ever in council. But then we had refused him last night. I’d defied my mentor. Kirit, her tower councilman. We’d lied.

  Doran’s eldest daughter looked up from where she and her mother filled market baskets with fruit and fresh bird meat. She quickly looked down again. Minlin and Nadoni watched us all, eyes wide as whipperlings; the apple in Nadoni’s hand stalled halfway to her mouth.

  “Councilor Grigrit.” I held out a conciliatory hand. A gesture I’d seen Doran use many times on the council plinth. “I haven’t been to market here before. Perhaps I don’t understand how Grigrit barters. My question was not meant to offend.”

  The market’s collective breath eased, and I heard conversation pick up again. I hadn’t realized how much silence surrounded us.

  A lifetime ago, before Spirefall, Doran and his family had delighted in betting and bargaining in the northwest quadrant. They’d come for the wingfights, and once, Doran told me later, to take Kirit back with them as a trading apprentice. Instead, Kirit and I had been punished by the Singers, a blow to Grigrit’s honor. Doran empathized with the cruel way the Singers had treated us—he’d gotten a broken deal too.