Cloudbound (40 page)

*   *   *

Long before there was any sign of the blackwings, the Singers took their positions in the towers and on the bridge. Doran and I rode the gusts above the meadow, searching the clouds for Dix.

Aliati and Djonn waited below.

Doran coughed. “I've been hard on you, but I admire your sense of honor, you know. It's why I selected you as apprentice.”

“How is that?” Mist swirled at our wingtips. I was confused.

“You have principles. They get you in trouble, but people know where you stand.”

The wind whistled around the towers and picked up speed over the meadow. Finally, I said, “I tried not to have them. Tried to gain advantage when I saw weakness.” I weighed each word, wanting to tell him how his duplicity had harmed me. Harmed the city.

He surprised me by laughing loudly. “Nat, we all have principles. Some of us hide them better than others.”

“Another lesson?” It felt like a lifetime since I'd been his apprentice.

“Ambition and leadership fly together. Sometimes you have to trade on your principles to lay groundwork for the future, for the greater good of the city. Often, you have to seem more confident than you are, to hide your doubts.”

I kept silent. The groundwork he'd laid left the city vulnerable and wounded. But compromises weakened it as well. And all the losses from fighting. From not fighting. Allmoons had passed while Laria burned. Had Elna lit a banner in my name?

Around us, towers rose high in the air. A littlemouth pulsed and disappeared on a wall: Ciel, marking her position. Another, on the third tower. Wik. Then two, brighter, for Kirit on the bridge. We were surrounded and guarded by friends.

Aliati whistled “defend,” and I followed the line of her arm to see a dark mark in the clouds, spiraling down. Behind the first flier, four more dots appeared in the clouds.

Five fliers. They held the heights, all the weapons. They didn't need an enormous force to threaten us.

Meantime, we ten Lawsbreakers had only one advantage: ourselves.

*   *   *

All too soon, the dark smudges on the cloudscape resolved into Dix, diving hard in the swirling wind, followed by her blackwings, who bore a heavy net.

Descending to the bone bridge to take my place with Kirit, I took a breath and let it out slowly. My heart pounded; my stomach clenched.

Dix's wings tilted, and her fingers tightened on cams and pulleys, preparing for landing. The heavy net that her guards carried now looked too big to be medicine or food.

As the group slowed over the center of the meadow, Dix circled. The blackwings dropped the net with a thump and took to the air again.

The net wriggled.

“Clouds.” Doran started running towards the net. “Don't move!” A stray move might kick the bone-hook trigger Ceetcee had planted in the foliage. Might drop the entire field.

“Where is Hiroli?” Dix shouted, still in the air. “I want to see her.”

Moc led Hiroli from the cave on a tether and tied her to the bonefall. He scrambled back up to the cave lip. In the meadow, Doran opened the net and was untangling the figure within. He gently pulled the net from around the wingless woman. She stood with a hand raised, touching the air. White hair. Her cheek was bruised. Her eyes the color of clouds.

Proof of life.
Dix had brought Elna here.

Elna's confused laughter echoed all the way to the bridge.

Overhead, Kirit shot from her hiding place on the towers, heading like an arrow towards the meadow. I leapt from the bridge as all Doran's plans fell away from me in shards. The reinforced meadow platform creaked in the wind.

Even if she didn't fall through, Elna couldn't last long this far down in the clouds. Not after a lifetime in the towers, not as frail as she was. “You have to take her back up!” I shouted. She'd become very ill down here if she stayed.

“Lawsbreakers!” Dix called, ignoring me. “I am here to meet with you under the rules of Sinter. You should know that any harm that befalls me will impact the city immediately. My blackwings will attack the northwest if I do not return by evening.”

Doran straightened, holding Elna's hand in his, trying to help her to her feet. He looked at Dix, then at me flying towards him, anguished. Aliati adjusted her grip on the knife she held to Djonn's throat.

Dix and one guard landed three steps from Doran and Elna. I dropped to the ground behind them, already running. Dix barely bothered to furl her wings, leaving them half extended. The night-dark spans flapped in the breeze as she nodded to her nearest guard, who withdrew a bone knife from his robe, and closed the gap to Doran and Elna.

“Of course, you do not have the same kinds of safeguards as I do,” Dix said, even as I screamed, “Knife!” and lunged for Elna. But the guard sank the blade in Doran's back, twisted hard, and yanked it free.

Dix turned to Aliati as Doran collapsed on the meadow.

Her knife glittered as she held it out. “Kill the artifex, I dare you. I'll watch.”

Aliati tightened her fingers on her own knife, then lowered it away from Djonn's skin. She looked at him and shook her head. “No.”

“This ends now!” Kirit shouted. She drew down on Dix, from the air. But she didn't fire. The blackwings had all taken aim at the net. At the blind woman standing within it. Their bolts aimed at her heart.

With one move, Dix had taken the towers.

Two steps more, and I stepped within the circle of arrows, ignoring them. I took Elna's hand, slick with blood. Doran's eyes closed. His hand opened, releasing the knife he'd used to cut the net. He fell unconscious.

“What is it?” Elna whispered. She turned her head wildly, trying to hear. Clicked her tongue, trying to echo. To make sense of the void. “Who is this?”

I held her hand tight. “I've got you. You're all right.” Her fingers closed around mine. But she didn't stop echoing.

She wasn't all right. None of us were. Already Dix walked towards Djonn. I had to stop this.

“What do you want, Dix?” I shouted.

The woman smiled, glanced at Kirit, circling in the air, and looked over her shoulder at me. “I want everything. Don't you?”

I had. Once. I'd wanted the high tier, the council position. Everything. Now, I held my mother's hand. Elna's breathing was as loud in my ears as my own heartbeat. She wobbled as Kirit landed beside us and took her other hand.

Elna pulled us both towards her. Whispered, “Don't hesitate!” And let my hand go.

The blackwing nudged Doran's body with his foot. Blood rushed from the wound, and Doran, panting, moaned. At the sound, Elna knelt to press her hand, her robe, to Doran's side, brushing aside the guard's sodden foot. Kirit helped her. They ignored the blackwing.

The other guards aimed their arrows at me now, and Kirit.

We were nine Lawsbreakers. When we'd stepped out on the meadow, we'd already lost. Elna wavered and sat on the ground. “What is happening?”

“We need to move her higher,” Kirit shouted at the guards. “She'll die.”

The blackwings stared impassively, and the one who had stabbed Doran wiped his knife on Kirit's shoulder. I'd seen this guard thrice before, including gaming at Grigrit and being chased by Ezarit after the council fell.

Kirit's fingers tightened around her knife. Her other hand twitched at Elna's fingertips. Impasse. The blackwings bows tightened. We could not move.

Dix untied Hiroli. A guard brought forward a new pair of blackwings for the junior councilor and cloud-traitor.

“You were Ezarit's apprentice,” I said. Every muscle in my body tensed, wanting kill her. If Elna had not been there, held in a cage of arrow points, I would have. We all would have.

Hiroli smiled, tightening her wingstraps. “Dix made a better offer. Ezarit was a trader. I believe she'd understand.”

I grabbed Kirit's arm in time. Her fingers dug into my skin as well. Together, we each kept the other from striking Hiroli down and putting everyone in danger. Hiroli stepped back farther from us, as Dix finally turned to me and to Kirit.

“We'll take Elna higher once I see the brass plates. Hiroli says there's an alcove full of them. Then I'll take Rumul's robe and his little killer. My men will take the Singers. For your help, the rest of you can remain in exile here.”

She didn't know about the Spire base, or what hid within it, because Hiroli hadn't known. And she only knew about some of the brass plates. We might conceal the rest from her if we were careful.

She began to cross the meadow, the uneven surface giving her trouble. Hiroli walked by her side, steadying her. They pulled Aliati and Djonn with them. When Dix reached the cave entrance, she stood below it, looking up. “A fine shelter, for thieves.”

Hiroli climbed the ridge wall and leapt into the air, circling the meadow, searching for the Singers she knew were missing.

Shadows moved in the cave mouth. Moc, then Ceetcee, blocked the entrance. They aimed bows at Dix. “You cannot come here,” Moc said.

Dix gestured to Elna and laughed. “Even if it means she dies?”

“She would not want this,” Ceetcee said, not looking at me.

“You didn't come here to make a truce,” Aliati said. “Though you accepted Sinter. You could kill us all here. Tell me why we should not destroy this entrance? We have the means to do it.”

She exaggerated, but the blackwings didn't know that. Dix laughed. “More brave words, but no action.”

Kirit released my wrist. “Go,” she whispered, her words tight with anger. I took another step away from my mother. “I'll stay with Elna.” She knelt, putting her knife on the ground, not far from her hand. She cradled my mother's head and stroked her cheek, humming The Rise, surrounded by blackwings.

I walked across the meadow, towards Dix and the cave. She had us outmatched. We could not fight. We could not run. What could we do?

“You had no intention of honoring Sinter.”

She turned and laughed. “Who'll know who broke what law if you're trapped down here?” Dix sounded as if she was explaining a flight lesson, not doling out a death sentence. “You'll be forgotten, another myth in the clouds.”

Dix's trick had worked, just like at the wingfight. This time, she hadn't stopped at slashing a footsling; she'd done much worse to gain advantage.

Dix held out her hand. “A bird away, more blackwings wait. You have no such reinforcement. Bring me the robe and the brass plates and the girl. The one who was so good with the knife.”

Moc's face went pale. “You won't have her.” He aimed his bow, until Ceetcee stayed him.

In the meadow, a glow pulsed in time with Kirit's singing. Littlemouth. I prayed Dix didn't see it. “What will you do with the plates? No one in the city can read them. Not even you.”

Dix didn't turn from Moc, but she answered. “Nonsense. You saw their power above the council plinth. That, from just one plate. You saw us rise without wings. No need to wait for a breeze. We'll use them to make the city better.”

“Not without an artifex. A good one,” I said. “None but Djonn had figured out lighter-than-air.”

Dix colored. “We can train more artifexes. The Singers kept the plates safe for us!” she shouted. “To hide them away is a crime against the city.”

“Singers' inventions?” Djonn held a plate up, let it catch the light. Dix's eyes narrowed. “These? Were not created by the Singers. The Singers stole them. Hid them.”

Dix blinked. Her blackwings muttered. “The Singers knew everything,” Dix said quickly, “before you destroyed them and broke the city. You have no right to touch those.”

“Surely you don't believe that?” Aliati said. She pitched her voice so that everyone on the meadow heard her clearly. “Did Rumul tell you that before Spirefall? Or after, when you were interpreting for him? The Singers destroyed themselves, much like the culture down here did. Just as you will if you continue to mine the towers and reinvent the past. We can prove it.”

Dix looked around her, taking in the towers, the meadow. “What would you have me do? Tell the towers there is no future? That the tiers will stop growing and we'll live in ever-narrowing spaces until we're all pushed off?”

“To counter that in time, you'll need teachers,” I said quietly. “People who understand the plates, the towers, and the myths around them.”

More muttering among the guards.

“You need people who could teach the city how to mold bone again, without weakening the towers,” Ceetcee said. “People who can understand the tools of the past, and pass them on.” She caught my eye.
Sometimes the best way to fight is to teach.
“Let us return to the northwest quadrant. We'll teach the city from there.”

Dix's smile grew. “Ah, the northwest, with their plots. They've already argued their support for your group in council.”

Hiroli landed on the meadow, Ciel dangling from a winghook. “I found her!”

Ciel struggled, but once on the ground, Hiroli tightened her grip on the girl.

I spoke fast. “You need that quadrant. You need the artifex. You can't hold the city without them. We'll give you the plates.” I pulled two from my satchel. “And we'll offer ourselves as teachers.”

Djonn coughed and stepped forward. “You can take the plates, but they're meaningless without me. Let my friends go.”

“No,” Aliati whispered. “She's not taking you. Or the plates.”

Dix laughed, watching Aliati's face. “You see how easily you turn on each other? That amused Hiroli. Your integrity.” She spotted the satchel I carried. Out of reflex, I shifted it away from Dix as she said, “Think of how many inventions were nearly lost to myth. We will make Laws about the proper care of such things.”

I knew then that she would take it all, every bit of history, and use it for her own goals, rather than the city's. Perhaps Doran was right, that the only way forward was to control what Dix saw.