I heard a soft clicking. Like echoing.
“Civik Spire,” Moc said. The figure did not move. Moc cleared his voice and prepared to shout, before shaking his head instead and touching the figure’s sleeve. The man spun halfway towards him. Singer marks scarred the skin around his ruined eyes. The left side of his face had been flattened: a broken cheekbone. Something sharp had taken his right eye.
Sound came sudden to my lips. “Oh.”
The figure turned to me fully now, as if he could hear me easier than he could hear Moc.
A rasp, like a gate opening. “Skymouth speaker.” He said it slowly, as if he rarely spoke. “I’d wondered when they’d find a new one.” His laugh was bitter and ended in a cough.
“You almost killed her last night, you broken old man,” Moc said, though his voice was softer now. He turned to me, murmured, “Civik’s deaf in the left ear. Once you get his attention, it’s all right.”
I looked at them both, suddenly aware of how much Moc knew about the tower’s comings and goings. He hadn’t spotted the resemblance between me and the ruined man before me, though. This was one thing he did not know.
But I knew. I saw it in Civik’s hands, his long fingers, so similar to my own. I recognized the rasp in Civik’s voice as a worn echo of my terrible singing voice.
Civik knew me only by the tones behind my voice. Knew me as a skymouth shouter. But I knew him for much more.
I held my tongue, for now.
Civik pushed on the walls and grabbed handholds to move away from the pipes. I heard bone grind against bone. Civik’s robe shifted with the motion. For a moment, I saw that his body was bound with spidersilk to a bone pedestal. Where Civik’s legs should have been, his under-robes ended in a knot. Carved bone rollers at the pedestal’s base allowed him to move.
I gasped again.
“Young person who has arrived with the impertinent Moc,” Civik rasped, “is shocked at my appearance. It hasn’t been that long, has it, since my last battle?”
“Twelve years, Civik,” Moc said. He gestured uselessly to me. “But this novice arrived a few months ago. And you almost killed her with faulty nightwing straps. And just now, you nearly killed Ciel, too, with your backdraft.”
I bit my tongue so that Civik would not realize anything more about me, and let Moc rage on.
“Could you get something right, Civik? You didn’t distract the council from deciding against Terrin. You didn’t even stall them. You’re dangerous. I should find a new windbeater to bribe.”
Civik grumbled. “I am trying, young Moc.”
“What is going on?” I said.
They both answered at once.
Civik said, “Moc owes me tools and gossip.” While Moc said, “Civik’s useless — I won’t give you any more gossip, Civik, until you help us.”
“You were trying to help Terrin by sabotaging the Nightwings?” I asked.
The windbeater shrugged. “Terrin’s argument was his. He flew too early. We could have postponed it. We had our own goals.”
“But you weren’t supposed to target novices,” Moc said quickly. “Wik was out there.”
Civik waved a hand. “If the night fliers have a setback, that delays Rumul. Long enough for Terrin to seek more support. And many other things.”
Swaying from foot to foot as he thought, Moc looked very young. I held myself still, listening to what was being said and what was not being said. How many layers of allegiance and independence existed in the Spire? In the city, loyalty was to tower and family first, then friends and allies after. A tightly woven fabric — except when there was a flaw. I thought of how Densira and my aunts had almost abandoned my unlucky mother. In the Spire, loyalty was different, focused on power: on gaining it, on keeping it. Much was dedicated to duty. Still more to the city itself. Then, to other Singers, as long as they were skilled enough and did not break tradition. Singers with Spire family had another layer as well. It reminded me of the Gyre’s wind gusts, spun together to form a powerful current that lifted a flier’s wings. Or made them fall.
I did not understand all of it, by far. And, from what I’d seen, some Singers valued certain layers over others. If I didn’t figure out the connections, those forces would work against me, pull me down.
Worse, I stood in a room with my father, and I could not bring myself to greet him. He was weak and ruined. He’d almost killed Nightwings last night and Ciel today, to aid his own plans. I didn’t know him. How could I want him as a relative, much less an ally?
I thought back to Civik’s attempts to delay Rumul. To Moc’s words. “Why did Terrin need support?”
Moc blew air through his lips in exasperation. “You still don’t understand, Kirit.”
At my name, Civik’s head turned farther. His blind eyes looked like kavik eggs. I shivered. “Kirit?” he whispered and leaned towards me. His cart rolled forward, his fingers reaching out, and I stepped back, involuntarily.
“What happened?” I asked.
At my words, Civik leaned back, and his cart retreated towards the wall.
Moc answered. “He fell, during his last fight. Lost his legs. Destroyed his shoulder. Before that, he broke his hip, but he still fought in the Gyre.”
“When did you go blind?” I whispered, circling to stand nearer to Moc. Civik’s white gaze followed the sound of my voice now.
“His first fight. A challenger. She devastated him, but let him live. He became a windbeater, but he emerged twice to challenge again.” Moc sounded sad and proud at the same time.
“You fought blind?”
Moc laughed. “Singers fight until they can’t. Of course he fought blind. You could too, if you got better at echoing.”
Of course — as a skymouth shouter, Civik would have also trained as a Nightwing.
“And he can’t stop fighting. Civik thinks he’s the conscience of the Spire, don’t you?” Moc stepped close and tapped Civik on the shoulder. The two were nearly the same height.
“Kirit is a name I haven’t heard in a long time,” Civik finally said. Then his shoulders slumped. “What tower are you from?”
But I had my own questions. “Years ago, you betrayed Naton Densira, didn’t you? Why?”
Civik bent farther with more hacking sounds. Finally he caught enough breath to speak. “Is that what you think? Who told you that?”
I was about to answer when Moc looked up, head tilted. “Someone’s coming.”
Wik emerged from a ladder well.
“Moc. Kirit. Why am I not surprised? You’ve caused quite an uproar.” His voice sounded stern. His eyes, though. They looked grateful.
He saw Civik, bent down to clasp the man’s gnarled hand.
Moc pointed. “Old man’s been trying to sabotage things all the wrong ways. First the wings, then the Gyre blowback. If Ciel had fallen…” His voice tightened on the last words.
Wik raised his eyebrows. Civik interjected before Wik, too, could grow angry.
“Moc didn’t tell me how to stir things up, just that folks wanted them stirred. Hasn’t paid me either.”
Moc. The Nightwings. No.
“Fine,” Moc said, ignoring my shocked face. “This is your gossip: Rumul has accepted the oath of an adult novice to take your place as a shouter. Kirit. He won’t need you anymore once she’s trained.” His voice was angry and mean.
Wik frowned but didn’t contradict him. I knelt next to Wik and Civik.
I put a hand out and touched the windbeater’s fingertips. “Not replace. Moc is angry.” Civik’s fingers were dry and callused. He startled at my touch, then wrapped his hand around mine. For a moment, I imagined that we had always been this way. Then I squeezed his hand hard, and he yelped.
“Why did you leave Densira? Why did you betray Naton?” I would not let go until he told me.