My fingers brushed the next knife hilt. How could I even consider it? Elna would have two fallen men.
One of those men was currently shooting at me. Trying to kill me to win a challenge.
The galleries erupted with stamping feet to match the windbeaters’ drums.
What did I want? To be a Singer, I had to defeat him. To be Kirit, I could not.
I took a deep breath and swerved to avoid him. Shouted as loud as I could over the roar of the Gyre.
“Nat! What are you doing?”
He drew another arrow from his sleeve quiver.
“I thought you were dead!” I could not stop myself.
“You might as well be,” he answered. “A Singer!” The way he said it warped across the wind. To me, the word sounded more like “murderer.”
He found a fast-moving gust and tried to rise above me.
I ducked beneath him and cut off his wind. When he wobbled and started to fall, I dodged out of the way. One last chance. We flew side by side for a moment, my right wing grazing the gallery wall.
“You don’t have to do this. I have so much to tell you.” If I could get him to drop his weapon and concede the challenge, then perhaps everything would be all right. The Singers would punish him, but he might live.
Though they would certainly punish me.
“I know enough. Your Singers lie, Kirit. They killed Naton for their lies!” He started to pull away, then leaned towards me instead, trying to drive me into the galleries and crush me.
“Your father stole secrets! He broke Laws!” I angled my wingtip until it slipped beneath his. White silk shuddering, battens shrieking. I held him there, then rolled hard, flipping his wing up in the process.
He tottered, dropping the arrow. I flew away straight.
“Maybe some Laws need breaking,” he shouted after me, righting himself. “What secrets did my father die for?” He pulled another arrow from his quiver. He only had a few left.
The Singers in the tiers around us rose to their feet, angrily gesturing. On my next turn, I saw Rumul far above, looking down. His face still as bone. The realization hit me. He’d planned this.
He wanted to test me, to see if I was a true Singer. As my father had been tested.
I wove and dipped so that Nat could not aim. My throat ached from the exertion of talking while flying the Gyre.
The windbeaters accelerated their beats. Somewhere below, my father was among them. Civik, who betrayed Naton. The gusts grew more fierce than I’d ever experienced in the Gyre. The wind yanked at my hair, tearing it free. Nat’s black curls formed a tangled nimbus around his head.
They’d promised him answers if he won. What could I promise? A quick death, without falling forever. Or I could lose. I could banish myself to the Spire’s depths by conceding. They would keep me alive, but I’d never see sky again.
If Nat won, they had to answer his questions, but he did not know the right questions to ask. I did. If he conceded, perhaps then I could ask more questions. Change things.
We flew opposing courses now, sweeping past each other in tighter spirals. He looked for advantage. I sought a way out.
My first friend. My best friend. Why are you doing this? My initial relief at seeing him alive had become anger.
“You don’t know the truth, Nat! You have to give this up.”
“No.” The word was a sob. “You can’t win. Singers can’t win.”
I am not a Singer, yet. But I cannot lose.
He whirled around, furious again. “I thought you were dead! But you’re not! You’re strong — we nearly starved these months, with the Laws they gave me. Where are yours?” He was crazed, yelling. I saw the chips hanging heavy on his wrists. His arms were pale past the wingstraps. His hands gripped the bow hard. He was tiring, too weak. But desperate. I didn’t have much time.
What could I do to shock him, make him concede? I could tell him the truth. I could sing it.
I cast my voice to carry on the drafts. I sang The Rise to Nat. The real Rise.
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.
For a moment, the galleries fell silent. Then a shout of outrage broke through the windbeaters’ drums, the swirl of wind. Rumul’s voice. “Stop this!”
I continued to sing. Hoped Nat could hear me. Would listen.
A voice on a nearby tier joined me. Then another.
Always rising, never failing. The city forever.
Rising together. Rising as one.
Nat’s eyes grew wide as the words filled the Gyre and he heard the difference from what he’d always known as unassailable fact. This is why there are Singers, Nat. To protect tower from tower.
I didn’t stop singing until he shot at me again, wildly, his last arrow nicking my wing.
“Stop this! Kill me already,” he screamed. He threw the bow. It spun in the air, hit the wall, and plummeted into the Gyre. I heard a cheer from the galleries.
Nat’s straps bit white against his shoulders where his robes had slipped. His face flushed deep red. Buoyed by the song, I circled in long arcs, looking for a way to knock him into the nets above the pens, to cut his wings open. To win without killing him. In the galleries, Singers leaned forward to see better. The fight had gone too slow for the windbeaters.
I smelled the rot gas before I saw the balls of flame. Heard them rise last of all. With a whoosh, one hand-sized ball flew up the tower, then another.
“Monsters,” Nat shouted, as a gout flew close to his face and rose out the top of the Spire. I smelled singed hair.
I could push him right into a rot gas ball and his wings would burn, but Nat would fall, alive.
I tried not to think about how Rumul would judge me for sparing Nat. I doubted it would be well.
I twisted in the jumbled wind. “I’m not trying to kill you, Nat!”
“You’ll let me go, then send a skymouth to kill me,” he yelled. “Tobiat warned me about Singers!”
“No! Tobiat is damaged! He’s…” I spun lower, losing altitude, trying to think. Nat followed me down, battling the gust patterns, and something suddenly made sense. “Tobiat was a windbeater.”
“What does that mean?”
“He knew Naton. He watched Naton work in the Spire! He’s the traitor.”
“Shut up, Kirit!” Nat dove for me, hands outstretched, trying to grapple my wings and drag us both down. We plummeted past gallery walls carved with Singers falling, wound round with flames.
We were well down in the Gyre now, too close to the novices and windbeaters throwing flaming rot gas. I heard Moc shout for me.
I fought my way to an updraft, hoping Nat would follow me, that he was strong enough to follow me.
He did. Barely. His pale wings filled with wind.
“I will tell you what I know,” I said. “But you must give up then, you must concede. Promise?”
He whistled. Our long-ago flight signal. Agreement.
I was about to break the Spire’s rules, but perhaps it would work. Nat would be left alive. I pointed down. Spoke fast. “Your father built pens for the Spire, Nat. That’s what the chips mapped. He built pens that would hold—”
I never got to finish my sentence. Two windbeaters began a new pattern. The Gyre’s winds spun me round and knocked me into Nat. My knife dragged across his wing.
Over the roar of the wind, the galleries screamed. And then the wind pulled us apart. I heard a gate open and braced myself for more wind. The windbeaters angled their wings anew, and I was borne up on a massive gust.