In the dark, I heard Rumul’s whispers as he marked Sellis and welcomed her too. I heard what sounded like a kiss in the dark.
My vision faded.
When I woke in the morning, I was back in my alcove, on my sleeping mat. I rubbed my hair clean with ash and tied my gray robes as I’d seen Wik do. I passed by Sellis’s empty room on the way to the Singer’s dining alcove. Morning shadows had grown short on the Spire’s walls.
The dining alcove was empty, save for Sellis. Her fresh tattoo looked red around its silver edges: a spiral in a circle, like the marks on our hands. I wondered what mine looked like.
I opened my dry mouth to speak, but Sellis beat me to it.
“Do you remember?” Her voice was kinder than it had been the night before. After the first ritual, before the initiation. Perhaps we were sisters again. That was safer for me, certainly. I doubted the peace would last past my next mistake, my next disruption of what Sellis thought her future would be like. But now I knew Viridi valued my presence. Perhaps Sellis would soften in time. Perhaps starting now.
I waited her out, cautious. I remembered too much. She waited too. She was better at it than I.
“The pens?”
Her voice a mix of fear and wonder, she said, “They brought a skymouth into the Spire. For us.”
My face must have given me away. She hadn’t seen anything last night. She’d been too frightened.
“You’ve known? How could you know?” She thought for a moment. “You’ve been sneaking around the Spire. Going where you were forbidden.”
“I haven’t.” This was partially true.
A few days ago, I might have told her about meeting my father, about the windbeaters and the vents below. We would have talked about what had happened the night before. I might have broken the silence and told her more. Now we stared at each other in silence. Not truly sisters after all.
“Why would Rumul not tell you?” I asked, finally.
She flinched. Looking down, she spooned grain mash into her mouth and chewed deliberately. My stomach growled. She swallowed. “I have decided not to go with you to return the wings. Rumul can send someone else besides us.”
This, after everything. After what we’d both been through. After what I’d done to help her survive last night. She would have panicked until they pulled her up.
“You dare, Sellis? When you have been sneaking behind the council’s back with Rumul for how long? What would Viridi think? Wik? The others?”
Her cheeks darkened. A lucky guess, now confirmed. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Nor you. I am as dedicated to the city”—I put a heavy emphasis on the last word—“as you are. We will return those wings to the tower. Honor and tradition.”
Now we each held the other’s secrets. It was a wary peace.
Wik found us in the dining alcove, chewing in silence. When we had finished, we climbed to the Spire’s roof and knelt before the council.
Viridi took my hands in hers. She smiled, encouraging. Proud.
I sang the words, the ones that had echoed up the Spire each morning from the first day I was freed from the walls. “I give myself to the city, to its rise, to ensure against its fall.”
My voice’s burr had been accented by my training. My hearing had grown sharper too. The combination was unsettling. I heard the tone I was supposed to sing, the one every Singer knew. I heard it underscored and slightly soured by a second tone, as if I spoke with more than one voice. That undertone was what the singers wanted. My skymouth voice. They would tolerate a voice that broke Silences, a voice that challenged and would not quiet, if it meant they would get what was needed. When I finished singing, Viridi smiled, then moved to stand before Sellis.
She sang clear and proud, her eyes on Rumul.
Then we stood, turning to face the council. We rehearsed once with them the song for those lost in defense of the city. I sang it true this time.
Singers came forward to check our wings for us. Strong fingers tightened straps. My wings tugged at my shoulders as someone adjusted a batten in its sleeve. We had a long flight ahead.
Rumul faced us. “You will fly southeast to Narath tower and present the second challenger’s wings to her relatives. Then to Ginth, to present windbeater Vess’s wings. By day’s end, you will reach Viit and the new bridge that connects that tower to Densira. You will bless the bridge. You will not linger.”
A bridge for Densira. They had rewarded my tower for my sacrifice. I was glad to hear it.
“Once the bridge is blessed, you will cross to Densira,” he continued. To Elna. To Ezarit.
A council member came forward, carrying Vess’s wings, along with those of the Narath challenger. Beneath them lay a spare set of wings, the battens broken beyond repair. The silk torn.
Rumul explained, “Because we cannot return the Densira challenger’s wings, you will take these.”
So Elna would have a pair of wings that no one could ever use.
The council spoke all around us. “Singer’s duty.”
Sellis and I repeated the words. I felt them echo in my stomach.
It was time to fly. We lifted our burdens and strapped them to our chests.
Atop the Spire, the sun rose over our brethren. We unfurled our wings and engaged the fingertip grips, then soared for the first time as Singers among the towers, to show the city what we had become in its name.
21. RETURN
Narath tower was the height of the southeast. From our approach, we could see Narath had at least two tiers on its closest neighbors, and its gardens bloomed green and lush. Alerted by kavik messenger, residents had gathered on the top of the tower, many families’ worth. Sellis’s challenger had been popular.
Though I carried the challenger’s wings, I realized that I did not know her name.
“Who was she?” I asked Sellis again as we prepared to land.
“A challenger,” Sellis responded in clipped tones. “They will name her.”
Unsettled, I stepped from my footsling and cut my glide, dropping to the tower with practiced Singer’s grace. Sellis landed beside me at the same time. The Narath residents whispered. Bowed to us, but not too deeply.
The tower’s councilman stepped forward. His robes were embroidered at the shoulders with green and purple chevrons.
“Our daughter Dita Narath dared challenge the city,” the man said, giving me a name to work with. My breathing eased.
“Dita fought well,” I answered. “She has honored your tower by elevating a Singer.”
“She would fight well,” the councilman said. “She was of Narath.”
The crowd murmured again, a soft, pleased sound. They were not shamed here by Dita’s challenge. Within the murmur, my ears caught a sob and someone being hushed.
I passed Dita Narath’s wings to the man who had greeted us, and Sellis handed them a silk banner to be dyed for Remembrances.
“Would you sing with us?” the tower councilman asked formally.
We would.
Sellis’s voice was thinner than usual, but I carried us both. The voices of the tower flowed around the rough edges of my voice, until we all sang together. The sound was beautiful.
“We will return to sing her honors,” I promised. Beside me, Sellis nodded. The tower’s gathered crowd stepped back from us. Turned inward to pass the wings to the center, where the sob had come from. We were no longer part of their grief.
Sellis took off first, and I followed. It had felt too easy, that.
When we landed on Ginth, our shoulders ached from the distance. This was how my mother flew. This was how traders moved, from east to west and then up around the gusts of the city.