Chapter 180: Every Bell in Skykeel Learned the Penguin’s Cry

Every bell in Skykeel learned Jiang’s cry before the first hunter reached the cages.

The stolen call passed through the brood works in two living notes. Tower bells answered overhead. Wing bells carried it across open air, and the pale adult spread over Kaul’s breast gave the lower note back without moving its dark eyes from Jiang.

Kesta pulled on the nearest cage latch.

It did not open.

"Water behind," she said. She pointed through the cage, toward a low channel hidden by root bars. "Maybe home water."

Jiang could smell wet stone and foreign cold through that narrow dark. It might lead to the ceiling sea. It might lead back toward the wound Aylin had closed.

The cage stood between him and it.

Inside, three juveniles pressed together. One still gave its changing frightened trill. Another had a pale scar around half its mouth rim. None moved toward Kesta’s hand.

"One cage," Kesta said. "Then water."

A hunter entered the brood works from the basin side.

Another hooked line struck the bars at the far end. Kaul remained above them with one hand on the chain wheel, holding the ceiling-sea spill shut.

Jiang wanted Aylin. He wanted the red-stone shelter, the reckless emperor chick, and the third fish he had been cheated out of. He wanted one place in this world where crossing a puddle did not end with a city trying to steal his voice.

The low channel waited behind three living bodies who had never chosen to block it.

Jiang ducked under the cage.

Kesta understood what he had chosen.

She drove the inner teeth of her brass hook into the thickest root bar and began sawing. Jiang flattened into the warm floor water. The gap admitted his head, breast, and one shoulder. His bad leg dragged behind him, too weak to push when the root pressed against his hip.

The first hunter seized Kesta’s torn wing frame.

She released one handle instead of letting it pull her from the cage. Half the frame folded into the hunter’s arms. Kesta turned with the other half, trapped the hooked wrist between two ribs of wet wood, and went back to sawing.

Jiang reached the hidden latch.

It was not iron. A pale living clasp had grown around the cage root, opening and closing with the water pulsing through the juveniles’ mouths. Each stolen cry made the clasp tighten.

Jiang waited for the frightened trill.

The sound changed before it ended.

At last, the living clasp loosened.

He caught its soft lower edge between both feet and pushed.

On the Red Aeries cold ledge, the foreign fish began calling again.

The Bellwyrm dropped it from its wounded jaw. The fish slapped against Aylin’s cloth wrap while the clear chorus leech bucked beneath Valea’s bent blade. Dark water spread across the shallow basin, reaching for the nursery groove Hest had blocked.

Hest’s iron bar lifted under the pressure.

The Bellwyrm lowered its bare jaw over the bar.

It was not obeying anyone. The immense pulse beyond the water had flattened its body against the chain and pulled a frightened rasp from its torn mouth. Its weight happened to hold the nursery path closed.

Mottle reached the outer ledge on foot, with Ilex limping behind her. Mottle struck stone once with her good wing joint. When the leech copied the impact, she changed to a claw scrape. When the copy followed, she used her beak.

Aylin folded the foreign fish inside plain cloth and dragged it into Valea’s side groove.

"You came for this," she told the leech. "Follow it away from the eggs."

Valea lifted her blade just enough.

The clear animal left the basin and folded after its host. Dark water followed through the groove toward open cliff. The nursery channel dried against the Bellwyrm’s jaw.

Mottle changed her answer again.

A thin current opened toward Skykeel.

Warm water struck Jiang’s face beneath the cage.

The living clasp softened. He pushed with both feet, even when the bad leg shook uselessly against it. His good foot carried the pressure. His beak found the root above, and he levered his body until the clasp rolled free.

Kesta cut through the outer bar.

The cage door opened into the channel.

No juvenile rushed gratefully toward Jiang.

The scarred one struck him in the breast with its broad mouth, knocked him against the floor, and fled over his body. The other two followed in different directions. One climbed the wall through its four gripping limbs. The smallest vanished into the newly opened current before Kesta could touch it.

Their frightened trills changed with every movement.

Tower bells tried to follow.

For the first time, the copied chorus broke apart. One tower answered too early. Another held Jiang’s lower note while a juvenile gave a third sound no cut bell possessed. A bridge outside tilted, corrected, and stayed level through the hands and wing beats of the people standing on it.

The hunter released Kesta’s trapped frame and reached for the escaped scarred juvenile.

Kesta tore the loose half of her wing-sail from her shoulder and threw it over his face. She did not chase the juvenile or claim it. She drove her wrist hook into the low channel and pulled herself after Jiang.

Kaul’s adult bell gave one heavy note.

At the note, every hunter stopped.

Above the platform, the main chain ring shifted against him. Kaul turned from the open cage to the wheel. He threw both hands onto it and reopened part of the spill he had closed, feeding water back through the brood works before the drying roots split.

He chose his city over catching them for one breath.

Jiang used that single breath.

He entered the thin current beside Kesta. Cold touched his face through warm water. Somewhere beyond the channel, Aylin’s redirected groove remained open.

The System appeared only after the last juvenile left the cage.

[ADAPTATION THRESHOLD REACHED: 90%]

[CHOOSE ONE PENGUIN EVOLUTION]

[STORMDIVE II]

[HUDDLE PULSE I]

[PRESSURE WAKE I]

Another turn in falling water would not help him hear what moved through the sea. Huddle Pulse belonged to willing bodies, and the only two members of his huddle stood beyond a wound he could not find.

Jiang chose `Pressure Wake I`.

[PRESSURE WAKE I ACQUIRED]

Nothing in his body healed.

His leg did not strengthen. His shoulder still burned from the basin wall, and blood still salted the water around his beak.

Jiang stopped swimming inside the channel.

The ability required stillness. Once his own wake faded, moving water began touching him in shapes.

The scarred juvenile left a quick uneven pressure against his breast. Kesta’s pull through the channel made a broader wake beside it. Hunters crossed the brood works as overlapping cuts that gave him no names, faces, or certainty. Too many movements pressed into his skull until he nearly broke stillness to escape them.

Then the ceiling ocean moved.

Its wake did not feel like a swimmer passing through water. It felt like the water had discovered it was resting on a body.

Jiang sensed no map and no distance. He felt one immense turn, slow enough to bend every smaller wake around it.

Kesta stopped beside him.

All the juvenile bells folded their fins and opened their pale mouths toward the ceiling.

"That is the Bellmother," Kesta whispered.

Above Skykeel, the ocean rolled over in its sleep.

Every chain in the city groaned at once.

Skykeel lurched sideways, and the ceiling sea came down to meet it.