Chapter 184: Aylin Entered the Sky Through Water

The current threw Aylin shoulder-first into the side of the world.

Stone vanished from beneath her hands. Rope burned across her ribs as the living wound bent with the Bellmother’s turn, changing a short passage into a dark throat that pulled toward Skykeel’s ceiling.

She had entered with one breath.

Half of it escaped when her injured forearm struck a root.

Far behind her, Hest dropped his weight across the Red Aeries bar. Valea fed rope around the stone lip instead of fighting the new direction. Their work kept the line from sawing into Aylin, but neither could see where the water had taken her.

Kesta and Beras felt the turn through their separate roots.

Beras lowered his intact wing and let the water load its frame. Kesta hooked the opposite root, wrapped the strap around her wrist, and leaned until her damaged shoulder shook. The opening stayed wide enough to trap Aylin without crushing her.

It did not show her which way led out.

Jiang entered the wound.

He kept every ability silent. There was no room to become still, and nothing in the water could give Aylin another breath.

His body could give her a current.

Jiang swam past her face without touching. He turned in the narrow channel, drove both feet once, and let his broad belly push a clean wake toward the Skykeel roots.

Aylin’s loose hair followed it.

She opened her eyes. Jiang was already ahead, black back bending through water that wanted to turn him sideways. His bad leg faltered, but the next kick came from the good one. He did not look back long enough to lose the line.

Aylin pulled hand over hand along the rope and kicked after him.

The current caught her coatless shirt and twisted it around one arm. She tore the cloth rather than stop. Root bark scraped her cheek. Her lungs tightened until every instinct demanded she pull the rope twice and let the people outside drag her through.

She kept her hands moving.

A hard pull could close the wound around her hips or wrench Kesta from the far root. Aylin followed Jiang’s moving water and saved the signal for when she had no choice left.

Cold light appeared beneath her through the roots.

Skykeel’s air lay beneath the ceiling sea, so escape required Aylin to swim down. Her body wanted the surface above. Jiang’s wake went the other way.

She trusted the penguin.

Aylin pushed through the last curtain of roots and fell out of the water headfirst.

One hand caught the chain before the rope took her weight. Her shoulder nearly came out with the sudden stop. Kesta reached for her, but Aylin found a second link with her own boot and hauled her chest against the wet iron first.

Only then did she accept Kesta’s wrist.

Behind them, the opening pinched shut around the plain rope. Valea’s face vanished. Hest’s bar struck stone once, and the line went slack.

Aylin coughed ceiling water over Kesta’s hook.

Jiang dropped from the root channel into her lap.

His wet body hit harder than she expected. Pain crossed her face; relief arrived immediately after it and refused to apologize. She wrapped both arms around him before checking whether the bridge, the hunters, or the upside-down city approved.

Jiang pressed his forehead beneath her chin.

"I leave you alone for one broken crossing," Aylin whispered, "and you find a city hanging under an ocean."

He touched the intact edge of his beak to her collarbone.

"Yes, I missed you too."

The nursery district groaned beneath them.

Jiang pushed out of her arms first.

Aylin did not ask him to stay. She tied the slack rope around the chain root, checked the fresh blood at his beak without touching the split, and climbed after Kesta.

Her hand had found more damage than the water showed. Jiang guarded one hip when he turned. His shoulder feathers lay wrong beneath her thumb, and the leg that had once kicked away from her in the Rookery now shook after a few steps. She wanted the missing hours from him. Skykeel allowed only the injuries they had left behind.

Skykeel looked different from the glimpse through water.

Homes hung beneath jointed chains. Riders carried children across bridges that kept changing slope. Wyverns gripped roof bars while residents loaded food, blankets, and living-bell cradles onto their backs. Nobody had enough hands, and nobody was waiting to be called innocent before using them.

Then Aylin saw the cages.

Pale juveniles pressed broad mouths to cut roots. Old scars crossed finned tails and gripping limbs. Farther up, an adult bell clung willingly beneath a rider’s wing frame and matched her breath without a tether in its throat.

The difference mattered. So did the city pulling against the wounded body above it.

Beside the opened cage, a Hook Choir hunter poured clean water over a scarred juvenile’s gills with the same hand that wore a cutting hook. A mother struck him across the mouth, then shoved an evacuation sling into his arms when the roof shifted. He took both without asking to be forgiven.

Kesta pointed toward Kaul’s shear perch. "He cuts the nursery when she turns again."

"What happens if he does not?" Aylin asked.

Kesta’s anger did not make her lie. "The scar chain tears the center ring. More falls."

"And if he cuts now?"

Beras landed beside them. "This district falls."

Below his boots, the old man was tying himself to a cradle wheel because he could not carry it and would not leave it. The green-sailed rider passed hatchlings onto a copper-backed wyvern while a Hook Choir hunter cut household ropes free for an evacuation sling.

Aylin watched the Bellmother’s scar pull white around its embedded links.

"Then Kaul is right about what the chain will do," she said.

Kesta stared at her.

"He is wrong about how empty this district is."

Aylin took the plain rope from her waist and handed its free end to the green-sailed rider. "Run it through every cradle handle you cannot lift. Do not tie the people to the falling side."

The rider glanced at Beras.

Beras gave one quiet nod.

Kesta climbed onto the copper-backed wyvern’s low shoulder and used her brass hook to guide the first sling over its spine. Aylin took the old man’s place at the cradle wheel. Jiang wedged his good foot against its lower brace and pushed when she pulled.

No bell ordered that work.

Kaul’s adult bell called from the center ring.

Three low notes crossed Skykeel. Hook Choir riders answered from tower to tower, but their wings did not all turn the same way.

Two climbed toward the shear perch.

Beras and the green-sailed rider went deeper into the nursery.

Others held bridges, gathered children, or hovered between commands long enough to lose the comfort of pretending they had none.

Kaul came across the scar chain alone.

His copper-black frame shed water with every step. One of its lower spars had bent in the flood, forcing him to climb by both hands where he would normally have flown. He did not call Beras back. He did not promise more time.

Above the marked district, the red shear loop swung from the copper hook where Kaul had left it.

Aylin and Kesta dragged the first loaded cradle onto the evacuation sling. Beras launched with the green-sailed rider, each taking one end.

Three more cradles remained on the platform.

Kaul reached the red loop.

His hand closed around it while Jiang, Aylin, Kesta, Beras, and half the nursery were still on the section he meant to cut.