Chapter 191: Skykeel Answered With Every Stolen Voice

Skykeel’s answer hit the nursery before anyone could lift their head.

The Bellmother’s call had passed through them as one immense pressure. What came back was ragged. A child’s landing trill struck first, followed by an old rider’s cough, a broken brood cry, and Jiang’s own two-voice call sharpened into something he had never uttered.

The stolen sounds did not agree on where the city belonged.

Every root beneath Jiang pulled a different way.

Tovar’s cradle tore free of the roof edge.

Aylin’s plain rope caught it before the shell rolled into open water. The line snapped tight across the root in her hands and dragged her injured shoulder forward. She dropped to one knee without letting go.

"Dema! Take the line below the knot. Not above it."

Dema slid beside her and wrapped both hands around the wet rope. Tovar worked from inside the swinging cradle, turning the inner wheel so both juveniles in his care stayed under water while the outer shell spun.

"I have them," he called. "I do not have the cradle."

"That is why there are people out here," Dema said through her teeth.

Jiang went over the edge.

Cold water closed around his back. He caught the underside of the cradle with his breast and kicked, pushing its next swing away from the Bellmother’s moving flank. His bad leg folded on the first stroke. The good one kept him beneath the shell.

Above, Notch-Fin changed its call as soon as the rope tightened. Broad Mouth answered from another root channel, then broke the note when the district rolled. Their shifting pressure let the living roots bend without settling into the city’s repeated rhythm.

The distant chorus tried the same old sounds again.

One fixed note found the scar chain.

Iron shuddered behind the nursery. The chain had been trailing harmlessly through the Bellmother’s wake; now it whipped toward the external sling and drove a loose link between Beras’s severed sail and a living root.

The whole platform lurched backward.

Kesta reached for the link with the wrist that no longer carried a hook. Her fingers closed on bare iron, slipped, and came away bleeding.

"It catches there, it cuts the sling," she shouted.

"Or goes back into the wound," Aylin said.

Nobody needed to say which would be worse.

Neris touched two fingers to the frame beside her gray adult bell. The animal opened its broad mouth, studied the chain beating under the district, and left the frame on its own motion. It caught a lower root with its gripping limbs and held Neris above the worst of the roll.

Beras braced his ruined wing frame against the trapped link. Without the sail, the ribs could steer pressure but not lift him. "I can keep it from biting deeper. I cannot get under it."

Everyone looked toward the water.

Jiang was already there.

Aylin saw him leave the cradle and tore a bright cord from Beras’s discarded sail edge. "Put this behind your flippers."

Jiang turned his beak away from the loop.

"Do not make me argue anatomy with a penguin while a city screams at us."

He struck the trapped chain with his bill. A loop around his body would meet the same iron below. One hard turn could cinch it beneath his flippers and keep him from surfacing.

Aylin stared at the rope, then at the black water under him.

"I heard your voice come back from that city," she said. "Then you vanished under the district. I need something attached to the real you."

The anger went out of her last word. Fear stayed.

Jiang swam close enough to take the cord in his beak. He would carry it. He would not wear it.

Aylin closed her eyes for one breath. "Keep it until it becomes the dangerous thing. Then let go."

That was a promise his current mouth could make.

Jiang dove beneath the trapped link.

The district blocked what little light reached the Bellmother’s flank. Broken roof slats passed under him, followed by Tovar’s empty warm-stone rack and a door that still wore one painted blue cloud. Each piece rose until the nursery caught it or the wake carried it away.

The chain had twisted through the root sling twice. Pulling from above only tightened both turns. Below the second, an iron edge had already rubbed the pale root raw.

Jiang tried to push his beak through the nearest link. The chipped tip struck metal, and pain flashed along his jaw. He shifted until the thick base of the bill, not its broken point, carried the pressure.

The bright cord went through the link.

He surfaced on the other side, gave Aylin one end, and dove with the rest.

Kesta understood first. She passed the cord around Beras’s bare frame rib and back toward Dema. The three of them could roll the trapped link instead of dragging the whole chain.

"When he pulls," Kesta said.

Jiang could not pull much. His injured shoulder trembled before the cord came tight.

Throat-Scar entered the narrow water beside him. The juvenile bit the loose sailcloth caught under the chain and shook its broad head. It had not been asked. Jiang changed position to use the opening it made.

Above them, Notch-Fin abandoned its current note. Broad Mouth struck a root. Neris’s adult bell answered with a low sound only after Neris released her grip on its frame.

The district flexed between all of them.

Jiang drove his good foot down.

Kesta hauled the cord across Beras’s frame. Dema pulled from the cradle line without surrendering Tovar’s weight. Aylin guided the turn with one hand and kept her injured shoulder behind her ribs.

At last, the link rolled.

Its lower edge came out of the living root and struck Jiang’s hip. His bad leg went numb. He kept the cord until the second twist opened, then released it before chain and line could close around him.

The free iron shot through the sling.

It took the warm-stone rack, Tovar’s repair chest, and half the roof arch with it. Neris flattened over the dry thorn bundle while wood tore away above her. The chest opened in the wake. Awls, curved cradle needles, and bone clamps flashed once before the ceiling sea swallowed them.

Tovar heard the loss from inside his shell.

"Tell me that was somebody else’s chest."

"It was a terrible chest," Dema said.

His laugh came out wounded. "I made it."

The chain cleared the Bellmother’s scar and streamed behind her again.

Jiang tried to climb onto the surviving roof. His numb leg found no purchase. Aylin lay flat, caught the loose feathers behind his shoulder instead of the damaged joint, and waited until Kesta had his other side before they rolled him onto the root.

She did not point out that her cord had mattered. Jiang did not pretend going without it had been easy.

Beneath them, the Bellmother’s long ridge began to turn.

The black eye passed under the broken nursery. It did not look toward Jiang. Her body changed direction through the water, and distant Skykeel moved across the nursery’s exposed rim until its hanging towers stood directly ahead.

Maybe she followed the answer. Maybe the city lay in the only current deep enough for her turn. Maybe the old chorus hurt and she meant to flee through it.

Her body offered no explanation.

Skykeel supplied its own answer.

The city had begun pulling itself apart.

One tower leaned toward a copied child’s trill while the bridge beside it strained toward an old wing call. The saved center ring twisted between them. Riders filled the air under falling homes, too few to hold streets that had decided on different skies.

On the center platform, Kaul threw both arms around the chain wheel and shouted for silence.

Every stolen voice in Skykeel answered him.