Chapter 206: Skykeel Entered the Crosswake Before the Second Lance Fired

The second star-lance opened before Skykeel finished drifting away from the first.

Its bronze jaws spread inside the red-lantern command ship. White fire gathered between them, bright enough to throw the armada’s shadows across the star-water.

Beside Skykeel, the crosswake kept moving.

Black current rolled from the silver-sailed vessel’s open keel. It did not flow in one direction. Its outer edge curled back on itself, caught broken star-shells, and flung them forward hard enough to strike sparks from distant lights.

No welcoming lantern shone inside it.

Kesta looped a fresh roof rope over her bandaged forearms and began dragging it toward the crosswake side.

That was Skykeel’s first answer.

Neris limped to the nursery braces. Dema and Tovar shifted the occupied cradle under the root’s strongest curve. Residents opened doors facing the black current and shut those facing the charging lance. Olsa’s hunters moved to the damaged outer ribs without waiting for her to call them.

Nobody asked for a vote.

Aylin crouched beside Jiang at the flooded lip. "Tell me you can see an entrance."

"I can see several ways to die near one."

"Choose the least ambitious."

Jiang lowered his bare breast into the star-water.

Cold entered through the missing feathers so quickly that his beak struck together. Aylin’s hand moved beneath him and stopped before touching.

"May I?" she asked.

"Not yet. I need to feel which way it pulls."

She held her palm where he could take it later.

At the crosswake’s outer curl, bubbles did not rise. They stretched into black crescents, vanished beneath the silver ship, and returned farther ahead. Loose feathers from Jiang’s breast followed a different path. The light down scattered outward. His heavier black cover feathers sank, rolled once, and shot through a low fold near Skykeel’s remaining north root.

The current separated bodies by how they met it.

Jiang slid fully into the water.

Aylin’s retrieval line remained above his right ankle. He kept close enough for her to see his white belly whenever the black water turned him. Keelturn offered no correction. His feet and tail had to find every answer before the wake changed its question.

The outer curl rolled him onto his side.

He let the roll take him.

Fighting would have spread his injured flipper and driven him into the returning water. Jiang folded both flippers close, kicked once with his reliable foot, and let his rounded breast slide along the turn. The current carried him beneath the low fold instead of throwing him back toward the armada.

Inside, pressure eased just long enough for one kick.

Then the wake seized his tail and launched him forward.

Aylin’s line snapped straight. Jiang opened his beak on the release tail, but she moved with the pull instead of trying to stop him. Kesta and two residents took the rope behind her. Together they gave him enough line to surface inside the dark edge.

Jiang came up facing the wrong direction and spat star-water.

"Low fold!" he shouted. "Enter on your side. Do not fight the first roll. Open the rooms after it turns you."

Olsa stood on the crystal root above him. The seven-pointed iron still covered her breast.

"A city does not fold its flippers," she said.

"Then use what it has."

Aylin saw it first. She looked from Jiang’s tucked body to the streets residents had already opened and closed.

"Near rooms shut," she called. "Far rooms open after the roll. Let the wake take the roofs instead of the center."

Kesta changed her rope angle. Neris kicked the nursery’s near brace closed while her gray bell pulled the opposite roof cloth wide. Beras used his uninjured hand to release an empty room above the center. Olsa’s hunters turned their armored backs to the crosswake and held the outer doors until residents reached safer ribs.

The black current touched Skykeel.

Every open room filled at once.

City roots bent toward the wake. Near-side walls survived the outer curl until it rolled Skykeel instead of crushing through them. When the far rooms opened, pressure caught their empty spaces and dragged the wounded city toward the low fold Jiang had crossed.

No single body moved Skykeel. Hundreds of hands, walls, ropes, animals, and deliberate empty rooms gave the current somewhere to work.

Jiang swam ahead of the north root so residents could see his angle.

Cold made his bare breast numb. That frightened him more than pain. He slapped the exposed patch with one foot until sensation returned as fire.

Aylin noticed. "Come back to the line."

"The nursery is not through."

"You will not help it by freezing where everyone can watch."

He wanted to argue. Her voice shook on the last word, and the argument died before it reached his beak.

Jiang moved nearer the copper lip while keeping his body aligned with the low fold. Aylin gathered the slack without dragging him out of position.

Behind them, the command ship fired.

White light crossed the armada.

Olsa turned toward it. Her hunters did not. They kept their bodies against Skykeel’s opening doors while the lance wake struck the crosswake from behind.

The black current bent around the incoming spear.

Bronze did not turn as easily as a penguin. The star-lance entered point-first, but its long chain met the outer curl broadside. Links slammed together. White fire drew a crooked line through the water as the weapon began following the wake around Skykeel.

"It is still coming," Aylin said.

"I noticed," Jiang answered.

The nursery root crossed the low fold.

Neris lost her footing when the first roll took it. Her gray bell let go of the roof cloth, caught her coat, and allowed the opened room to tear away rather than pull both of them outward. Dema and Tovar held the cradle beneath the thick arch. Freed juveniles chose cracks, braces, and adult bodies as the current changed.

One empty nursery roof vanished into black water.

The rest of the nursery entered.

Skykeel rolled through the low fold and accelerated.

Jiang felt the city pass beneath him, wounded roots and opened streets following the same body curve he had shown. The crosswake caught them, not gently, but fully enough that the armada began sliding sideways behind a wall of black current.

Something held Skykeel back.

The south root had not crossed.

Crystallized wood containing the wrapped first lance head remained outside the wake. The root was too rigid to roll and too heavy to follow the far rooms. It stretched behind Skykeel like a hooked limb.

Kaul’s rider stood on it beside the colorless bundle that had once been her green sail. She drove Kaul’s blade through a roof seam and held while the city pulled away beneath her.

Olsa saw her. "Leave the weapon."

"That bundle is all I have left of flight."

"Then leave that too."

The rider looked toward Kaul.

He lay at the center beneath his pale bell, too far away to reach her and unable to send breath through the city. His shallow chest movement was the only answer he had.

The root began splitting between them.

An empty outer tower cracked down its length. Kesta’s rope pulled blood through her wrappings as residents tried to keep the fracture from running into inhabited streets.

Behind the caught root, the second star-lance entered the low fold.

Its white point turned toward Skykeel’s exposed center while its chain hammered through the black current.

Most of the city was inside the crosswake.

The south root, the wrapped core, and Kaul’s rider were still outside with the weapon coming.