Chapter 208: The Silver Guild Fed Dead Stars to Its Beast

The first dead star broke before Morrowfin reached it.

A silver-sailed deckhand had thrown the shell whole. The crosswake caught it, drove it against a curl of the wounded wing, and split it into three white pieces.

Morrowfin let every piece pass beneath her.

One fragment spun close enough for Jiang to see the soft light leaking through its cracks. It smelled of hot stone and old salt, nothing like food. Morrowfin’s great underside tightened as it passed her mouth, but the mouth did not open.

The woman at the bronze horn swore.

"Stop feeding the breakage. Whole shells only."

Her crew were already moving. Two people kicked a cracked bin overboard rather than let its contents scatter in front of the animal. A third crawled along the open keel with both boots locked beneath silver bars. Nobody reached for Morrowfin with a hook. Their long poles touched shell, rope, and one another, never the dark skin passing below.

The vessel heeled through the crosswake. Silver cloth ran from its low masts into the water instead of above it, each sail bowed by current. White seams had been stitched across the cloth wherever an older strain had nearly torn it.

Ashwake, Jiang thought. If a ship had earned a name before anyone spoke it, that one had.

Morrowfin beat her sound wing.

Skykeel rolled toward the wounded side.

Kesta’s brace ropes bit into the surviving roots. Olsa’s hunters dropped beside the residents and pulled without waiting for agreement. Their fin-winged companions flattened themselves against the copper ribs, then opened their throat fins together when the current tried to lift them.

Jiang’s ankle line snapped tight.

Aylin did not haul. She wrapped the line once around the copper lip, absorbed the pull through both hips, and gave him enough slack to turn with the water instead of being dragged across it.

"Tell me before you dive again," she said.

"I was considering breathing."

"Do that first, please."

The silver vessel came level with Skykeel’s broken south edge. It was much smaller than the city and had no closed hull capable of taking refugees. Its deck was an open frame around racks of star shell, sail drums, and a dark pool cut through the center. Crew moved on wrist lines short enough to stop a body before Morrowfin’s wake could claim it.

The woman lowered the horn from her mouth. She had iron-gray hair shaved close on one side and a silver cord tied around the other. A fresh burn crossed the knuckles gripping the rail.

Olsa raised her voice over the water. "Bring your keel against this root. My people cross first."

"No. Brace your own city."

"You broke formation. Finish what you began."

The woman put the horn back to her lips. "Captain Irra Calder, Ashwake. I broke your command ship’s firing line because it kept burning after our feeder withdrew. I did not invite a city into the gap, and I did not invite a seven-point coat onto my deck."

Olsa’s hand settled over the iron star on her breast. "That coat fired before the withdrawal order reached me."

"The dead animal would care about your timing. This one does not."

An intact shell rolled from Ashwake’s inner rack.

It was larger than the pieces before it, round enough to hold its course, with a dull white surface unbroken by light. Four crew guided it down a cloth chute. One slipped when the ship dropped. The woman behind him caught his wrist line, lost her own footing, and struck the deck hard on one shoulder.

Irra left the horn. She caught the shell pole before it could pierce the silver sail, kicked it free of the chute, and sent the whole star down beside Morrowfin.

Then she hauled the fallen crew member up herself.

Morrowfin changed course for the shell.

The turn began at the point of her head and traveled backward through a body too large for Jiang to see at once. Her sound wing remained broad. The wounded wing lagged, shuddered, and swept close beneath Skykeel with white fire still burning inside the opened scar.

The intact shell passed beneath her head.

A dark crescent opened under Morrowfin. The star vanished into it without a bite. Pale light traveled through branching marks along her belly, faded near the wounded wing, and did not return.

Morrowfin’s next stroke came late.

The crosswake pinched around them.

One current drove Skykeel down while another lifted Ashwake. The silver ship climbed the black water until Jiang could see the soles of its crew’s boots through the open keel. Kesta’s nearest rope slipped half a hand through its root notch and peeled copper skin from the wood.

"Line!" Kesta shouted to Ashwake.

A deckhand seized a coiled rope.

Irra slapped it from his hand. "Tie us to that city and we enter the wound with it. Brace your own keel."

"We are missing one," Kesta shouted back.

"Then learn the shape you still have."

It was cruel advice. It was also the only useful thing Ashwake had given them.

Jiang looked into the black water.

Morrowfin’s wounded wing had folded closer to her body. The outer current struck its dark upper surface and broke toward Skykeel. Beneath that violence, star dust slid along the wing’s trailing edge without spinning. A narrow strip behind the fold moved with Morrowfin instead of across her.

It might hold a penguin.

It would not hold a city unless the people above learned what shape to make.

Jiang wanted one clean breath before the city rolled again. That was enough to make a narrow strip look generous, so he watched a second trail of star dust follow the same quiet edge.

Jiang pulled his ankle line once.

Aylin looked down. "That was not telling me."

"I am telling you now."

"You are already underwater."

"The order was unclear."

Her mouth tightened, but her hands opened the line.

Jiang rolled onto his breast and regretted it at once.

Cold touched the bare patch like a blade laid flat. The intact feathers along its edge trapped enough air to pull him crooked, while exposed skin dragged directly against the water. He shortened his left stroke, used his tail to keep his beak toward Morrowfin’s body, and let his buoyancy carry him up beneath the folded wing instead of kicking across the shear.

The lee was real.

For three breaths, the water stopped trying to tear him away from himself.

He could hear Morrowfin there. Not a voice. A deep scrape traveled through her wing each time the wounded joint moved, followed by a wet trembling that shook star dust from the scar. The white fire inside it had found no exit.

Jiang tucked both flippers and let the animal’s body pull him beside the fold.

His breast went numb before he reached the far end.

He struck the skin with one foot. Pain returned in a bright sheet, followed by a shiver that ruined his trim. His beak lifted. The calm strip released him, and the outer current seized his injured shoulder.

Aylin felt the line change. She paid out through the first turn, waited until his body faced Skykeel, then pulled. The rope brought him to the copper lip feet first.

He hit it with one hip and hung there breathing against wet metal.

"You look terrible," she said.

"I am wet and freezing."

"You are a penguin. That excuse expired months ago."

She touched two fingers to the feathered edge of his breast, not the bare skin. The shivering had already spread into his legs.

"There is a quiet strip behind the hurt wing," Jiang said. "It moves with her. Skykeel has to narrow before it reaches the fold."

Kesta heard him. She looked across the remaining roots, then began pointing with her wrapped hand.

"Close the empty east mouths. Open the center below the nursery. Move every loose roof inward."

Residents ran. Neris shoved a cradle brace toward Dema. Beras took the weight when his damaged fingers would not close, cursed the hand, and used his shoulder instead. Olsa’s hunters drew their companions away from the exposed edge without pulling on their tethers.

On Ashwake, another shell came down the chute.

This one bore a crack no wider than a fingernail. Light winked through it as the ship rolled.

Irra saw the light and stopped the release.

"Not that one. Stop it."

"It is all we have on top," a crew member said.

"Then dig for another."

"The lower rack is under the burned sail drum."

Irra drew a short blade and cut the drum’s retaining rope. Silver cloth spilled across the deck, taking half their water-facing sail with it. The crew dragged the drum aside and exposed two unbroken shells beneath.

Ashwake dropped lower at once.

Irra had traded her own ship’s lift for food Morrowfin might choose. She did not glance at Skykeel while she did it.

The first unbroken shell entered the wake. Morrowfin took it.

Her sound wing drove once. The dark road widened enough for Skykeel’s outer root to stop screaming.

The second shell followed.

Morrowfin did not eat it.

It floated past her mouth untouched.

Irra leaned over the rail. "Morrowfin?"

The name carried no command. Jiang heard the question in it.

Beneath Skykeel, the star-eater’s head began to turn.

Her dark eye passed under the copper lip. It ignored Jiang. It ignored the shell shining beside her mouth. The pupil narrowed on something inside the city’s center.

Kaul’s pale bell screamed.

The sound reached only the nearest roots, but Morrowfin felt it. Kaul’s living hook rose from his shoulder as if a buried line had been pulled from below. White light moved once beneath its skin.

Olsa drew her blade.

"Keep that away from her," Irra shouted.

"It is inside him."

Morrowfin banked toward Skykeel.

The unbroken dead star drifted away behind her. Her sound wing lifted. Her wounded wing folded tight, and the black current began closing around the city from both sides.