Chapter 212: Only the Penguin Could Reach Morrowfin’s Wound

Aylin put one hand against Jiang’s good foot and stopped him from standing.

"You are warmer," she said. "That is not the same as warm."

"It is closer than I was."

"So is the armada. Neither fact improves this idea."

White fire crept farther along Cairnspire’s gate teeth.

Morrowfin held her wounded fold against the opening. Each breath drew black water through the narrow slit, pulled the fire inward, and released it against the iron again. The splintered remains of Ashwake’s mast bent between the closing teeth.

Vessa Rane struck the gate lock with the flat of her hammer. "If that spar breaks, the feeder throat closes through her wing."

Irra had already left Ashwake’s deck.

She came down the torn half-sail with a strip of silver cloth over one shoulder and a flat piece of clean star shell under her arm. Neither object ended in a point. Two crew members followed with a thick line that had a smooth bronze eye instead of a hook.

"Hold the gate," Irra said.

"I am holding a roost above it."

"Then keep doing both."

Vessa’s answer went into her hammer. Her second blow seated one tooth against the mast and stopped its bend.

Irra stepped onto the outer dead-star ledge beside Morrowfin’s wounded wing.

Then the animal moved. Her sound wing struck once beneath the roost. Black water climbed the ledge and swept Irra back against the gate. She released the clean shell rather than drive its edge into living skin. One crew member caught her wrist line. The other caught the shell in the silver cloth.

Morrowfin folded the wound tighter.

"She refused you," Vessa said.

Irra dragged herself above the wash. "I noticed."

One of Cairnspire’s sea-wyverns came down from a haul-out shelf without a rider. Blue fins fanned beneath its jaw as it approached the water. Morrowfin’s eye turned toward it.

Morrowfin rolled her sound-side edge.

The wake shoved the wyvern back before it reached the wound. It caught the shelf with both forelimbs and climbed away, choosing distance after the warning.

Nobody sent it down again.

Jiang pushed against Aylin’s hand.

His good leg straightened. The bad one dragged behind him, useless but no longer pulling his hip into a full roll. He crawled far enough from the warm-shell cradle for cold air to reach both sides of his body.

The narrow fringe where his breast feathers survived hurt. His beak had stopped shaking. He could draw a full shallow breath without the nursery cloth holding his weight.

His bare center remained numb.

He turned and crawled back to the heat under his own strength.

"That proves you can retreat from a stone," Aylin said.

"It also proves I can retreat."

She wanted to tell him no and make the word strong enough to hold his body. Jiang could see the wish in the way her thumb stayed pressed against his ankle line.

"One entry," she said. "The line stays on your sound leg. If your breath changes, I pull. If she closes the fold, I pull. If you stop answering me, I pull."

"You were saving the short version for someone else?"

"I am afraid the short version would encourage you."

She removed the nursery cloth. Cold air struck his damp feathers, but the borrowed heat remained along his side. Aylin checked the ankle loop, ran the line through Cairnspire’s lowest smooth ring, and left it loose enough for Jiang to roll.

Irra brought the clean shell tongue across to Skykeel.

Its flat end had been polished dull. Silver cloth covered every chipped edge, held by knots instead of metal pins. The blunt drawline passed through a hole near the other end.

"This goes under whatever is holding the fire," Irra said. "Not under skin. If you cannot see the difference, come out."

"Can your line pull the weapon?"

"Not with you attached to it. You expose the bronze eye. We take the load after you leave."

"And if Morrowfin moves?"

Irra looked toward the dark eye beneath the gate. "Then she moves."

It was the only honest answer.

Jiang took the cloth-covered shell in his beak. The width stretched the old fracture and made his burned tongue press against salt. He shifted the weight against his throat feathers until the beak carried direction rather than the whole load.

Aylin lowered him into the feeder throat.

Black water reached the bare breast. Pain fired around the numb center, sharp enough to make his sound foot open. The line kept him from sinking into the gate teeth while he caught the current with his tail.

Morrowfin’s eye found him.

For one breath, her folded wing remained sealed.

Jiang floated outside it with the clean shell visible in his beak. He did not push. He did not tap the wound or offer a call he could not know she understood.

White fire licked the gate beside him.

Morrowfin loosened the fold.

She chose one narrow opening, no wider than the gap she had given him in the crosswake. Water slid inward along her belly. Jiang pressed his flippers to his sides. Buoyancy carried his back against the upper edge while his tail kept the shell tongue away from skin.

"I see him," Aylin called.

"Do not tighten yet," Jiang answered around the shell.

The channel smelled of burned salt and the old stone scent of dead stars. Morrowfin’s wound crossed it as a pale scar split open along the edge. White fire did not float loose inside her. It ran through something dark and metallic lodged near the joint.

Jiang reached it on his second breathing turn.

The star-lance tooth had broken from a chain jaw. Two backward barbs held beneath the outer scar. A bronze eye remained exposed between them, carrying a faint red glow toward the gate.

It was larger than Jiang’s head.

He put the shell tongue against its lower edge.

The first placement slipped. Shell scraped metal, and Morrowfin’s whole wing trembled. Jiang released his bite at once and let the tool hang from its line rather than force it.

Morrowfin did not close the fold.

Air left the slits behind her jaw. The wound channel became still around Jiang.

Her restraint frightened him more deeply than a snap would have. In the crosswake, Morrowfin had opened water for him because he could read it. Now she was holding torn flesh apart while iron burned inside her. The next mistake belonged to his beak.

For a moment, Jiang wanted Aylin to pull him out before Morrowfin’s choice became his fault. Then the splintered mast groaned in the gate above them. If he left the tooth buried, the gate would close through the wing, and the command ship could keep speaking to the metal.

He spat salt from his mouth and found the clean shell again.

He caught the shell tongue with his good foot, spread his webbing across the flat surface, and pushed from the hip instead of the ankle. The dull edge entered the space beneath the tooth.

Living tissue moved above it. Metal stayed hard below.

Jiang held the difference against his foot.

"Under the tooth," he called. "The line can come through."

Irra fed the blunt bronze eye into the channel.

Jiang could not grip it with a flipper. He turned his head, caught the line behind its smooth end, and pulled it toward the exposed eye in the weapon. The split beak opened farther. Warmth entered his mouth.

Aylin heard the change in his voice. "Jiang, return."

"After I thread the line."

"That was not one of our terms."

"It was implied by the terrible idea."

He passed the bronze end through the weapon’s eye.

Back toward Cairnspire, the line doubled over itself. Irra’s crew took both lengths without pulling. Vessa moved one gate rope away from them so no living bridge line shared the load.

The line on Jiang’s ankle twitched once. Aylin had felt him hesitate, but she had not stolen the decision from him. He answered with one pull, their old signal from the nursery pools: alive, listening, still mine to finish.

Jiang eased his foot off the shell tongue.

Beneath the tooth, the wedge stayed firm.

He had exposed the jaw and threaded the pull. He had not moved the weapon from Morrowfin’s body.

"Coming out," he said.

Behind Skykeel, the command ship opened its red lantern.

Inside the wound, the embedded tooth answered.

Red light flooded the bronze eye beside Jiang. It traveled along Irra’s drawline, crossed Cairnspire’s gate teeth, and climbed the rune mast above Vessa.

Cairnspire’s lowest bridge lit from end to end.

Far behind Morrowfin, the armada’s new star-lance fired.