Spellbound by Blake Charlton Page B

phenomenon the Silent Blight and wondered if it signified the coming War of Disjunction, when the demons would cross the ocean to destroy human language.
    Francesca was about to ask Cyrus what he thought about the Silent Blight when he stopped casting spells along the rig’s suspension lines and looked at her.
    â€œSomething’s just occurred to me,” Cyrus said. “There are maybe a hundred hierophants working the wind garden. The marshal can send them to Avel if the city’s in danger.” He paused. “Francesca, no more games. What happened in the sanctuary? I need to know everything you do so I know what to tell the wind marshal.”
    She shook her head. “Deirdre ordered you not to trust other hierophants.”
    â€œBut can we trust Deirdre?”
    â€œPerhaps not, but let’s not include more people about whom we are uncertain.”
    â€œThere’s something important you’re not telling me.”
    â€œSeveral somethings,” she agreed. “I’ll explain when we land. Meantime, has that airship gotten close enough for you to tell me why it worries you?”
    He looked north. The white speck that Francesca had seen before had grown into a long white arrow.
    â€œShe has,” Cyrus said after a moment. “This is a bad omen.”
    â€œBetter tell me quick then.”
    â€œI think she’s the Queen’s Lance . I can’t swear to it until we’re closer. I flew as her first mate for a year and half.”
    â€œAnd why is that so bad?”

    â€œShe’s a Kestrel.”
    Francesca could only look at him blankly as a twinge of guilt moved through her. When they had been lovers, she would occasionally sneak onto the infirmary’s roof and fly a blue flag from one of the corners. If Cyrus could get away from his patrol duty, he would land his rig for a rendezvous.
    He would point out the distant airships flying to or from the wind garden and talk about a particular ship’s merits or flaws. Francesca had always been too preoccupied with her studies to remember or care about what he had described. Cyrus had always taken an interest in medicine and her life in the infirmary. After half a year together, he could recite all the bones in the wrist, but she could not tell a lofting sail from a foresail.
    Judging by the way Cyrus’s eyes narrowed, he was now remembering his past irritation at her disinterest. “A Kestrel is a particularly dangerous kind of ship,” he said shortly. “The Kestrel class of cruisers can … oh you wouldn’t understand. Here, maybe this will help: common airships are written on linen. Most cruisers are written on cotton. But Kestrels, they are written only on Ixonian silk.”
    â€œOh!” Francesca said in surprise as she tried to guess the cost of so much silk.
    Cyrus continued. “Before the Civil War, when Spires was still a polytheistic realm, every deity maintained a fleet—a few flocks of lofting kites, a destroyer or two, maybe a cruiser or a carrier loaded with warkites. When Celeste and her canonists set out to unify Spires, they wrote five Kestrels. The polytheists never had a chance against the silk ships. The Kestrels tore apart their fleets one by one. At war’s end, the monotheists had lost only two Kestrels.”
    â€œLovely,’ Francesca grumbled before asking, “So a Kestrel is a symbol of Celeste’s monotheistic Spires?”
    â€œExactly. Of the three still flying, only one is in the western fleet. She’s named the Queen’s Lance, and I bet that’s her now, flying in unscheduled from the Lurrikara wind garden.”
    â€œAnd you’re worried that she might be here to demonstrate Celeste’s power over Avel and the canonist Cala?”
    â€œExactly.”
    Francesca wondered if the ship’s arrival was connected to what had just happened in the sanctuary. Cyrus seemed to be wondering the same thing. “Do you