When the last red of sunset had left the sky, and stars had begun to appear in the east, he centered the glowing spot on the disk, and sent Avatre plunging down through the clouds. She could not have been more willing; she pulled in her wings and dove, trusting to him to be her eyes. As the drop sent his heart racing and his stomach clenched, there was also a moment of eye-stinging awe that she did trust him so much.

It was nothing like the wild plunges he and Aket-ten had made when they seeded the winds with the plant disease that rendered tala useless. There didn’t seem to be any lightning anywhere around, and if there was wind, it was too little to take note of. What there was a great deal of, however, was rain. Avatre was forced to moderate her fall, spreading her wings and turning the plunge into a tight spiral downward.

He was soaked within moments of passing into the clouds, as if someone had emptied an entire bath over him. And the farther they dropped, the worse it got until, as they broke through the bottom of the clouds, he had begun to wonder if he was going to find himself swimming to the Tower.

This was the central island of Alta City, the place where the elite of the elite lived. Here, too, stood the temples to the most important gods, the Royal Palace, and, of course, the Tower of Wisdom, the tallest building on the island, and the symbol of the power of the Magi.

Though even in the semidarkness the damage wrought by Eye and earthshake on the rings was obvious, there was no obvious sign of any such damage here on the center island. There were no buildings in ruins, no burned-out places—

But Kiron didn’t have much time to look either; he and Avatre were coming straight down to the top of the Tower to avoid being seen, and the faster he got her down, the better.

And, of course, Avatre was all but blind in this light, depending on him to tell her what to do in time for her to do it.

At the height of a single-storied house above the top of the Tower, he signaled her to backwing and start to land. She responded instantly, fanning her wings furiously and tucking her hindquarters under, then stretching out with her back legs as she felt for the surface she trusted would soon be there. This was the moment they were most likely to be seen—or heard, as her wings pumped, creating a kind of thunder.

He felt it when a single talon touched that surface; she backwinged a little harder, and he felt her hindquarters stretching, then as she got her weight onto the surface, he felt her legs take it. She folded her wings and settled onto the Tower top with hardly more than a whisper of sound.