Amanda Lynn's Arc

Chapter 5 of 14

The boots gripped, but the ridge did not. Amanda Lynn climbed the first bend and tried to fix it in her mind. Loose stone left, narrow gap right, a slab that tilted underfoot. She walked it, turned, walked it again. By the fourth turn the shapes blurred. The dark smeared every marker into the same black wall. She had counted maybe two miles. The full route ran six. At this pace, dawn would catch her half-blind, and race day she would run a road she'd only half-learned. She stopped and pressed her palms to her eyes. Memorizing the turns one by one was too slow. She needed the whole line at once. A swift cut past her ear, close enough to feel the air move. It climbed the ridge and vanished over the crest. She had followed one before. The birds flew the shortest route, straight where the road bent. Then she saw where it went. Below the crest stood a tall wooden structure, shaped like a bird in flight, its roof tapered to a point and its eaves swept back like wings. An aviary. Swifts poured in and out of its high windows, all riding the same air. Amanda Lynn climbed to it. She set her back against the base and watched. Bird after bird left the top windows and traced the same curve down the ridge. They did not scatter. They followed one lane through the dark, the same lane every time. She stopped trying to memorize turns. She traced the birds instead. Each swift drew the route for her. Where they banked, the road bent. Where they dropped, the trail fell. Where they held straight over a gap, the path narrowed to a ledge. She matched the ground below to the line above and walked it with her eyes on the sky. The whole shape came clear at once, one long curve from crest to base. She walked the full six miles that way. The boots held. When she reached the bottom, the horizon had gone gray. Dawn was minutes off. She had beaten it. Amanda Lynn stood at the foot of the ridge with the route fixed in her head, every bend, every gap, every narrow ledge. Not from the guild's notices, not from her rival's mouth. From the birds and her own two feet. Then she turned and looked back up the slope. Far off, near the aviary, a shape watched her. B.A. Ware stood at the crest, arms crossed, still as the stone. Her rival had seen the whole climb. They had seen her learn the ridge without their help. B.A. Ware said nothing. They only turned and walked toward the guild hall. Amanda Lynn's stomach tightened. She knew the road now. But so did the one person who wanted her to lose, and they had just watched her master it.