Amanda Lynn's Arc

Chapter 7 of 14

The boot prints told Amanda Lynn one thing. Knowing the crack was not enough. B.A. Ware knew it too. Whoever ran it cleaner would win. She had the stride pattern that carried her past the gap. But she could only hold it at half speed. At full speed her foot slid on the loose stone at the lip, and her leg swung toward the crack. One bad step there would trap her leg and end the race. She ran the section again to prove it. She hit the fringe of grass at speed. Her lead boot skidded on the smooth rock. She threw her weight sideways and landed hard on her hip, a foot from the drop. She lay in the dirt, breathing fast. The old courier boots gripped well on dirt. On that one slick shelf they gripped nothing. She needed the rock to hold her foot, not the boot. She thought of the swifts. They did not fight the ridge. They read it and used it. Near the aviary she found the crate. It sat by the loft door, sleek and low, its sides carved with long feather shapes and the word Swift burned into the wood. The keeper used it to haul grit up for the birds. She pried the lid and dug through the gravel inside. Coarse, sharp stone. The kind that bit into a sole. She carried two handfuls down to the crack. She pressed the grit into the smooth shelf, working it into every crease and pock in the rock. Then she stamped it flat with her heel until the surface turned rough under her boot. A swift shot past her head and banked up the ridge. She watched it hold its clean line and climb. Then she backed off twenty paces and ran the crack at full speed. Her lead boot struck the gritted shelf and held. No skid. She kept her stride, cleared the gap, and stayed on the trail past it. She stopped and turned around, chest heaving. She ran it again to be sure. It held again. She had solved the crack. She could run it flat out now, faster than anyone who slowed for it. Then she saw the far edge of her grit patch. A boot had scuffed it. Not her boot. The prints came from above, fresh over her own. B.A. Ware had climbed down while she worked the loft and watched her lay the fix. Her rival had not touched the crack itself. They had simply learned her secret. Amanda Lynn stared at the scattered grit. Her advantage was gone the moment she made it. On race day B.A. Ware would hit that same shelf at full speed and clear it just as she did. She had turned the deadliest hazard on the ridge into fast, open ground for them both.