Amanda Lynn could outrun any courier in the land, but she couldn't find one date. The grand tournament crowned the fastest runner alive, and she had trained three years for it. Now she stood in the market square with a torn poster in her fist. It named the tournament but not when registration opened or where. Miss the sign-up window, and all her running meant nothing. She smoothed the poster against her knee. The bottom corner had been ripped away. Someone had torn off the very lines she needed. She asked a fruit seller. He shrugged. She asked a water carrier. The carrier laughed and turned away. Amanda Lynn pressed her palms to her eyes. Every hour she waited, another runner might already be signing their name. Then she remembered the birds. Couriers who couldn't run fast enough sent messages by wing. The fastest carrier bird in the region roosted in a keeper's loft at the edge of the square. If any creature knew where official notices flew, it was that bird. She ran. The loft smelled of straw and feathers. On a high perch sat a sleek dark swift, its pointed wings folded, its tail sharp as a blade. The keeper was gone, but a wooden crate rested below the perch. Carved feathers curved along its sides. She lifted the lid. Inside lay a stack of undelivered notices. Amanda Lynn dug through them with shaking hands. Bills. Debts. A wedding invitation. Then a folded page stamped with the tournament seal. She unfolded it. Registration opened tomorrow at dawn. It closed at noon the same day. The site was the guild hall two towns over—a half day's run. Amanda Lynn's chest tightened. Tomorrow at dawn. She could reach the guild hall in time only if she left tonight and ran through the dark. The swift shifted on its perch and watched her. She met its black eyes. "You found it faster than I could," she said. "Now I have to be faster than you." She set the notice back in the crate and closed the lid. The keeper would want it delivered. But she had already read what she needed. Outside, the market lamps were lighting. Amanda Lynn checked the straps on her worn shoes. One heel was splitting. She had no coin for new ones and no time to mend them. She faced the road that led out of town. Half a day of running lay ahead, in the dark, over ground she didn't know. If she stopped to rest, she would arrive after noon and be turned away. Amanda Lynn took one breath and started running.

The road left town and split into three. Amanda Lynn stopped at the fork. Moonlight showed her a stone marker, but the carvings had worn smooth. All three paths ran into black trees. Pick wrong, and she would lose hours she didn't have. Noon closed the door forever. She stood there, breath fogging, no way to choose. A sound moved in the brush. Amanda Lynn spun. A creature stepped onto the path, and the sight stopped her cold. Its body was split down the middle, one side pale gray, one side dark, striped like two animals sewn into one. It watched her with steady blue eyes, unafraid. "I won't hurt you," she said. Her voice shook. The creature turned and trotted a few steps down the left path. Then it looked back, waiting. A figure came behind it. B.A. Ware walked out of the trees with a lantern, boots quiet on the dirt. Half their hair was white, half black, and their face was split the same way, light and dark meeting at a hard line. They were a courier too. Amanda Lynn had seen them once at a starting line, always alone, always ahead. "You're going the wrong way," B.A. Ware said. They didn't smile. "The middle path is shortest on the map. It floods this time of year. You'd wade to your knees and lose an hour." "Why tell me?" Amanda Lynn asked. "You're racing too." B.A. Ware looked at her a long moment. "I run to beat people at their best. Not because they got lost in the dark." They nodded at the creature. "It knows the ground. Follow the left path where it goes. It cuts behind the flooded stretch and comes out below the guild hall." Amanda Lynn studied the split face for a lie. She found none, only that hard, even stare. She had no better plan and no time to doubt it. "Then I'll beat you at your best," she said. Something eased at the corner of B.A. Ware's mouth. "Go." Amanda Lynn ran. The creature loped ahead, pale flank catching the lantern glow behind her. It took her off the marked path, through a gap in the trees, along a dry ridge above dark water. The middle road would have swallowed her. Here her feet stayed on solid stone. The creature stopped where the trees thinned. Below, lamplight marked a cluster of roofs. The guild hall. It had led her true. Amanda Lynn gasped a thank-you and pushed downhill. Her splitting heel finally tore. The sole flapped loose with every step. She grabbed it, ripped it off, and ran on with one bare foot slapping cold ground. She had the route now. The dark could not trap her. But dawn was already graying the sky, and the road to the guild hall was longer than it looked. Barefoot, she would reach the door with the sun climbing toward noon.

Amanda Lynn reached the guild hall with the sun high and her one bare foot bleeding. She signed the roster minutes before the clerk closed the book. She had made it. But the tournament ran in stages, and the first leg started at dawn tomorrow. She needed the route, and she did not know this land. Outside the hall she found B.A. Ware leaning against the cracked stone facade. The split-faced courier had beaten her here, of course. Half their hair white, half black, the line down their face sharp as a knife. Their creature guide lay curled at their boots, one flank pale, one dark. "You made it," B.A. Ware said. Flat. Not a question. "Because of you." Amanda Lynn watched their face. Last night this person had saved her from the flood. But they were still her rival. Every runner here wanted her to lose. "So tell me the first leg. Which way is fast?" B.A. Ware pushed off the wall. They pointed north, toward a low green hill. "Take the river trail. Flat and dry. You'll shave off a mile." Amanda Lynn heard the words. She wanted to grab them and run. But her gut pulled tight. Last night she had trusted them with nothing to lose. Now they both wanted the same crown. "Why would you hand me a mile?" she asked. Something flickered in B.A. Ware's eyes. Two things, almost. "I told you. I beat people at their best." "You said that in the dark, when I was already broken." Amanda Lynn stepped closer. "Now I'm signed in. Now I'm a threat. So which of you is talking to me?" B.A. Ware went still. The creature lifted its head. For a long moment neither the courier nor the animal moved. "The river trail runs backward from the finish flag," B.A. Ware said quietly. "You'd add three miles. I wanted to know if you'd swallow it." Amanda Lynn's chest went cold, then hot. She had almost taken it. "You lied." "I tested you." B.A. Ware's jaw worked. "The disciplined one wanted to help you last night. The other one wanted to bury you today. I don't always know which is steering." They looked away. "The fast way is the ridge road. That's true. Check it yourself. Don't take my word again." Amanda Lynn stared at the split face and understood. She could never trust this person clean. Half of them would guide her; half would sink her. The only safe path was her own eyes. "I won't," she said. "I'll learn the ground myself." She turned and limped toward the ridge road while daylight held. She would walk every mile before dawn, mark every turn, trust no guide but her own feet. B.A. Ware watched her go and did not follow. Behind her the split courier stood alone, which was how they always ran.

Amanda Lynn made it twenty steps up the ridge road before her body quit. Her bare foot found a sharp rock, and the ruined heel behind her buckled. She sat hard in the dirt. Dawn was hours off, and she could not scout a single mile like this. No shoes meant no route. No route meant no race. She limped back toward the guild hall to think. Near the wall stood a stack of storage crates, one carved with feather shapes along its sides. Runners left gear here between legs. She pried the lid loose, hunting for anything to wrap her foot. A low sound stopped her hand. B.A. Ware's creature stood at the crate's edge. Half its coat ran pale, half dark, the split clean down its spine. The animal had led her around the flood two nights back. Now it watched her with steady eyes and did not bark. It turned and trotted a few steps, then looked back. Amanda Lynn hesitated. Trust the guide, and she risked another trick. But the creature only led. It did not speak, did not lie, did not want the crown. She followed. The creature brought her to a second chest set against the hall, this one divided into neat wooden shelves. On one shelf sat a pair of worn courier boots, laces knotted, soles thick. A cast-off pair, left by some runner. The creature sat beside them and waited. Amanda Lynn picked up the left boot. She pressed the sole. Firm. She checked the size against her foot. Close enough. Her heart kicked. She stripped the ruin of her old shoe and eased the boots on. The leather bit her raw skin, then held. She stood. She put weight on the bad foot. It hurt, but it held. She took a step, then five, then walked a full circle without buckling. For the first time since the fork, she stood on two working feet. She looked down at the split creature. "You didn't have to," she said. It only blinked. Somewhere its owner slept, the half that would bury her and the half that would help. She could not thank B.A. Ware. But the animal chose no side. A swift cut low across the yard, fast and dark, gone before she tracked it. She watched the line it flew. Straight along the ridge, up and over the crest. The birds knew the shortest air. She could not fly it. But now she could walk it. Amanda Lynn faced the ridge road. The boots gripped. The dark held maybe four hours of quiet before dawn. She could mark every turn now, every loose stone, every place the trail narrowed. She started up the slope at a steady walk, and this time her feet carried her forward.

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.

Amanda Lynn returned to the ridge at first light. She had learned the route in darkness. Now she had to see it in daylight, before the race. She climbed the first bend and stopped cold. The road was not the road she remembered. Sun struck the slope and threw hard shadows across the trail. What she had walked as a smooth curve now split into ledges and drops she had never seen in the dark. Her stomach dropped. She had trusted the birds' line. But the birds flew over the ground. They did not touch it. Where they had held straight over a gap, the path below cut left around a broken shelf. She had memorized air, not earth. If she ran this blind on race day, she would break an ankle at speed. A swift shot past her, low and fast. It banked at the same bend, drawing the same line it always drew. Amanda Lynn watched it climb toward the aviary above. The wooden tower stood against the morning sky, its roof tapered to a point, its long eaves swept back like a bird about to dive. The swifts poured from its high windows in a steady stream. She understood then. The birds' line was still true. She just had to match it to the daylight ground. She climbed to the aviary and set her back against it, the same spot as the night before. This time she could see everything the dark had hidden. She traced each swift down the ridge and marked where its line met a real ledge, a real gap, a real drop. She walked the six miles a second time. At every hazard she stopped and fixed it. Loose scree after the third bend. A slab that overhung a fall near the fourth. A gap where the trail pinched to one boot's width. She stepped each one until her feet knew them without her eyes. Near the base she found the worst of it. A wide crack split the trail, hidden at night by shadow, hidden now by a low fringe of grass. A runner at full speed would drop straight into it. She marked a stride pattern that carried her clear, then ran it three times to be sure. When she reached the bottom the sun stood high. She had the route twice over now, dark and light, air and ground. No hidden hazard could take her lead. Then she saw fresh boot prints in the dirt beside the crack. Not hers. Larger, pressed deep, made after dawn. Someone had stood over that same gap while she worked the upper ridge. B.A. Ware had not gone to the guild hall after all. They had come back down to study the exact hazard that could have finished her. Now her rival knew where the ridge could break a runner. And they knew she had found it too.

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.

The grit fix was gone as an edge. But Amanda Lynn still had one problem no one else could copy. Her boots. The old courier boots gripped dirt fine. On loose scree they slid. She had felt it on every downhill turn. On race day, one skid at full speed would throw her into the rocks. She needed her feet to hold the ridge, not fight it. She carried the boots down to the guild hall to think. The building split clean down the middle, two halves of pale stone joined at one seam. She sat on the steps and turned a boot over. The sole was worn smooth in a wide band under the ball of her foot. That smooth patch was where she slid. She remembered the grit crate at the aviary. The same sharp stone that bit the shelf could bite her soles. She climbed back up, pried the lid, and dug out a handful. Then she pulled a coil of thin wire from the loft bench. She cut shallow grooves across each smooth sole with a stone edge. She pressed grit into the fresh cuts and lashed the wire tight over the toe and heel, trapping the sharp stone against the leather. She flexed each boot. The grit held in the grooves. The soles bit her palm when she dragged them across it. A shadow fell over her hands. B.A. Ware stood above her on the split step, one boot on each half of the stone. Her rival watched the aviary crate, then the wire in her lap. On the ridge she had learned to trust their creature but not them. B.A. had already stolen one fix by watching. "You cut your own soles," B.A. said. Flat. A settled fact. "I did." "I can't copy that in a night." B.A. looked at their own boots. New leather. Smooth. "Mine are fast on dirt. They'll slide on scree same as yours did." Amanda Lynn stood and tested the new soles on the loose stone by the steps. She pushed hard sideways. The boots held. No skid. "Then slow down on the scree," she said. "I won't." She ran the scree stretch three times before dark. Each time her feet locked to the loose rock and she kept full stride through the turns. The fix worked. B.A. Ware stayed by the split hall and watched, and this time there was nothing on the ground to steal. She had solved the boots. On race day she would take the scree at speed while her rival braked. But the wire lashings were rough work. She pressed a thumb against the coil over the toe and felt it give, just slightly. Six miles of pounding would test every knot. If one wire snapped mid-race, the grit would spill and the smooth sole would come back under her at the worst turn.

The wire lashings still worried Amanda Lynn. She had solved the scree with grit and wire, but the knots could snap over six miles. Worse, B.A. Ware knew every fix she had built. The grit on the shelf. The boots. Her rival had watched it all. She needed one edge B.A. had never seen. Without it, her lead would vanish on race day. She walked the ridge road again at dawn to think. That was when B.A. Ware's creature found her. The animal came down the trail alone, split clean down its middle, one side pale, one side dark, like two beasts joined at the spine. She had trusted it before. It moved on its own judgment, not its owner's. It stopped and looked back the way it came, then trotted off. Amanda Lynn followed. The creature led her past the aviary to a low storage shed she had never opened. Inside sat a sturdy wooden chest with neat rows of small compartments. Old courier gear. She lifted the lid. Each slot held a different tool. Waxed cord. Iron pins. And in one deep slot, thin curved cleats meant to bolt onto a sole. Amanda Lynn turned a cleat in her fingers. Bolted iron would never spill like loose grit. Never slip its knots. It bit rock harder than any wire could hold. B.A. had watched her lash grit with wire. B.A. had never seen this. She carried the chest to the aviary bench and worked fast. She pulled the wire off both boots and drilled small holes through the heel and toe of each sole. She fit two cleats to each boot and drove the iron pins tight through the leather. She flexed a boot. No give. The cleats sat locked, part of the sole now. She ran the scree stretch to test them. Her feet gripped harder than before. She cut a sharp turn at full speed and did not slide. On the loose stone the iron chewed in and held. She ran it again, then again. Nothing shifted. Nothing spilled. A whistle came from up the trail. B.A. Ware stood at the crest, watching. Their creature sat beside them. B.A. looked at Amanda Lynn's boots, at the flash of iron under each step. Something in their face changed. They had counted on the wire failing. Now the wire was gone. "That's not grit," B.A. called down. "No," Amanda Lynn said. "It's iron. It won't come loose." B.A. said nothing. They knelt and studied the scree where she had run, then stood and walked back toward the guild hall. No plan followed them out. Amanda Lynn watched them go. She had her edge. The cleats would hold every mile. But her rival had just seen them too, and B.A. Ware still had the same chest of old gear waiting in the shed.

The cleats bit scree well enough. But scree was flat. The overhanging slabs were not. Amanda Lynn had never run iron across that section, where the trail tilted out over open air. One slip there meant a long fall. She needed to test the slabs before race day, and she had one morning left. She climbed to the slab section at first light. The rock leaned outward. Below the edge dropped away to nothing she wanted to see. She set one boot on the first slab and pressed down. The iron scraped, then caught. She took a slow step. It held. She took another, faster, and her back foot skidded an inch before biting again. That inch would kill her at full speed. The cleats gripped rough stone. They slid on the smooth, wet patches. Morning damp coated the slabs like oil. She needed the iron to bite even there. A woman waited near the aviary bench when she came down. She wore a hooded cloak and scaled leggings, and she held a small glass vial. Green liquid curled inside it. Amanda Lynn had bought a scent from her once, two towns over. Anita Bathe made perfumes and told no one what went into them. "Your boots slip," Anita said. Not a question. "On the wet rock. Yes." Anita held out the vial. The green glowed faintly, ugly and bright. "Rub it on the iron. It grips damp stone. Dries hard." Amanda Lynn did not take it. "What is it?" "Something I mixed." Anita said nothing else. She set the vial on the bench and stepped back. Amanda Lynn turned it in her fingers. The liquid moved thick and slow. She thought of the slabs, of the inch her foot had skidded. She uncorked it. The smell stung her nose. She smeared a drop across one cleat with a stick. It dried tacky, then hard, leaving a rough green film on the iron. She climbed back to the slabs. She set the treated boot on the wet patch that had slid before. She pressed. The iron caught and held. She stepped across the smooth stone fast. Nothing slid. She ran the full slab section, in and out over the drop, and her feet never once let go. When she came down, Anita was gone. The bench stood empty except for the vial and a faint green stain. Amanda Lynn coated all four cleats and let them dry. She flexed each boot. The film held tight to the iron. She had tested the one section that could have thrown her off the ridge, and she had beaten it. Every mile of the route was hers now. But she did not know what was in the vial. She did not know how long the film would last across six hard miles, or what it might do to her feet if it wore through. She had trusted a stranger's mix, and race day would test it.

The route was hers. But her feet were failing. Amanda Lynn sat on the aviary bench in the last of the light and pulled off the borrowed boots. Her soles were raw. Blisters ringed both heels. Days of scouting barefoot and in stiff leather had ground her down. The race started at dawn. She needed sleep and she needed to walk to the start, and right now she could barely stand. She pressed a thumb to her arch. The muscle jumped and knotted. A cramp. If that hit on the slabs, she would go over the edge. No cleats would save her. A rustle came from the grass by the bench. Amanda Lynn looked down. A small frog sat there, bright as a warning. Its back glowed yellow and black. Its legs were blue and spotted. She had seen its cousins in Anita Bathe's jars, two towns over, where Anita kept her animals and mixed her scents. Then she understood. The green film on her cleats. The vial had come from Anita, who bottled things from creatures like this one. She had rubbed frog poison on the iron that touched her feet all day. Amanda Lynn grabbed the boot and turned it over. The green film had worn through at the toe. Bare iron showed. And her raw skin had touched the film every time the leather flexed. Her feet weren't just tired. They were going numb. She had one choice. Trust the poison or scrub it off and slip on the wet slabs tomorrow. If she cleaned the cleats, she kept her feet but lost the route. If she left the film, she kept the grip but might lose her legs mid-race. She worked through it slow. The numbness dulled the blisters. The cramp had come before she touched the boots today, from overuse, not poison. The film gripped wet stone and nothing else did. She needed both her feet and the grip. She could not have both perfectly. So she split the difference. She scrubbed the worn toe clean where bare skin met iron. She left the film on the heel and mid-sole, where the leather held it away from her cuts. Then she wrapped both feet in strips torn from her shirt, a barrier between poison and blister. She eased the boots back on. The wrap held the film off her raw skin. She stood. Her arch trembled, then settled. She took ten steps along the ridge. No cramp. No fresh numbness. The cleats still bit. She lay down on the bench with the boots on. She would not risk the walk to the start in the dark. She would sleep here and wake with the swifts. The frog watched her from the grass. Amanda Lynn closed her eyes. Her feet ached, but they were hers. At dawn she would run the ridge on legs she could still trust.

Amanda Lynn woke at first gray light. Her feet had held through the night. But a cold fact sat in her chest. B.A. Ware knew everything now. The route. The grit. The cleats from the shed. The green film on the iron. Her rival could copy every advantage she had built. Whatever edge she had, they could steal it before the horn. She pulled off one boot and stared at the green film on the heel. The grip that saved her on the slabs came from Anita Bathe's frog poison. B.A. Ware had watched her paint it on. They would visit the shed, take cleats, and want the same coating. But only one person made that liquid. Amanda Lynn understood her edge then. Not the film. The source. She walked the ridge road to where Anita Bathe kept her animals and jars. Anita stood at a low table, sorting vials of rich green fluid. A small frog watched from a dish, its back yellow and black, its legs blue and spotted. "I need the rest of your liquid," Amanda Lynn said. "All of it. Before B.A. Ware comes asking." Anita did not look up. "They already asked." Amanda Lynn's stomach dropped. "And?" "I told them no." "Why?" Anita capped a vial. "You came first." She turned one small bottle in her fingers. "There isn't much left. This frog gives slow." She nodded at the dish. "One batch. Then nothing for weeks." Amanda Lynn saw it plain. The film could not be copied overnight. It came from one creature and one maker, and both were hers this morning. B.A. Ware had the shed and the cleats. They did not have this. "Then B.A. Ware runs the wet slabs on bare iron," Amanda Lynn said. "Yes." Anita's mouth almost moved. "Slick." Amanda Lynn held out her hand. Anita set the last vial in it. The green fluid curled inside the glass, bright as the frog's back. Amanda Lynn tucked it into her wrap, beside the boots she trusted. "One warning," Anita said. She pointed at Amanda Lynn's cloth-bound feet. "Don't let it touch skin longer than it must." "I know." Amanda Lynn had the raw toes to prove it. She walked back toward the start with the vial against her ankle. The advantage was no longer a thing on her boots that anyone could see and match. It was a supply only she held. B.A. Ware could climb the same route and cross the same crack. But on the wet slabs, where a runner lived or fell, their iron would slide and hers would bite. The swifts lifted off the ridge and traced the race line. Amanda Lynn checked her wraps and faced the trail. She had the edge they could not copy. Now she had to run six miles fast enough to use it.

Amanda Lynn reached the start line with the vial against her ankle. Runners crowded the open ground below the ridge. She needed a flat, dry spot to swap her soft boots for the cleated ones, and to paint the green liquid on the iron. If she slipped the cleats on wrong, the poison would touch bare skin and numb her feet before the gun. She looked for a corner out of the churn of elbows and nervous feet. There was none. Everyone fought for space. A woman knelt apart from the crowd, by a stone wall. She had sea-blue hair and a diver's heavy gear beside her. She was spreading a wide square of oilcloth on the ground, smoothing every wrinkle with flat hands. Amanda Lynn did not know her. The woman worked like someone used to doing careful things with no one watching. "That your dry ground?" Amanda Lynn asked. The woman looked up. "Clean cloth over wet rock. I lay my kit out this way on the dive boat." She tapped the oilcloth. "Water ruins everything. I lost three years of notes to water once. Sounds dramatic. It was." She went back to smoothing. "There's room. Sit." Amanda Lynn knelt on the far edge. The oilcloth was dry and clean. She unwound the cloth from one foot and set her soft boot aside. She lifted the cleated boot and the vial. "Careful with that," the woman said, eyeing the green fluid. "Smells like it bites." "It numbs skin," Amanda Lynn said. "I paint the iron, not the inside." She tipped the vial and ran the liquid along the heel cleats and the mid-sole, keeping the toe bare. She held the boot by its edges so no drop reached the leather lip where her foot would go. The woman handed her a dry rag without being asked. Amanda Lynn wiped the rim clean, twice. Then she wrapped her foot fresh and slid it in, toes first, heel last. No sting. The cloth held. She flexed her foot. The iron bit the stone and her skin stayed quiet. She did the second boot the same way on the dry square. When both were laced, she capped the vial and tucked it away. Her feet were coated right, wrapped right, and still her own. "Thanks for the cloth," Amanda Lynn said. "It's just cloth." The woman gathered her gear. "Run fast. I have my own date to beat." She shouldered her heavy kit and moved off along the wall. Amanda Lynn stood. Her feet were ready, the poison where it belonged and nowhere it shouldn't be. She stepped toward the line. The swifts lifted off the ridge and traced the race path above her. The horn would sound soon. Now the only thing left was the running.

The horn blew. Amanda Lynn pushed off the line with the pack. Bodies pressed close on both sides. Feet hammered the dirt. For one breath she had her lane. Then a shoulder slammed into her ribs. A taller runner cut across her path, chasing the inside track. His elbow caught her arm and spun her sideways. Her cleats bit the wrong way. One foot crossed over the other. She felt her weight tip past her hip, past the point she could pull it back. The ground rushed up at an angle. In half a second she would be down, and the whole pack would trample over her. She did not fight the fall. She let her tangled leg go and threw her other foot wide, like a diver reaching for the pool wall. The iron cleat stabbed into the packed dirt and held. The poison coating gripped. Her body swung over that planted foot. Her hand brushed the ground, then lifted. She was up, still moving, still running. The runner who hit her glanced back once. He had an animal carved on his shirt, a wide flat shape with gliding fins, the kind of mark a courier wore to claim a route. He did not slow. He had meant to break her stride and own the front. He had failed. Amanda Lynn fixed her eyes on his heels and ran them down. By the first turn she had closed the gap. The ridge rose ahead. Above it the swifts lifted and traced the path she had walked a dozen times. She knew every pinch and every slab. The runner ahead of her did not have her feet. She let him set the early pace and tucked in behind his shoulder, out of the churn, saving herself for the wet slabs where bare iron would betray him and her cleats would not. Her breath settled. Her feet stayed quiet and sure under her. The near-fall had cost her nothing but two strides, and she took those back before the climb began. But the jostle had taught the pack something. The front runners now knew she could be shoved and would not drop. One of them, a broad woman with a diver's heavy build, swung wide and boxed Amanda Lynn against the inside bank. Stones clattered where the path narrowed. A man ahead carried a courier's strongbox strapped to his back, its iron bands scraping the rock wall as he squeezed through the pinch. The gap shrank. Three runners fought for one line of clean footing, and the ridge climb had not even started. Amanda Lynn was still on her feet. She was still in the race. But the fast runners had marked her now, and they would not give her room. She would have to take the ridge not alone, as she had practiced, but in a packed, elbowing knot of rivals who wanted her gone.