Angelico winced as Qurora fastened the ties on his armguards a little too tightly.

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head to pull herself together. “I’m nervous.”

She reached for Angelico’s other arm and yanked the ties there no less harshly.

Yoalie on Angelico’s other side peered at Qurora with her round, thoughtful eyes. “You’re not the one flying,” she said. “You’ve got to calm down. Do it properly.”

“Right,” mumbled Qurora, untying her work and trying again more slowly. Her fingers were trembling.

Angelico tuned them out, forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly. Every exhale left him in a long puff of fog.

If Qurora’s grip on him wasn’t so tense, he might have been full-body shivering.

During the entire week of the Caritas Festival, they had never been on Frigid Mountain at night.

And perhaps they should have kept it that way.

Yoalie lifted her open wings higher, trying as much as she could to block the view of the overexcited crowd.

“How are you feeling, Angelico? It won’t be anything like when we fly with just the three of us.”

Angelico nodded, lost in thought.

Firstly, he had never flown the course at night.

The peculiarity of Frigid Mountain’s gauntlet was its long, tight corners which turned at such severe angles and followed closely one after the other.

And though there were ribbon pennants that would glow in the dark to mark out the gauntlet route and show the flightpath, visibility would otherwise be much poorer than Angelico was used to, especially in the sections that were sparsely lit, making it even more dangerous.

Secondly, he’d never flown for so many Aven before.

Merely perched around the cliffs in eager anticipation, the sheer number of them produced a conspicuous susurrus that Angelico found both stimulating and distracting.

Though the eyas gathered on the cliffs tonight were not exactly a hostile crowd, Nihyl was a paragon among them. As well as his own inexperience, Angelico only had their disesteem.

Yoalie stepped into Angelico’s line of sight and followed his distant, wandering gaze until he focused on her.

“Hey. You don’t have to win this wingfight you know.”

“I know,” said Angelico.

They had all seen Nihyl fly at the Caritas Festival; his style was brutal and efficient. He wasn’t the disciple of the Hierarch for nothing.

On the other side of the cliff clearing, Nihyl moved through his own warmup routine surrounded by his effusive entourage.

A round of light-hearted laughter rang out from their party.

Qurora gnashed her teeth and glared in their direction. Then her face froze in astonishment when one of those lackeys broke off and approached them.

It was Juress, the loudest laugher in Nihyl’s posse. A reed whistle on a cord hug around her neck.

She gave them a genteel smile. “Pardon the interruption, but is your side ready to start?”

Angelico checked over himself and stretched out one more time; across his chest and shoulders, and down his legs to his toes.

His heart was thundering in his chest, and a cold static pricked in his limbs, under his skin.

Angelico relaxed and tapped into the feeling: it wasn’t fear. It was anticipation.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

He stepped out of Yoalie’s shield of feathers, and opened out and extended his wings.

A roar went up from the crowd.

Angelico followed Juress to the cliff edge where the gauntlet’s course started. Nihyl was already there waiting.

His smile was polite, but his eyes radiated open disdain at the Disklight rippling over Angelico’s glossy black wings.

“Do you understand what’s happening right now?” He asked.

Angelico played back the week’s events. “What do you mean?”

Nihyl changed his question. “Why are you at this gauntlet tonight?”

Angelico tread carefully. “It’s the last night of the Caritas Festival. This is where we wanted to fly.”

Nihyl looked away at his cluelessness. “Did you know that Frigid Mountain has no champion?”

Angelico shrugged. “Is Madame Wazura of the Freezing Sky Parlour its custodian? It doesn’t seem like she has a disciple.”

“She doesn’t,” confirmed Nihyl. “It’s out of respect for her that we don’t fight here.”

“Well, we’re not here to fight,” said Angelico, frowning lightly.

“Yes, that’s part of the problem,” growled Nihyl. “The Freezing Sky Parlour is special to me. Unserious casuals will never conquer Frigid Mountain’s gauntlet.”

Nihyl lifted his chin imperiously. “Outsiders are welcome to watch and clap. In fact, it’s right that other Aven should behold what we can do.”

“But why should our mountains suffer your limp and uninspired flying? None of us here want to see that.”

Angelico had dropped his head at Nihyl’s lecture.

He couldn’t let him see that he was seething.

What would a spoiled aristocrat know about inspired flying?

Angelico had tasted more blood, more despair.

Nihyl wasn’t better than him. Angelico would make him understand that.

Juress leaned in nonchalantly. “On that note, Angelico, as the one to receive the challenge, would you like to lead, or to follow?”

“I’ll follow,” said Angelico.

“Of course you will,” sneered Nihyl.

Juress backed far out of their way, and they both took up their positions at the edge of the cliff.

“Don’t fall too far behind,” said Nihyl. “I didn’t challenge you just to fly the gauntlet solo. Watch and see, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“Do what you like, I’m not following to watch. I’m following because I’m going to pass you.”

Nihyl’s stunned expression morphed into surprised delight.

“That’s more like it. Don’t hold back.”

On Celestial Mountain, the Holy Disk had finished rising. The crowd of watching eyas who had opened their wings to soak in its silver light were beating them and hollering with fervour.

Angelico let his world narrow down to the prey poised before him: his tasteful robes, his well-groomed feathers, his ugly haircut.

The reed whistle sounded.

Nihyl vanished over the cliff.

Angelico leapt down after him.

---

They zoomed down the initial straightaway, barely a gap between them.

The rushing air chilled Angelico’s face as he crashed through it in Nihyl’s wake.

They came to the first set of corners.

Nihyl rolled through them comfortably, taking his turns with the bare minimal motion like he was sunning himself on a summer’s day.

Angelico wouldn’t tunnel-vision. He fought to stay in touch with himself, relying on his own muscle memory instead of being taken into Nihyl pace.

Trying to imitate him would be reactive: too slow.

Angelico knew this course. He could trust himself.

But he couldn’t fall behind either.

Angelico beat his wings and pushed harder.

“Not bad,” called Nihyl, as they came into the straightaway about halfway down the mountain. “Now go ahead and try to pass me.”

Angelico was on him before he finished speaking.

Nihyl laughed as he slipped through Angelico’s attacks. He let one hit connect, and redirected the contact to take an opening and scratch a gash into Angelico’s armguards.

Angelico pulled back and they entered the second set of corners, even narrower than the first.

In front of him, Nihyl executed his line with ease.

A split second distracted by his flawless technique had one of Angelico’s wings tearing a ribbon pennant from its wooden post with a crack.

Nihyl turned over to look back at him and smirk condescendingly.

They broke into the final straight.

Angelico tackled Nihyl.

They tumbled through the lowest stretch of the gauntlet together, wings akimbo and flailing.

Nihyl got a grip on Angelico’s arm and twisted hard.

Angelico screamed as he was forced let go.

They both recovered their balance enough to make a proper touchdown at the gauntlet turning-point on the foot of Frigid Mountain.

The shallow water lapping at the rock shore there splashed up violently as they landed.

“I’m glad you’re not afraid of me,” said Nihyl.

He was in Angelico’s space instantly, swiping at his chest.

“Cowards don’t belong in the Inner Sky.”

Angelico grit his teeth and blocked, absorbing each blow with apparent difficulty.

When Nihyl finished his volley, Angelico slunk back, panting, trying to put some distance between them.

Nihyl followed as Angelico led them around in a slow circle, until Nihyl was spotlighted in the face of the Holy Disk, and Angelico was backlit in a thin silver halo.

Nihyl lashed out again, but nothing landed.

Angelico, re-centered now, could hear everything. Every ripple and splash of water telegraphed Nihyl’s every move.

This was just like back in the Jawbone; Angelico fighting for his life in the lowest, darkest arena in the world.

Nobody knew it better than he did; he and all his kith in Master Akiyoh’s illegitimate Order.

Angelico hit back and this time he caught Nihyl in the face.

Nihyl grunted and licked at the tear in his lip. He twitched his nose too, which was bleeding.

Angelico was nearly heady at the smell of it.

“Careful, I might really kill you,” sniffed Nihyl.

“No you wouldn’t. That would make you look bad.”

Nihyl bared his teeth. “You couldn’t make me look bad if you threw up as I gut you.”

Nihyl went into the wind-up spin for his next attack; Angelico heard it.

So predictable.

Angelico dashed in and dropped his centre of gravity, putting a knee in the water and yanking at Nihyl’s ankle.

Nihyl screeched as he was flung into the water, splashing down.

Angelico took off back up the mountain at once.

---

It was such a rush to lead the wingfight; to see the clear, open course ahead, dotted with its pretty, lit-up pennants beckoning him upwards.

The peace didn’t last long.

Nihyl was gaining on Angelico rapidly.

By the time they came up to the first set of corners, Angelico thought he felt Nihyl’s claws graze his boots.

Angelico took the turns faster than he’d ever dared, every muscle in his body screaming at the strain, and cold air sluicing over him in an icy, ghostly waterfall.

They broke into the middle straightaway.

Angelico braced himself, and Nihyl whaled on him furiously.

They grappled back and forth as they climbed higher, Angelico madly recalling every illegal, fight-ending move he could have used in Stratos, or in Hunting season.

Then suddenly with a chill Angelico realised he’d lost control.

He wasn’t flying— Nihyl with a grip on his collar was hauling him up the mountain.

Revulsion overcame him.

In a panic, Angelico tore himself from Nihyl’s grip, dropping past him swiftly.

He struggled to right himself, spinning wildly in a line dangerously close to the cliff face, and smashing into the pennant posts: one, two, three.

The wood splintered on impact, shards of it tearing through his robes and into his skin.

But it slowed him down just about enough.

Upright now, Angelico scrabbled his claws into the mountain rock.

Nihyl was disappearing up the gauntlet fast.

There wasn’t a moment to catch his breath.

Angelico raced after him.

---

Up on the clifftops, Juress spotted them closing in on the end of the gauntlet.

She blew the reed whistle and the crowd cried out.

Nihyl cackled like a maniac as he crested the finish line first, Angelico only a wingbeat behind him.