“Seven,” Sena said, smiling. “Liane almost beat him. The wind is gusting now, very turbulent. It knocked Val around a bit. He’s lean, not as strong as he could be. I’ll have him work on that. Pullups, pushups. And of course he was tired by then, but Liane insisted. Liane can handle rough winds. He’s muscled like a scylla. Sometimes, the way he wrenches his wings around, I think he’s yanking himself through the sky on sheer brawn. Val beat him anyway, though. Very close. Then Leya wanted to race, but the storm was about to break and I chased them all inside. What do you think of One-Wing now, Maris?”
Maris poured the teacher a mug of kivas while she thought.
“I think he can fly,” Maris said at last. “I still don’t like what he did to Ari. And I didn’t like that business with his knife today, either. Yet I can’t deny his skill.”
“Will he win?”
Maris tasted her drink, let the sweet warmth flow down and into her. She closed her eyes briefly and leaned back. “Perhaps,” she said. “I can think of a dozen flyers who don’t handle themselves as well as he did today. I can also think of a dozen who are better than he, who know all his tricks and more. Tell me whom he’s to challenge and I’ll tell you his chances. Beyond that—well, speed is only one skill of a flyer. The competition will judge grace and precision as well.”
“Fair enough,” Sena said. “Will you help me ready him?”
Maris stared down at the gray stone floor. “You place me in a difficult position,” she said. “And for the sake of someone I don’t even like.”
“So only those you approve of deserve to fly?” Sena said. “Is that the principle you struggled for seven years ago?”
Maris raised her head, meeting Sena’s gaze. “You know better. Those who fly best deserve the wings.”
“And you admit Val is skilled,” Sena said. She sipped at her kivas while she waited for an answer.
Maris nodded reluctantly. “But if he should win, the others will not forget the past. You call him Val, but he’ll always be One-Wing to them.”
“I am not asking you to fly guard on him for the rest of his career,” Sena said tartly. “I ask only that you help me now, help Val to get his wings.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing more than you have already done for the others. Show him his mistakes. Teach him the things your years as a flyer have taught you, as you would teach a child of your own. Advise him. Push him. Challenge him. He is too skilled to gain much by pitting himself against my Woodwingers, and you saw today how little he is willing to listen to me. I am old and crippled, and I fly only in my dreams. But you are an active flyer, and reputed one of the best. He will heed you.”
“I wonder,” Maris said. She drained the last inch of kivas from her mug and set it aside. “Well, I suppose I must give him my advice, if he will take it.”
“Good,” Sena said. She nodded briskly and stood up. “I thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to tend to.” At the door she paused and half-turned. “I know this is hard for you, Maris. Perhaps if you knew Val better, you might feel some sympathy between you. He admires you, I know.”
Maris was startled by that, but tried not to show it. “I can’t admire him,” she said. “And the more I see of him, the less I see to sympathize with or like.”
“He is young,” Sena said. “His life has not been easy, and he is obsessed with winning back his wings—not so very different from you, some years back.”
Maris choked down her anger to keep from launching into a tirade about just how different Val One-Wing was from her younger self; she would only sound spiteful.
The silence lengthened, and then Maris heard Sena’s soft, uncertain footsteps taking her away.
The next day the final training began.
From sun-up until sundown the six challengers flew. Of those who would not compete this year, some went home to visit families on Seatooth or the Shotans or other nearby islands. The others, whose homes lay long, dangerous distances away, sat perched on bare rock to watch their fortunate companions and dream of the day when they, too, would have a chance to win their own wings.
Sena stood below on the launching deck, shouting up advice and encouragement to her fledglings, sometimes leaning on a wooden cane, more often using it to gesture and command. Maris, winged, flew guard; circling, watching, yelling cautions. She put S’Rella, Damen, Sher, Leva, and Kerr through their paces, racing against them two at a time, calling upon them to perform the sort of aerial acrobatics that might impress the judges.
Val was given a chance to use a pair of wings as often as any of the others, but Maris found herself observing him in silence. He had been in competition twice before, she reasoned; he knew what would be expected. To treat him as she did the other Woodwingers would be to condescend. But, mindful of her promise to Sena, she studied his flying closely, and that night at dinner she sought him out.
Only one hearth was lit in the common room, and the benches seemed strangely empty. When Maris arrived, one table was crowded with the students who would not be competing, and Sena sat at a second, talking in an animated fashion with Sher, Leya, and Kerr. S’Rella and Val were alone at the third table.
Maris let Damen fill her platter with his fish stew, then drew herself a glass of white wine and went to join them.
“How is the food?” she asked, as she sat down across from Val.
He looked at her evenly, but she could read nothing in his large, dark eyes. “Excellent,” he said. “But even at Airhome, we never had cause to complain about the meals. Flyers eat well. Even those with wooden wings.”
S’Rella, seated next to him, pushed a chunk of hook-fin across her plate with marked indifference. “This isn’t that good,” she said. “Damen always makes everything so bland. You should be here when I’m cook, Val. Southern food has a lot of spices.”
Maris laughed. “Too many, if you want my opinion.”
“I’m not talking about spices,” Val said. “I’m talking about food. This stew has four or five different kinds of fish in it, and chunks of vegetables, and I think there’s wine in the sauce. There’s plenty of it, and not a bit of it is rotten. Only flyers and Landsmen and rich traders would quibble about food like this.”
S’Rella looked wounded. Maris frowned and put down her knife. “Most flyers eat simply, Val. We can’t afford to get fat.”
“I’ve been served fish that stank, and I’ve eaten fish stew that was entirely fishless,” Val said coolly. “I grew up on scraps and leavings from flyer plates. I will be happy to spend the rest of my life eating as simply as a flyer.” There was an infinite amount of sarcasm in the way he said simply.
Maris flushed. Her own true parents had not been wealthy, but her father had fished the sea off Amberly and they had always had enough to eat. After his death, when she had been adopted by the flyer Russ, she had always had enough of everything. She drank some of her wine and changed the subject. “I wanted to talk to you about your turns, Val.”
“Oh?” He swallowed his last piece of fish and shoved the empty plate away. “Am I doing anything wrong, flyer?” His voice was so fiat that Maris found it difficult to tell if the sarcasm was still there or not.
“Not wrong, not exactly. But given a choice, I notice that you always turn downwind. Why?”
Val shrugged. “It’s easier.”
“Yes,” Maris said. “But not better. You’ll come out of a downwind turn with more speed, but it will also take more room. And you tend to roll more on a downwind turn, particularly in high winds.”
“An upwind turn is difficult in high winds,” Val said.
“It requires more strength,” Maris agreed. “But you need to work on your strength. You should not avoid difficulty. A habit like always turning downwind may seem harmless, but the time will come when you have to turn upwind, and you should be able to do it well.”