First Across
You ride the marked course, every gate, every turn, honest as a ruler — and you fly it well. The wind finds out you mean it and gets behind you; the towers whip past; you take the last mist-gate low and fast and cross the line ahead of every rider in the Court.
The crowd stamps its thunder-applause. But as you circle down, you catch the tail end of what happened behind you: young Wren, her cloud unraveled at the second tower, saved from a long fall by two quick riders — safe, wrapped in a blanket, being fussed over. You didn't see her fall. You were ahead. Winners are always ahead.
Queen Cirra's voice cuts the noise. “The race is passed — swiftly done.” A pause, cool as high air. “The sky notices what its champions notice, child. It also notices what they don't. Two trials remain.”
Sera walks beside you off the field, and says nothing at all in a way that says quite a lot.