One hundred yards above the first terrace, the limestone spine of the ridge pinched down into the central frost-bridge. A natural arch of grey stone barely four feet wide and thirty feet long, spanning a sheer upright cleft through which the western gale funneled like water through a millrace. White rime coated both unrailed edges of the arch, and below its span, the boiling surface of the valley cloud-sea swirled three hundred feet down.
At the northern lip of the arch stood the second judge, Sera. Her six-foot blunted spear was held low across her thighs. Ilyra stepped onto the southern end of the frost-bridge with the bronze-and-mica lamp steady in her left hand. Then, Sera didn’t charge onto the narrow span where a mutual crash could send both women into the gorge. Instead, she waited until Ilyra was halfway across the slick stone—where the funneling wind was strongest—and then lunged forward three paces to deliver a blindingly fast series of upward darts aimed directly at the underside of Ilyra’s left forearm and the brass base-ring of the lamp.
From the watching platform, the shape of the second problem was clear. On a four-foot span coated in rime, Ilyra couldn’t step sideways to evade the upward darts, and if she jerked her left arm high to pull the lamp out of reach, the forty-knot wind screaming over the bridge crest would tear straight through the mica air-slits and snuff the spirit wick.
