Updraft: Update 3

Spoilers ahead!

It’s wing-test time! I listened to chapter 5 and started in on chapter 6. Nat and Kirit go to the wing-test where the magisters that teach flight from four towers bring their students to earn their wing-mark and gain permission to fly into open sky. The magisters don’t test their own students though, and Kirit’s group is tested by a young magister that they know little about. The Singer who tended Kirit after her encounter with the sky mouth is there too along with others. He, Wick, talks to the young magister, apparently trying to influence against Kirit, but the magister is having none of it as he covertly lets Kirit know.

Anyhow, Kirit does well with the first tasks of singing laws and locating the towers of the city. Her fellow student and apparent rival (Sidrit?) is not quite as lucky, when she gets an obscure old law to sing and can’t do it. The name of the law I think is something that the old man, Tobia, had said when he was giving the strange bone chips back to Nat. This is one of those times it would be nice to have a print book to look back and check. After Sidrit fails to sing it, the young Magister explains that it is a law about when using concealment is allowed. Interesting.

But Kirit has too many other things on her mind to make the connection. She passes the singing and locating the towers. Then comes the solo flight where she has to follow the Magister and perform the same maneuvers.  The young Magister leads her into a steep dive before snapping out of it, something much more difficult than the other students have had to perform. Kirit fights back panic and manages to follow the difficult flight to the cheers of the many people watching the wing-test from the towers. Apparently, he did it to gain her favor and make it more difficult for Wick to manipulate the results of the test through persuasion.

The last task is a group flight which is the most difficult. Students are put into random teams and have to work as a team to traverse the open sky between towers to retrieve a banner. Kirit’s group seems to be doing well when I left off. Next time I’ll get to see if Kirit passes this final task.

Once again, the world building is really great with lots of good details. Story-wise it’s starting to feel like it’s about time for something to shake things up for Kirit, and I suspect that’s coming soon.

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