Everything changed after Raia rode the lion.
Before dawn the next day, Tamra and Raia were back at the training grounds, dragging out the cart, hooking up the rhino-croc, and driving out into the sands with the black lion kehok. This time, Raia was the one to fasten the saddle, with Tamra holding the black lion steady.
“You’ll keep me alive again, won’t you?” Raia asked.
“Of course,” Tamra promised. And true to her word, she kept her focus on the kehok—at least for the first few days. Slowly, she withdrew her control, though she stayed ready and alert, as she watched Raia and the black lion run across the sands. She can do this, Tamra thought. She has the fire. She only needed for her kehok to feel her burn.
On the third day, Tamra and Raia removed the chain net and harness. His speed doubled, and Raia rode with an enormous, giddy smile.
On the fifth day, after they’d run so far they were spots on the horizon and then returned, Raia slid off the lion and announced, “I’m ready. Teach me how to race him on my own.”
“You already know.”
Raia stifled a sigh, but Tamra still heard it. “You’ve been saying from the beginning—I have the fire inside, but I—”
“I haven’t commanded the black lion during your rides since your third day.”
That silenced Raia.
Tamra smiled.
From there, the lessons accelerated. Seven days before the first qualifying race, Tamra introduced the challenge of running with other kehoks. She controlled the rhino-croc, forcing it to run alongside the black lion. At first, the black lion was distracted, trying to attack the other monster. But then he seemed to realize that only slowed him down, and he began to ignore the other racer.
So Tamra made the rhino-croc crash into them, cutting them off.
This time, the black lion did attack, and it took Tamra imposing her will on top of Raia’s to separate the black lion from the rhino-croc. Blood was spattered on the sand as the two monsters circled, growling at each other.
“Stop for a rest?” Tamra offered. Soon, they’d need to take shelter from the searing heat anyway. Her tunic felt saturated with sweat.
“No.” Raia mounted the black lion again.
With a rush of pride, Tamra tightened her grip on the rhino-croc’s mind. She performed the same move, cutting them off, and this time the black lion tossed him back and kept running.
The next day, Tamra added the lion-lizard to the exercise. She ran both kehoks close to the black lion, trying to mimic the claustrophobic feel of running with twenty other racers and their riders inside the racetrack.
Raia was able to get the lion to leave them in the dust.
Five days before the first qualifying race, Tamra stopped Raia as she went to haul out the transport cart. “You’ll run on the track today.”
It was time to see how well she ran against other racers.
Raia didn’t question that. Instead, she ran for the saddle and into the stable to prepare the black lion, while Tamra limped to the racetrack. All the time out on the sands had aggravated her old injury, as much as she tried to hide it.
She leaned against the gate to the starting stalls and gazed across the familiar oval of sand. It was churned up by the other racers whom the other trainers had been running through here, day after day.
“You’re going to try the track today?” Osir asked from behind her.
“She’s ready,” Tamra said.
“After one week? On that monster? Doubt that.”
“Then watch,” Tamra said. “You’ll see.”
She said it with a confidence she didn’t feel. It was one thing to race across the open sands. It was another to experience the claustrophobic intensity of the track, knowing your trainer couldn’t help you, knowing it was just you and a monster who wanted to rip you apart. Still, the girl had come a long way in a short amount of time.
And they really didn’t have a choice.
“It helped to not have the distraction of other students,” Tamra said.
“Tell yourself that. Green rider and an unbroken killer?” Osir snorted. “My riders have been learning how to function within a group, to take the curves in the track, to handle a crowd. Mark my words: yours will spook. And as long as she’s within the track’s shield, you can’t help her. None of us can.”
“I know all this.”
“It doesn’t seem like it.”
“She has the control.”
Osir lowered his voice. “Place a wager?”
“I don’t bet on my riders.” Tamra pushed away from the gate and began to walk back to the stable. Raia would need help bringing the black lion to the starting stall—she wouldn’t know where to go, and he might resist the change from the open desert.
“Because you know she’ll lose!” Osir called after her.
Over her shoulder, she flashed him a smile that showed none of her doubt. “Because I know she’ll win. It’s not sporting to bet on a sure thing.”
Inside the stable, Raia talked to the black lion as she saddled him. “Today we’re not going out into the desert to train. We’re going to run around a racetrack. So I need you not to eat me.”
She never knew how much he understood, but it made her feel better to talk.
“You know we’re a team. We want the same thing. Are you going to work with me today?” She shouldn’t phrase it as a question. More firmly, she said, “We’re going to work together. You and me.”
Yanking on a strap, she tightened the saddle. He growled, low. “Sorry, but it has to be tight,” she told him. Otherwise she’d go flying off, which he’d probably like, but she wasn’t keen to try.
He glared at her, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He no longer wore the iron chain net—it would slow him down too much in a race—but he wasn’t loose either. His head was muzzled, and his legs were shackled. Regardless of the progress they’d made, she wasn’t releasing him until Trainer Verlas told her it was time. Just because I’ve ridden him doesn’t mean I’m not still afraid of him. She was fully aware of what he could do.
She heard footsteps enter the stable.
The other kehoks screamed.
“Oh, shut up.” It was Jalimo, one of the other students.
Rising up on her toes, Raia peeked over the stall door and saw two of the three students she’d met before—Jalimo and Algana. She hadn’t had a chance to talk with them since she’d arrived, and she still hadn’t met any of the other students who trained here or any of the paying students. She’d always been here and on her way out into the desert before they arrived, and back well after they left. Her throat suddenly dry, she said tentatively, “Hi.”
“Hey, you’re not dead!” Jalimo said. He elbowed Algana. “She’s not dead.”
Algana beamed at her. “Raia! We heard a race cart was out, and we thought . . . well, that is . . .”
Jalimo jumped in helpfully. “What she means to say is: we thought you were dead and your trainer took a cart to dispose of your body. Lots of sand. Jackals. You know.”
“That is not what I meant to say,” Algana said.
“It wasn’t?”
“Well, it was, but then I thought better of it. She obviously wasn’t dead because the cart kept coming back and going out again.” Algana picked up a saddle and slung it onto the back of a rhino-like kehok with cheetah markings on her side.
“Right,” Jalimo said, clearly having not put those facts together. “Anyway, I thought those carts were just for getting to races,” he continued as he began to prepare another kehok, a lizard with powerful elephant-like legs.
Raia felt her face warm, and she hoped they couldn’t tell. “We, um, borrowed one?”
“You should have trained here with us!” Algana said. “What were you doing out in the desert anyway? My trainer says it’s dangerous to give the kehoks a taste of freedom. They’ll spend the whole race trying to break out of the track.” She quickly added, “Not that I’m criticizing your trainer!”
“She is,” Jalimo said.
“A little bit,” Algana admitted. “But we were worried about you.”
“You were?” Raia hadn’t thought they’d give her a moment’s thought beyond their one conversation. She hadn’t thought about them at all, and now she felt bad about that. She’d been so focused on running faster and faster with the black lion. That was one of the best things about riding: not thinking about anything else.
Okay—she didn’t feel that bad.
Silar entered the stable, ducking through the doorway—she wasn’t quite tall enough that she needed to duck. It was most likely habit. “Yeah, they gossip about you all the time. Hi, Raia, good to see you again.”
“Friendly, worried gossip!” Algana yelped.
“Nothing bad,” Jalimo said. “Just that you’d probably been gored by your kehok, left while you bled out, and then dumped in the dunes for the buzzards to find and destroy any evidence.”
“But it was friendly because we didn’t want that to happen,” Algana said, with a hopeful don’t-be-angry-at-me smile. “And if it had, we wanted you to be reborn as something nice. Like a butterfly, at least.”
Raia laughed.
Silar went directly to another stall, one with a kehok that looked like a dog made of silver metal. “Trainer Osir said we’ll be racing one another.”
Raia’s laugh died. When Trainer Verlas said she’d be on the racetrack, Raia had assumed it would be solo—a few laps to get the feel of the track. She didn’t think she’d be racing with other riders. At least not immediately. I shouldn’t have assumed. “He did?”
“Said we have to be ready for anything on the track,” Silar said. “And that you would . . . keep us on our toes.” Raia doubted those were the words he’d used. And she wondered if Trainer Osir had other motivation. He’s made it obvious he doesn’t approve of how Trainer Verlas handles her riders and racers. He probably wants me to fail.
She wondered if Trainer Verlas realized that, and decided the answer was yes.
She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.
Jalimo looked worried enough for the both of them. “Just to be clear, do we need to worry about your kehok trying to gut our kehoks?”
Probably, Raia thought. “I won’t let him?” She tried to sound confident, but her voice curled up at the end as if in question. She winced and wanted to ask: Can we still be friends if I almost kill you?
“Great!” Jalimo said, as if the uncertainty wasn’t obvious in her voice.
Raia turned to the black lion and whispered, “You won’t let me down, will you?”
He growled.
She reminded herself she needed to be confident, like Trainer Verlas. She wondered if Trainer Verlas had ever doubted herself with a kehok. There must have been a first time she tried to ride one. Raia knew she’d had accidents—the limp that sometimes worsened was from a race. Surely, she’d had some doubts at some point?
The students quit talking when their trainers came in. Raia was relieved to hear she wasn’t the only one who needed assistance in safely coaxing her kehok out of the stable. She kept the shackles on him for the trip to the starting stalls on the track. The openings looked ominous, like mouths ready to chew them up and spit them out.
“He hasn’t run on a track ever,” Raia said anxiously. She was hoping Trainer Verlas would say she could take a lap without any of the other riders and racers. Truth be told, she was hoping her teacher would tell her to bring the lion back to the stable and forget this folly.
“Run him as if you were on the desert sands,” Trainer Verlas advised instead. “Treat the turns as if they’re sand dunes. Use them to build power. Let him loose on the straightaways.”
“It will all be new to him.”
“You’re coddling him.”
“I just don’t want him to kill my friends.”
“Then don’t let him.” Trainer Verlas acted as if it were easy.
The first time she ran with the rhino-croc it hadn’t gone well. In fact, the first time she’d tried anything new it hadn’t gone well. She didn’t see why this would be any different.
“It’s going to be a disaster,” Raia warned.
Trainer Verlas stopped, which meant Raia stopped, which meant the kehok had to stop. He pawed the sandy ground and snorted at them through the muzzle. “Raia. Quit it. You have to be in the moment.”
Raia hung her head. “I know.” She didn’t know why she was feeling so nervous when everything had been going so great out on the dunes. Maybe because it has been going great. I don’t want to go back to messing up.
Of course, worrying about messing up was the exact thing that could mess her up. But recognizing the paradox didn’t make it any easier to dismiss.
They resumed walking toward the stalls, and Trainer Verlas ordered the black lion into his. Jalimo and Silar were on either side of her, with Algana beyond Silar. There was room for up to twenty in the starting stalls, but only the four of them were racing today. Other students were drifting toward the stands, attracted by the prospect of a practice race.
“Riders up,” Trainer Verlas ordered.
It was different mounting a kehok in the stall than out on the sands. She mimicked the others, climbing a ladder and then lowering herself into the saddle. She strapped herself in. Beneath her, the black lion’s mane bristled, clinking together like glass.
“We’re just going to run,” Raia told him. “No different than out on the sands.” Louder, to Trainer Verlas, she asked, “You’ll be there, won’t you? To keep this from being a catastrophe?” It will be fine, she thought, trying to will herself to believe it. Still, she wanted the reassurance that this wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed. Surely, she’d have a safety net for this first time in the track.
“Race conditions, remember?” Trainer Verlas pointed to the air above the racetrack, where the psychic shield shimmered like heat over the sand. “No trainer can interfere.” She smiled in what was probably meant to be a comforting way. “We’ll be near, though, in case of emergency. Of course, if the worst happens, it most likely will occur too fast for us to make it through the shield.”
That . . . was not comforting.
“You can do this,” Trainer Verlas said with finality, and then she stomped back toward the stands, where the other trainers and about a dozen paying students were all waiting and watching.
“That’s your trainer’s idea of a pep talk?” Jalimo said, staring after Trainer Verlas. “‘We’ll help you, but by then you’ll already be dead’? Very helpful.”
She’d been thinking the same thing, but she felt as if she should defend Trainer Verlas. “Well, what does your trainer say to you?”
From the stands, Trainer Osir cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Show them no option! Show them no mercy! Ride them hard!”
Raia raised her eyebrows at Jalimo.
“He more shouts than peps,” Algana admitted.
They all focused on the track ahead. It was a narrow straightaway into a curve. Like running through a canyon. I can do this, Raia thought.
And then: I wish I was out on the sands.
“Ready?” Trainer Osir bellowed.
No, Raia thought. She immediately corrected that: Yes. We can do this. “Run. That’s all we have to do,” she whispered to the lion. “You know how. Run like there’s no one around. Run like we’re on the open sand.”
“Prepare!” Trainer Osir shouted. Then: “Race!”
And then Trainer Verlas hit the lever that unlatched the gates simultaneously. The gates slammed open, and all four kehoks leaped forward. Raia clung to the saddle. “Run!” she cried. “Run!”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Algana hit the backside of her cheetah-rhino with a spiked whip. “Faster or death!” she cried.
The others echoed her: “Faster or death!”
Raia’s focus snapped. She didn’t want—
She felt it the moment her concentration broke, and knew with absolute certainty what would happen next: Blood. He’d attack the others. Claws. Teeth. Jaws ripping at their legs—she saw it in her imagination in a fast burst of images before she clamped it down. “Run!” she screamed at the lion. “Please, just run!”
And to her shock, he did.
He powered past the other kehoks, leaving them in clouds of sand kicked up by his hind paws. She heard the cheers behind her as she took the lead, and she leaned forward into the wind, rising up a few inches in the saddle, the way she did out on the sands.
They neared the first turn, and she tried to think of it like a dune, like her trainer had said, and take the curve—
But the black lion didn’t turn.
He ran straight toward the wall of the track.
“No! Turn! Please, turn!”
Raia felt his weight shift. Oh no, he’s going to—
He jumped, sailing into the air.
The racetrack walls were built high, so that no kehok could escape into the crowd, but they weren’t high enough for the black lion. His stomach scraped along the top, and he landed hard on the other side. Raia was knocked forward into his mane. Her forehead hit the obsidian, and pain blossomed, obliterating all other thought.
She didn’t lose consciousness, though. She kept clinging to the saddle as the black lion ran across the sands, away from the racetrack and toward the open emptiness.
Tamra watched the black lion clear the wall and run, with Raia on his back, into the desert. She wanted to shut her eyes and unsee it.
Around her, all the students were shouting. They’d never seen a kehok leave the track. It was common for them to attack their rider or the other racers. Sometimes they refused to run. Often they tried to attack the audience. They never fled. It had caught everyone off guard, Tamra included, and no one had reacted fast enough to stop it, even once they’d removed the shield.
At least I’ve given them something new to gossip about, she thought.
“Mount a rescue,” Osir ordered. He began to bark at the other trainers.
Tamra held up her hand.
He quieted.
“She’ll come back,” Tamra said, eyes fixed on the desert.
“You’re betting a lot on a student who couldn’t control her mount enough to stay in the race!” Osir said. “If we move fast, we might be able to reach her before her kehok quits running and decides to kill her.”
Tamra repeated, “She’ll come back. Wait.”
“She’s not a paying student, right?” Zora said anxiously beside her. “Where’s she from? Does she have family who will inquire about her?”
Tamra pressed her lips into a line and told herself that Zora was only looking out for the welfare of them all. If Raia had family who would press charges, they could all be brought before the race council for endangerment of a student. “She’s an orphan, she says.” Just because she later admitted it was a lie didn’t mean Tamra couldn’t say it.
“Good,” Zora said.
The other three students had finished the race and were jogging toward the three trainers. In the lead was the girl with the shaved head—Tamra had never bothered to learn her name. “We’re going after her, aren’t we? Why isn’t anyone going after her?”
“Raia knows how to race the sands,” Tamra said. “She’s safest if we keep our distance. Pursue her, and she’ll have a harder time coming back.” The lion would run faster or, worse, turn on her if he sensed them chasing after him. Her odds were better if she were on her own.
I should have realized she wasn’t ready, Tamra thought.
Deep inside, Raia was still running away.
Damn her family to the depths of the River.
Tamra stayed in the stands, waiting, while the others continued to whisper around her. She ignored all further attempts to argue with her, and instead kept her eyes trained on the sands. Raia and the black lion were no longer visible.
The sun crept across the sky.
She didn’t move, even though sweat stuck her tunic to her back, even though the wind blew sand in her eyes. She kept her eyes and her will focused on the desert, as if she could summon them back—she knew at this range it was impossible, but she maintained her vigil.
By sundown, Raia hadn’t returned.
Tamra did not allow herself to doubt or worry. Raia would come back. She was stronger than her fear. I could not have judged her so badly. I will not lose faith. I believe in her.
That was what she said each time another student or trainer came to question Tamra:
“I believe in her.”
By nightfall, the others were gone, and it was only Tamra, watching the darkening desert. Shalla will be home. She’d be fixing herself supper and wondering where her mother and Raia were. She’d set two extra plates at the table. I can’t go home without Raia. What would she say to her daughter? That she waited for a while and then gave up? What kind of message would that send? Giving up on Raia meant giving up on everything: winning the races, paying the augurs, protecting Shalla’s future, and being a good mother.
I should have gone after her.
It was far too late now. The time to do that was in the first few minutes. By now, the wind would have obscured all tracks. If she wasn’t back by dawn, Tamra would have to search for her. For her body.
If she didn’t return . . .
She will, Tamra thought. She stared at the desert, a black sea beneath the stars, and commanded it: Bring her back.
She thought she saw a flicker of movement.
Stepping onto the bleachers, Tamra peered out toward the darkness, as if squinting would somehow make it brighter. She must have imagined it. Now she saw nothing except the shift of shadows that was wind blowing across the sands.
Except were the shadows thicker in one spot?
She stared at it, willing it to resolve into shapes. Come back.
And then she saw them: Raia on the black lion, stumbling across the sands, back toward the training ground. They were a hundred yards out when they both fell and didn’t move.
Tamra ran to the shed, yanked out the transport cart, and then ran to the stable and hooked up the rhino-croc. She drove it out onto the sands. Her eyes scanned the darkness, looking for where she’d seen them fall.
She spotted them: motionless mounds between the waves of sand. “Faster!” she commanded the rhino-croc. He thundered over the dunes, the only sound beyond the wind.
Reaching them, Tamra jumped off the bench. She ran to Raia.
Raia pried her eyes open. “I’m sorry. He wanted to run. And I guess . . . so did I.”
“I know.” Tamra helped Raia stand and hobbled with her over to the cart. She pressed a canteen of water into her hands, and Raia drank greedily. Carrying a second canteen, Tamra then limped back to the black lion. She opened it and poured the water onto his tongue.
He pulled his tongue, wet, back into his mouth.
“Come on,” she told him. “Into the cage. There’s food and water for you.”
All fight sapped out of him, the black lion hauled himself forward and flopped into the cage.
Inside, he ate and drank as Tamra drove the cart back toward the training grounds. Raia didn’t speak. She just drank from the canteen and looked up at the stars.
“It must have been a beautiful night for a run,” Tamra said conversationally.
Raia smiled, albeit weakly. “It was.” Then her smile faded. “I think . . . we might need a little more practice before the real races.”
“That might be a good idea,” Tamra agreed.