Raia kept cleaning, because it was better than feeling as if she were choking on the terrible knowledge she now had. Her arms were shaking as she scrubbed, and she felt as if she were chattering from the cold, except the air was syrupy and hot inside the stable. Sweat pooled under her arms, at the nape of her neck, beneath her hair, but her mind was consumed by only one thought:
Do I stay silent, or do I tell?
She knew it was a dangerous secret. If people knew the late emperor had been reborn as a kehok . . .
No, not just a kehok. My kehok.
Again, Raia felt the old urge to run, as far away and as fast as she could. But where could she go? This was a lot bigger than just running from her parents.
Once people knew the truth, they would immediately look for who to blame. The augurs, of course. And anyone who had been close to the kehok.
This was the kind of secret that cost lives.
But it was also the kind of secret that felt too heavy to carry alone. She couldn’t do it. It shouldn’t even be her burden!
She heard the stable door open and jumped, ready to duck out of sight once more, but it was just Trainer Verlas, followed by Lady Evara and Augur Yorbel. Lady Evara was gushing. “He seemed so pleased! Didn’t he seem pleased? Rider girl, there you are! Where have you been? The emperor-to-be ordered the immediate rejuvenation of the stables and training track. He’ll be adding other racers, riders, and trainers to his stable if this all works out, so you’d best stop cleaning and focus on your training. We have to make sure that we are the jewel of his fleet, so to speak.”
Raia felt as if her throat were glued shut.
“Smile, girl! This is what success smells like!” Lady Evara spun through the stable, her hands out as if she were spraying invisible sparkles in all directions. “Well, maybe not quite as dusty . . . but we’re on the big stage now, and we are going to make the most of it! Tamra, my dear—”
Trainer Verlas cut her off. “Immediate training. Got it.”
Raia put down the sponge and washed her shaking hands in the sink.
She almost managed a smile for Trainer Verlas. “I’m ready.”
Trainer Verlas narrowed her eyes. “You don’t look ready. Do you feel well?”
“Yes, I—”
Augur Yorbel staggered backward. “By the River, you were here! You were here, the entire time. What did you hear? What do you know?”
Just like that, the decision was ripped from her.
Raia wished she could hide again. Or vanish into a hole. She should have run. But where? How? She was miles and miles from anyplace she knew, with only the clothes on her back. And there was no way they were going to let her out of here now.
Always the lioness ready to defend her cubs, Trainer Verlas inserted herself between Augur Yorbel and Raia. Her hands were jammed on her hips. “What is my rider supposed to know?”
Lady Evara checked outside the door and then shut it firmly. “I told you all wasn’t what it seemed. Never doubt my instincts.” She’d instantly snapped from effervescent to all business, which made Raia wonder how much of her flighty aristocrat manner was just an act. Her eyes were narrowed, and her gaze flitted back and forth, as if she were checking every corner of the stable. But this wasn’t the time to wonder about her.
Augur Yorbel looked as if he wanted to faint, and it occurred to Raia that he was just as surprised and upset about all of this as she was. If the augurs had known the late emperor was reborn as a kehok, he would have been found a lot sooner, Raia realized. Instead, it was only one augur who had come searching for her lion. It was Augur Yorbel’s secret too.
“It’s all a lie, isn’t it?” Raia said. “About wanting us to race?”
“A necessary lie,” Augur Yorbel said. “My soul will pay the cost of it.”
“Yeah, that’s nice for your soul,” Trainer Verlas said. “Explanation, please. We came here to race, and we need to race. You can’t change the terms—”
Lady Evara laid a hand on Trainer Verlas’s arm. “Hush. Let the man speak.” To Augur Yorbel, she said, “You brought us here under false pretenses. Pray tell me why so I can react with the appropriate level of outrage. Or panic.”
Augur Yorbel didn’t speak. His eyes kept flickering between them and the kehok, and he looked so lost and trapped that Raia spoke instead.
“The kehok is, or was, the late emperor Zarin,” Raia said. It was amazing that such a terrible secret took only a sentence to say. She hadn’t known that a few words could turn the world upside down, but these words . . . they changed everything.
There was a heavy, terrible silence, pregnant with everything not yet said. Raia thought it felt like the desert before a thunderstorm. She thought about the conversation she’d overheard, if there was anything else they needed to know, but that one kernel of truth was all that mattered.
“Is this true?” Lady Evara asked.
“Yes,” Augur Yorbel said.
Yes.
With that word, Tamra felt as if the sun had been extinguished. She tasted bile in the back of her throat and wanted to vomit.
The late emperor, a kehok? Our kehok?
It was inconceivable.
Such a thing should never have happened. The emperor . . . he was supposed to be beyond reproach, nearly a deity. More holy than any augur. Akin to the stars. To think he could have a soul as tarnished as the worst depraved soul . . .
“This can’t be,” she whispered.
“Well, this is far worse than anything I could have imagined,” Lady Evara said in a clipped voice. She was clutching her hands together, the only indication that she was surprised by this news, though she had to be.
Augur Yorbel nodded unhappily. “It was a last resort, searching for his soul among the kehoks. There was no indication that he would be reborn as anything lesser, much less . . . this. In fact, every prediction was certain he’d be back as a tamarin, or higher. I had hoped my search would fail.” He turned to study the black lion, who was crouched in a corner of his stall. “I think, in a way, it has.”
All of them looked at the lion.
He doesn’t look like anything special, Tamra thought. Standard kehok: a beast that could never exist in nature. She remembered the seller in the market had said it was his first turn as a kehok. That he’d been recently reborn. Certainly, he was the most intelligent kehok she’d ever trained, but that didn’t mean . . .
“This can’t be possible,” she insisted again.
“Move past that,” Lady Evara said impatiently. “I must know what happens next.”
“If it were any other vessel, there would be a public announcement,” the augur said. “Celebrations. A verification ceremony, and then a coronation. The vessel would live the remainder of its life in luxury in the palace.”
“If you reveal the vessel is a kehok, there will be riots,” Lady Evara said. “Or even civil war, as the high houses of Becar question the suitability of anyone in the family line of the late emperor Zarin.” She said this clinically, as if discussing an interesting bit of trivia.
Augur Yorbel looked horrified, as if those options hadn’t occurred to him. Tamra hadn’t begun to think about how other people would react, but Lady Evara was right. It would be chaos. Even deadly chaos, Tamra thought. Already the mood of the country was on edge. This could be the thing that pushed it over. There would be violence for certain.
“You could have just bought the kehok,” Tamra said. “You put all our lives in danger by bringing us here.” She knew they’d insisted on coming, but they hadn’t known all the information—he had. And he should have refused to accept their terms. She shouldn’t be involved in this mess. And Raia . . . Tamra looked at the girl, who was on the verge of tears. She didn’t deserve to face whatever storm this would unleash.
“A true point,” Lady Evara said. “Glad you’ve caught up to the conversation. Augur Yorbel, you have endangered us all. We are tainted by association with this terrible secret.”
“No one will blame you for not realizing what no one could have suspected,” Augur Yorbel said. “I will do everything in my power to see you are not—”
Lady Evara cut him off. “You won’t have the power to help us once this secret comes out. The blame will fall heaviest on the augurs. Especially the augur who discovered this horror. You will be in no position to defend us because you will be consumed with defending yourself. So here is what we will do: You will find a new rider and trainer, for however long His Greatness-to-Be intends to continue this charade. You will compensate us for the inconvenience of the journey here. And we will return home, disavow all knowledge of your motives, and lie low until the chaos passes.”
That was the most sensible option.
Except there was Shalla, currently training at the temple, to consider.
“How bad will it be for the augurs?”
“Did you not hear me say ‘riots’?” Lady Evara snapped. “The people will feel the augurs failed them. They will feel betrayed. And frightened. Think about it: thousands of people base their life choices on augur readings. They rely on augurs for guidance and depend on them to steer them in the right direction. But if an augur can misread such an important personage as the emperor himself, who is to say which readings are correct and which are flawed? They will fear for their own future lives. And they will seek to punish any augur they can for creating that fear.
“I think the seriousness of this cannot be underestimated,” Lady Evara continued. “Do you agree, Augur Yorbel? You must have some inkling of the truth of my words, else you would not have brought us here under the cloak of all those soul-corrupting lies you told.”
Augur Yorbel hung his head. “The emperor-to-be must decide how to tell the truth.”
“He can’t tell the truth if it’s going to cause riots!” Tamra shouted. “Just pretend you never found the vessel. We’ll pretend we don’t know. Treat him like any kehok and run our races. Then, no chaos, no fear, no betrayal, no riots.” And Raia and Shalla will both be safe.
“An emperor must be crowned,” Augur Yorbel said. “The truth must come out. It is out of our hands. Ultimately, it will be Dar who decides what to do.”
Tamra noticed he called the emperor-to-be by his first name.
Lady Evara clearly noticed as well. “He’ll listen to you. Advise him to keep this a secret. At the very least, that will buy us time to put some distance between us and this mess.”
That was a sound plan. Perhaps if she reached home before the news broke, she could grab Shalla and run. If there was enough chaos, the augurs would have no ability to chase her. She and Shalla could escape, invent new names, and start a new life. Raia could, of course, come with them. They’d be a family of three, somewhere far, far away.
“Yes, keep it a secret, at least until we’re gone,” Tamra said. “Let me get home to my daughter. She needs me. And Raia—she’s suffered enough.”
She noticed that Raia was staring at her. Or not at her, but at her tattoo. Surprisingly, she looked more thoughtful than scared now, any sign of tears gone. Does she understand how serious this is? Tamra wondered. Of course she must. All of Becar was going to go up in flames once word got out.
Augur Yorbel buried his face in his hands. “There is no good answer. People will suffer, and I cannot prevent it. Keep the secret, and the emperor-to-be cannot be crowned . . . and chaos. Expose it, and shake the faith of thousands.”
“And chaos,” Tamra echoed.
Lady Evara checked outside the door again, then said, “Very much not our problem. Unless you make it ours. That much is within your power. Let us go into hiding before the river floods, so to speak, and you will at least save three innocent souls.”
Four, counting Shalla, Tamra thought.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Raia had crossed the stable and opened the door to the black lion’s stall, to view the chained beast within. She wondered what the girl was thinking. It had to be upsetting to know the creature she had been riding, been controlling, was once an emperor. She hoped Raia understood that none of this was her fault. Neither of them could have guessed whose soul this kehok contained.
Staring into the kehok’s stall, Raia spoke. “Or you could save him.”
“Sorry?” Lady Evara said. “Tamra, tell your rider not to talk nonsense.”
“He could win and be reborn.” Raia turned and pointed at Tamra’s tattoo of the victory charm, the one that enabled the winning kehok to be reborn as human.
There was a breath of silence as Raia’s words floated in the air.
Sweet River, Tamra thought. She’s right.
If Raia and the black lion were the grand champions, then the augurs would use the victory charm—he’d be killed and then reborn as human, a perfectly respectable vessel for a late emperor. He could be found easily as a newborn human baby, then, and all riots and chaos would be averted.
Lady Evara’s eyes widened. “It’s an incredible risk. He could lose. Or the secret could come out before the final race. My plan is far more practical.”
Tamra touched her tattoo. It would solve . . . well, everything. If the kehok were reborn as a human and then found, Prince Dar could be crowned. The augurs would be blameless. Shalla would be safe.
Everyone would have everything they wanted.
“You know, when I said I wanted a grand champion, that was to motivate you!” Lady Evara said. “Before this news, if you’d failed, it would merely impact my treasury. But the situation has changed. The risk is too great. Win with a first-time racer and rider?”
Crossing to stand beside Raia, Tamra looked at the black lion. He snarled, biting at the shackles that bound him. He was every bit as strong as she’d thought when she first purchased him, and Raia had proved she had the determination, if she could harness it for the races. The first qualifier had shown there was definitely the potential. . . .
“Can you convince the emperor-to-be to keep this secret until the end of the races?”
“I believe I can,” Augur Yorbel said. “Can you truly win?”
Tamra looked at Raia. All would depend on her. That was a heavy weight to put on her shoulders. But she won’t be carrying it alone. “Yes. We can.”