The day after she’d said goodbye to her mother, Shalla scrubbed her cheeks and pinned her braided hair back tight against her scalp. Their teachers liked all students to be clean, especially when meeting citizens. She hummed to herself, checked her tunic for any stray stains, and then lowered herself to the center of the floor and crossed her legs to wait.
This was a room for waiting: a smooth black floor, a blue glass ceiling, and eight tiled walls. She began with the first tile, a large bronze star. This was where you always began. She then let her eyes trace the pattern, following the swirling lines from star to star.
By the time she’d completed three walls, her mind felt nicely calm, the way it was supposed to, not all swirly like it had felt when she’d rushed out of the house. Mama had wanted extra time to say goodbye because she was leaving for a race. She’d be gone for two nights, and Shalla was to stay with the augurs in the temple for extra training.
Shalla didn’t like to let Mama see, because she didn’t want to worry her, but she hated staying at the temple. It wasn’t that she disliked the place—everything about it was beautiful and clean and smooth as ancient stone. And she had plenty of friends here. The students who were wards of the temple had been so glad that she was staying for a little while, and she was happy to spend more time with them. Plus, she liked her studies and understood how important it was that she excel.
But it wasn’t the same as being home.
At home, no one was grading her.
At home, she didn’t have to win anyone’s approval.
At home, no one judged her. Mama just loved her, no matter what she said or did, and that made it restful, even if the food wasn’t as good or the beds weren’t as comfortable. Being there made her feel comfortable on the inside.
In her soul.
I feel like I belong, instead of always trying to belong.
Her teachers would have said that was ridiculous. She belonged here, with others like her, whose past lives mirrored hers. But they aren’t like me—at least, they don’t have a mama as nice as mine.
Shalla grinned at the thought of Mama’s reaction to being called “nice.” “Nice is for people without ambition,” Mama liked to say. “I’d rather you be strong.”
Mama was nice and strong, and Shalla was happy that she’d found another rider who seemed to recognize that. Shalla was proficient enough at reading auras to tell that Raia was a good fit with their little family. No bumpy edges, Shalla thought.
That’s what auras looked like to her: shapes. More advanced students saw colors and patterns, but she saw layers of shapes. Or at least she could when she concentrated properly.
The door to the waiting room opened, and one of her teachers, Augur Clari, entered. Shalla looked at her with her second sight and saw a blur—it was impossible to read the aura of a highly skilled augur. As a side effect of their power, they were always shielded, kind of like a racetrack. Shalla thought it made them very calming to look at.
“Apprentice Shalla, I come with questions.”
“Then I will offer answers,” Shalla replied immediately, using the traditional response.
“And if you cannot offer answers?”
“Then I will posit questions that will lead you to the path of peace.”
Augur Clari nodded her head approvingly. “You have told us that your mother, Trainer Verlas, has taken on a new student by the name of Raia.”
“Yes, they are on their way to their first race.” By now, Mama and Raia would have already left. Shalla wished she could have gone with them. She knew if she’d told Mama that, Mama would have fought for her to be allowed to go, but she also knew the augurs would say no. There was too much for her to learn. Besides, I don’t want to be behind in my lessons. She had a duty to Becar—and, as her teachers said, to her destiny.
A slight frown. “Did I ask that?”
Shalla lowered her head. “You did not.” She should have realized that Augur Clari already knew. Mama had been planning on talking with her before she left for the race.
“Focus yourself, child.”
Shalla looked again at the gold star and traced the swirls with her eyes. Augur Clari waited motionlessly as she completed the first wall, then spoke again. “Where did your mother meet this student?”
“Gea Market.”
“Very good. And can you please describe this Raia?”
“She has no bumpy edges,” Shalla said. “Some shimmering lines. Overlapping ovals but they are full of holes.” The holes, she knew from her studies, were from fear. The lines were choices not yet committed to. But the ovals indicated she was on the right path. A truly balanced soul would be all circles, with no sharp or rough edges.
Augur Clari graced her with a slight smile. “Tell me her appearance when not seen with the inner sight.”
“Oh! She’s medium height, as tall as the middle of our kitchen cabinet.” Shalla didn’t know her exact height, but she could picture her, standing in their kitchen. “Black hair that she wears in three braids that she ties together. Her skin is more olive than mine, and she’s prettier when she smiles. Like she’s so surprised that she’s smiling, so she smiles even more.”
“Can you guess her age?”
“She’s seventeen. She told me so.”
“What else did she tell you, about where she’s from and why she’s here?”
Shalla wondered why Augur Clari was asking so many questions about Raia. She wanted to ask her own questions, but that would lead to a lecture. It wasn’t her place to question, unless it was to request a clarification of a lesson. “She wants to live in the present and future. I respected that.”
“Very well.” Augur Clari turned to leave, her robes sweeping like a whisper against the black stone floor.
“Augur Clari, I come with questions,” Shalla tried. “Why do you ask about Raia? She’s a good student, a good housemate, and a good friend.”
For an instant, Shalla thought she’d overstepped and Augur Clari was going to scold her instead of answering. But then Augur Clari said, “Because it appears she has not been a good daughter.”
She opened the door, and Shalla saw there were three people clustered nearby, as if they’d been listening in on their conversation. Using the serenity of the waiting room to boost her inner sight, she studied them: a man and a woman, whose auras looked like triangles intersecting. And a third man, younger and handsome, whose aura looked like crossed arrows so sharp that Shalla recoiled.
Why were these people with ugly souls in the temple? Why had Augur Clari brought them here, to listen to Shalla? And why did they want to know about Raia?
As these questions popped into her mind, her calm shattered, and she lost her sense of their auras. Augur Clari shut the door as the strangers began to badger her with questions about where to find Mama’s training grounds, where the races were, and where they lived.
Surely, Augur Clari won’t give them any more answers, Shalla thought. Her teacher must be able to see their auras. She was skilled enough to naturally read auras, whether she was calm or not. She wouldn’t put Raia in any danger. Or Mama.
Shalla wished she weren’t confined to the temple until Mama returned. She very much wanted to talk to her. And warn her.
Miles away, Tamra breathed in the smell of the racetrack: the thick scents of kehoks, human sweat, beer, roasted pigeon, all mixed with the sweet smells of citrus and jasmine. She’d been told the warring scents were enough to make the faint of heart dizzy, but to her, it smelled like coming home.
Already there were a half-dozen racers and riders on the track, getting a feel for the sand, snarling at one another. Tamra didn’t intend to take Raia and the lion there yet. They’d be better off at the camp, where they could grow accustomed to being in a new location together. The races would start in the morning—Raia had been scheduled for the third heat, while her friends from their training grounds were slotted in heats two, four, and five.
Tamra eyed the competition as they rode by: the usual mix of lizardlike kehoks, plus a jackal, a few felines, and one massive snake. The riders looked young. Every year, they look younger. And nervous. A few were talking to each other, but most were coaxing their kehoks onto the sand. All the monsters wore muzzles and shackles, a requirement before the races. The officials didn’t want any fighting between the racers ahead of time.
She found their campsite. Since she came from one of the lesser training grounds, it wasn’t an ideal spot—too close to the latrines for any real privacy and without any shade. But riders couldn’t expect luxury at the qualifiers. As you progressed through the races, the tracks and the accommodations became nicer, until the finals, when racers were housed in glorious stables and riders had a plush campsite with a view of the palace. She’d even gotten a glimpse of the emperor himself once, or the late emperor to be more accurate, in the Heart of Becar.
Leaving Raia in the cage to continue whatever ridiculous conversation she was having with her monster, Tamra pitched the tent. She then filled the canteens with fresh water from the tanks. As she was hauling them back to their site, she heard a voice she vaguely recognized.
“Found another fool to maul?”
She turned, thinking it was one of the trainers she’d clashed with in a prior season, but to her surprise, it wasn’t. “Fetran. You’re looking well.” Her student, one of the two who had gotten hurt. And now the pipsqueak was sneering at her.
“All Becar is going to know your training methods are for shit when I, after suffering injuries caused by your negligence, come back and win with the guidance of a new trainer.”
It was the longest speech she’d ever heard Fetran make. She wondered who wrote it for him. “Good luck with that,” she told him neutrally. “I don’t wish you ill.”
“You’ve already done me ill,” he snarled.
“You lost control of your racer on a shielded track,” she pointed out. “You do realize that to win a race, you need to succeed at what caused you to fail.”
“Now that I’m free of you, I will!” He then pivoted and stalked off. “Just watch me win! I’m in the third race with your new fool, and I’ll be placing first!”
Tamra rolled her eyes. She wanted to point out that he hadn’t ever been tied to her. In fact, his parents had paid her to teach him, as they were probably paying his new trainer. She hoped the little idiot didn’t die in the race. While that would teach him a valuable lesson, he most likely wouldn’t remember it in his next life.
Returning to her campsite, she said to Raia and the black lion, “I’d like you two to do me a favor in the race. See them?” She pointed to Fetran and his mount, a large green-scaled lizard with thick horns on its head. “They’ll be running in your heat. Whatever else happens, please make sure you run faster than them.”
Raia prepared her bed next to the black lion’s cage—outside it, of course, because she wasn’t an idiot—but she didn’t want to sleep inside the tent. She wanted the lion to be able to see her and know she hadn’t left him alone.
Watching her, Trainer Verlas shook her head. “After this race is over, we’re going to have a long talk about not projecting your own thoughts and emotions onto a simplistic killing machine.”
“He’s not simplistic,” Raia said, checking for rocks under her bedding. “He understands me.”
“Just don’t forget he’ll kill you if he can.”
“He and I had a long discussion about that. It was a one-sided conversation, but I think he agreed with me. He knows if he kills me, you’ll kill him.” She thought he’d understood much more than that, but she knew she wasn’t going to convince Trainer Verlas. She’d have more luck convincing her the sky was purple. Even despite all the progress they’d made out on the sands, Trainer Verlas still seemed to believe the kehok couldn’t understand more than the basic idea of racing equals freedom.
“Very true—if he kills you, he dies.” Shooting one more glare at the black lion, Trainer Verlas let herself into the tent. “He’s useless to me if he won’t take a rider, and you’re the only one I’ve got.” The tent flap flopped shut behind her.
Climbing into her bedroll, Raia looked up at the stars. Only a few were visible. Most of the sky was a matte gray, lightened by the torches that lit the racetrack and the nearby city. “We’re racing tomorrow,” she said out loud.
She let the words roll around in her mind, trying to get used to them. She knew there were other riders here who had dreamed of this moment for years. They’d imagined themselves as riders when they were little kids, playing at it with horses and goats and whatever else would let them ride. But she never had—she’d never had any choice in her future. Her parents had always told her what to do, who to be, and who she would become. The first act that she’d taken on her own, in the augur temple, had been to fail.
I’m not going to fail this time.
She held that thought close to her as she slept, and she dreamed about running fast. She woke to sounds all around her—the laughter, cheers, and shouts of other riders and their trainers, the screams of kehoks being brought out of their cages and prepared for the race. Sitting up, she saw Trainer Verlas was already awake and alert.
Seeing her, Trainer Verlas tossed her a canteen. “Rinse out your mouth, use the latrine, do what you need to do, but try not to think too much.”
It was good advice.
Hard to follow, but good.
Raia cleaned herself, dressed, and tried not to stare at the other riders who all looked so much more confident and experienced than she felt. Of course they’re more confident. I bet all of them have run around a track at least once without jumping out of it. All around her, the other riders were chattering excitedly, as if this was a festival, while they prepared their mounts. But Raia was in anything but a festive mood.
“Hey, Raia, smile!” Jalimo called.
Making a fist, Silar bopped him lightly on the head. “She’s focusing, idiot.”
“Ow.” He rubbed his scalp as if she’d pounded him. “I was just trying to say she should enjoy herself. It’s not every day you get to dare death.”
“That is literally what we do every day,” Silar said. She waved at Raia. “Good luck out there. Hope you make it through!”
“Yeah, we can hope for that, since we’re not racing against you,” Jalimo said.
“Good luck!” Raia called to them. “Hope you make it through too!”
She couldn’t decide if it was better to have friends who were rooting for her, or worse because there were people to disappoint. But there wasn’t time for an endless spiral of self-doubt—Trainer Verlas made sure of that. She barked orders, and Raia hurried to feed the black lion, saddle him, and prepare to walk him to the track.
“You’ll lead him without any chains from here to the track and wait until the race officials are ready before you proceed to your starting gate,” Trainer Verlas said. “It’s showboating, but it also serves as an essential first step. Anyone who cannot control their kehok during the pre-race period is immediately disqualified. I won’t be allowed to help you. I’ll be with the other trainers in the stands.”
“I can do this,” Raia said, though she wasn’t certain if she was talking to Trainer Verlas, the black lion, or herself. But she felt it was true, for one of the first times in her life. Perhaps the only other time she remembered was when she’d cheered herself on as she climbed out the window of her family’s house and fled into the unknown.
“Once the race starts, all you need to do is run,” Trainer Verlas reminded her. “Stay in the moment. The future will follow as it will.”
Raia nodded.
She was beginning to understand why so few people even tried monster racing. Constant terror is a bit of a distraction, she thought. But if she couldn’t dispel her fear, she could use it, like Trainer Verlas kept telling her.
Across the camp, Raia heard a commotion: cheers and shouts as other riders and spectators flocked to cluster around a new arrival. Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to see who the fuss was about, but Trainer Verlas poked her in the shoulder. “Just a hotshot rider. Every season has them. Ignore him. You won’t gain anything by comparing yourself to anyone else.”
Turning her back on the popular rider and his fans, Raia saddled the black lion. Trainer Verlas checked all the buckles and straps, and then Raia rechecked them.
Beyond the campsites, from the stands by the racetrack, she heard even louder cheering. Her heart felt as if it were beating in her throat. She swallowed hard. The first heat was underway.
“Ready?” Trainer Verlas asked.
“Can I say no?” Raia asked.
“I’m going to assume you’re joking.”
“I’m joking,” Raia said quickly. I’m not. She took a deep breath in, and she began to remove the chains and shackles.
Trainer Verlas laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let me. You mount.”
Raia climbed into the saddle while Trainer Verlas moved around the black lion, unhooking the chains and removing the shackles. She was murmuring to the lion, but Raia couldn’t hear what she was saying. Probably threatening him, Raia thought.
She felt the black lion tense beneath her—he knew that the chains were released. “Steady,” she whispered in his ear.
He flicked his ear back at her.
He’d heard her.
She just didn’t know if he cared.
“Walk,” she commanded.
For one excruciating instant, he did not move, and she thought her racing dreams were over before they began. But then he strode forward. She kept her eyes fixed ahead of her. She knew Trainer Verlas was somewhere nearby, watching. She knew others were probably watching too, but she kept her focus narrowed on just her lion and where she needed him to go.
Bearing her, the lion walked regally out of the campsite and toward the racetrack. The route was hemmed in by walls, but they were no higher than the walls at the practice track. She knew he could jump them if he wanted to.
Don’t think about that, she warned herself.
Beneath her, the lion began to growl, a low rumble that vibrated through her thighs. “Walk forward,” she told him. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four . . .” He walked in rhythm with her counting, so she kept it up.
Logically, she knew the walk from the campsite to the racetrack wasn’t far. But it felt like miles. All around them were shouts and screams from the other riders and racers. She counted louder, trying to keep her lion focused as they waited for the first two races to finish.
Other riders on their racers began to fill the holding area around her. She heard excited whispers and tried to ignore them. As the second heat finished, she heard Silar’s name called: second place! She felt a burst of happiness for her friend and leaned forward to whisper to the lion, “We’re next.”
“You want some advice?” the rider next to her offered.
Startled that anyone was speaking to her, Raia shot him a look.
And then stared at the rider.
He was, in a word, beautiful. High cheekbones, black eyes with thick lashes, perfect bronze skin. He wore red sleeveless leather, showcasing his muscles, and his hands were folded casually on the standard rider’s whip. He was riding a kehok that looked like a silver spider.
It took Raia a moment before she realized that he was the one the others were whispering about. He didn’t seem to notice, either because he was oblivious or because he was used to it. She guessed the latter. “Sure,” she said belatedly. “Advice would be great.”
“Don’t run.”
“What?”
He flashed a smile at her, showing off his perfect teeth. “It would be a shame to see a girl as pretty as you damaged out there.”
Okay, he was now far less beautiful.
“I’ll be fine.”
“It’s your first race, isn’t it? Pity it’s against me.” Leaning closer, he added, “Someone should have told you you’re not going to win.”
Motionless beneath him, his kehok watched her with liquid-gold spider eyes.
“You’re trying to get into my head and shake my confidence. It won’t work.” She had already doubted herself far more effectively than this stranger ever could, and she wasn’t letting any of it stop her.
His eyes widened as if in genuine surprise. “It’s fact, not opinion. I’m Rider Gette.”
As if she was supposed to recognize his name.
“Nice to meet you, Gette. I’m Raia, and I’m going to win.”
She nudged the lion ahead so she couldn’t hear his response.
At last, the track officials scurried out and began beckoning the riders, shouting at them to get to their starting gates. Raia and the lion walked forward with all the other competitors onto the racetrack. In the stands, the spectators cheered.
Raia had a moment of panic—she didn’t know which gate was hers. But then she saw Trainer Verlas in the stands. She was holding up eight fingers.
Gate eight.
She guided the lion into the gate and was relieved when he didn’t fight her.
“All we have to do is run,” Raia said. “Just this moment. Just this race. Stay on the track. Cross the finish line. Be faster than everyone else.” Reaching forward, she stroked the cool surface of his mane. It felt as smooth as glass beneath her fingers. “We are faster than all of them. I know we are.” She’d run with her lion across the desert so fast that she’d felt as if they were flying. She knew he could be fast out in the desert. He just had to be fast now, in this moment. They both needed to drown out the distractions and just look forward. And then the future would follow.
Pressed against the front of the stands by several layers of other trainers and assistant trainers, Tamra studied the racers as they entered the track. The winged lizard—he’d be fast but hard to control. The rhino-like kehok—dependable but slow. The cheetah-hyena—quick in short bursts. It would need a rider who knew how to pace it, and its rider was a kid who looked like an overeager jackrabbit. They’ll run out of speed before the last lap, Tamra judged. Certainly the petulant child Fetran wasn’t a threat. So far, Raia’s only real competition was a blue lizard. Its rider was older and calm, and she guided her kehok into the starting gate without any theatrics. We can outrun them, though. Then she studied Raia and the black lion.
Maybe.
The key wasn’t whether he could be fast; it was whether he would run fast here and now, when it mattered. That was what a rider needed to do: unleash her monster’s speed at exactly the right moment.
And Raia hadn’t learned how to do that yet.
She hadn’t had time to learn much of anything.
Still, it was possible. The lion had the raw speed, and Raia had the determination.
Around her, all the spectators surged to their feet as the final rider and racer took to the track. She recognized him instantly:
Gette of Carteka, the winner of last year’s Becaran Races.
He looked as she remembered: clean-shaven and handsome in the highly manicured way of a man who knows exactly how handsome he is. He was riding a silver spider kehok and wearing sleeveless riding armor that showed off his lack of scars.
Shit.
We aren’t going to win.
If they didn’t place first, they wouldn’t win enough gold. She wouldn’t be able to repay Lady Evara for the slain kehok and still have enough left over for the augur’s latest demands. . . .
But it was too late for more training or even a pep talk. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The future will be what it will be. She’d told Raia not to think about the future, but it was Tamra’s job to worry.
And I won’t let our dreams end before they begin.
Pushing back from the front of the stands, Tamra scanned the audience, looking not for a familiar face but for a familiar type—and she saw him. Short, squat, with a clipboard that he was scrawling on as fast as his little fingers could write, the bookie was busily taking bets from a crowd that shoved and maneuvered to reach him. She usually avoided such people.
Elbowing aside several people, Tamra pushed her way to the bookie.
“Name,” he said.
“Trainer Tamra Verlas.”
He glanced up. She felt the looks of a few around her—her name came with a wealth of rumors and gossip and opinions. “You want to bet? But . . . you have a rider in this race. . . .”
She heard whispers around her—it was well-known in the circuit that Trainer Tamra Verlas never bet on her own racer. She refused to listen to them. I do what I must. “Odds?”
The bookie erased the shock from his expression. All business, he barked, “New racer. New rider . . . thirty to one.”
She nodded. She expected as much. Raia was untried. “Two gold on a trifecta: the silver spider first, the blue lizard second, the black lion third.”
He blinked. Two gold was a lot for a qualifying race. And to bet on a trifecta in a qualifying round was nearly unheard of—the racers and riders were untested. Even more, to bet against your own rider . . . It was considered bad form at best. Stupid at worst. Racing was such a mental game, and if a rider knew her own trainer was betting against her placing first . . . I’m not betting she’ll lose, Tamra consoled herself. I’m betting she’ll place third.
I’m betting she’ll win us what we need to keep going.
If she was right, she could come home with enough winnings to appease both Lady Evara and Augur Clari, at least until the next race. . . . “Odds?”
He licked his lips. “Two hundred fifty-seven to one. Only exact placement pays.”
Tamra dropped the two gold pieces into his hand, and he quickly tucked them into one of his pouches and jotted down her bet on the clipboard. Others pressed around him to place their bets. She wiped her now-sweating hands on her pants. She’d done what she always swore she wouldn’t do. Then again, she swore she’d keep Shalla out of the clutches of the augurs.
One of those was much more pressing.
She felt Osir’s eyes on her, judging her, a smug smile on his face. She avoided meeting his gaze. Let him think whatever he wants. She told herself she didn’t care what his opinion was. What mattered was Shalla and Raia.
Pushing back to the front of the stands, Tamra looked out again at the starting gates. Raia was gazing around her with a caught-gazelle kind of expression. Third, Tamra thought. All she has to do is finish third.
“Ready,” Tamra whispered, as the race official shouted, “Ready!”
“Prepare,” she whispered, as the race official shouted, “Prepare!”
“Race!” she shouted, as the race official and every trainer and spectator in the stands shouted, “Race!” A second official pushed the lever that released the starting gate doors. All twenty doors flung open, and the kehoks poured out, the silver spider in the lead.
Sand was thrown into the air, and Tamra tasted it. She heard the shouts and screams and cheers all blended into a single roar, and she was cheering too. And crying. Because this felt like home.
Wind slammed into Raia’s face. Sand flew around them. And she heard thunder. It rumbled through her, shaking her bones and permeating her every thought.
In the desert, when she rode the black lion, there was silence. Here, twenty kehoks pounded around the track—the sound extinguished the roar of the wind and the cheers of the crowd. Gette on his spider had pulled ahead of the pack.
“Run!” she urged the black lion. Run!
Around her, the other riders were screaming at their kehoks, forcing them faster, faster. She saw them out of the corner of her eyes: bits of nightmares so very close around her. She felt the heat from their bodies as they ran. The smell of their sweat clogged the back of her throat.
She wanted to escape them. She couldn’t help it. Every inch of her wanted out of here.
As the other kehoks jostled against the black lion, slamming into Raia’s legs, she only felt it more strongly. Out, out, out, her blood thrummed. And the black lion faltered.
In that moment, the other racers shoved past them.
The black lion stopped in the middle of the track.
Sand settled around them. The thunder receded as the racers rounded the corner. “Oh, no, no, no! You have to run!” Raia shouted at the black lion.
He pawed the dirt and eyed the walls.
The walls were much taller on this track than the practice track, and they were crowned with stands full of people. She met Trainer Verlas’s eyes. I’m disappointing her. I’m failing!
She couldn’t fail. There was too much to lose. . . . Don’t think about the future. Think about now! “You want out of this race?” Raia shouted at her kehok. “Then win it! The only way out is through!”
His muscles were quivering.
She leaned forward to make certain the black lion could hear her. “You don’t want to run with them? Good. So don’t. Run beyond them!” The open sands were beyond the pack of racers.
He heard her.
Slamming the dirt beneath his paws, he began to run. Faster. She leaned against his mane and clung to him, her eyes straight ahead at the pack of racers. “Run through them!”
Low to the ground, he shot forward. She heard the wind in her ears, displaced by the thunder of the other racers’ hooves. Ahead was a cloud of sand, and she urged him faster. She closed her eyes as they met the cloud and plunged inside. All around her she heard the screams, smelled the sweat, but she kept pushing him faster, faster.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a lizard snap at them, lunging with its jaws, and the black lion veered to the side, bashing against another kehok, then running on. Raia kept her body scrunched as small as possible, shielded by his metal mane. Head down, she focused only on the sand before them.
They passed another racer, then another, and then another. The pack of kehoks smashed together behind them as they rounded the next turn of the track.
Four more ahead of them.
She could see the finish line, the flags waving above it, red against the blue sky, murky through the cloud of sand. They passed another racer. And then another.
Ahead there were only two left: a silver spider and a blue lizard.
“You’re faster,” Raia told the black lion. “Show them you’re faster!”
His muscles strained as he pushed faster. And in that instant, Raia felt what Trainer Verlas had been telling her about over and over: the moment. She felt as if every inch of her skin was aware—of the lion beneath her, the clothes against her skin, the sand pelting her cheeks. She saw every color at once, heard every noise. In those precious seconds, there was nothing but the race. She and the black lion were flying across the sands, part of the wind, part of the world. And she knew they could not lose. . . .
Until the silver spider crossed the finish line first, followed by the blue lizard. And the black lion, with Raia—destroyed, distraught, disgraced—thundered across the finish line in third place.
Officials swarmed the racetrack and around the kehoks. Assistant handlers leaped onto the sands and raced to their assigned racers. Shackles were attached, chains looped around the monsters while the kehoks fought, fueled by the exhilaration of the race and their desire to kill.
It was chaos, but a controlled kind of chaos—race officials always ensured that the kehoks were stabled as quickly as possible, to minimize any chance of accidents.
On the black lion, Raia saw it all swirl around them. The lion’s sides were heaving, but he wasn’t fighting her like the others were their riders. We lost. She felt numb. If they hadn’t stopped, if she hadn’t lost focus . . .
A rider knocked into her shoulder, hard. She nearly slipped off the saddle, and then a hand caught her elbow. She pulled herself back up and looked over into Gette’s smiling face.
“Told you I’d win. Better quit while you’re not dead. You’re not thirsty enough for this.”
He winked at her, released her elbow, and let himself be swallowed by the adoring crowd. A second later, Trainer Verlas was beside her.
“Get off and help me chain him,” Trainer Verlas ordered.
Raia blinked at her. “I don’t want to quit.”
“Good. I didn’t think you did.”
“I felt it,” Raia told her. “At the end. No future, no past, exactly like you said. But it was too late. I was too late.”
Trainer Verlas nodded and held out a hand to help her slide down. “Focus on your lion now. Keep him calm. Keep yourself calm. The aftermath of a race can be even more dangerous than the race itself, especially once the racers are exposed to the emotions of the crowd.” She slapped the hook of a chain onto the lion’s collar. “Muzzle him.”
Obediently, Raia slipped the chain muzzle over the lion’s face. He didn’t fight her. “You ran well,” she told him. “It’s not your fault. I failed you.”
“You’ll do better next time,” Trainer Verlas said briskly.
Raia shook her head. “There isn’t going to be a next time, remember? I want to race again, but we can’t. This was it. We had to win. You told me so yourself. Lady Evara—”
“You placed third,” Tamra said. “That’s good enough for your first race.”
“But Lady Evara said—”
“She said I had to repay her for the slain kehok with our winnings. And third was enough for that.” Tamra shook a pouch clipped to her belt, which Raia looked at with surprise. “Let’s discuss what went wrong, and what you’re going to do next time.” Together, they led the lion across the fields toward the campsite.
Raia didn’t know what to feel. Confusion. Relief. How would the winnings from third place at a qualifying round possibly be enough to satisfy Lady Evara? And the augurs for Shalla? And her parents? “But how . . .”
“You weren’t going to win that race. You will win the next—you can still qualify for the major races if you win your second qualifying race. It’s best of two that determines placement. But to have that chance, I had to do it.” Trainer Verlas took a deep breath, then confessed, “I bet against the present so we can have a future.”
Raia realized that Trainer Verlas was looking at her anxiously, as if she were worried. Trainer Verlas so rarely looked worried. It was a strange expression on her face: the crinkle in her forehead, the extra-hard grip on the kehok’s chains. She’d heard that trainers didn’t bet on their riders, at least the good ones didn’t, the ones who trained champions. “You placed a bet? Against me?”
The lion made a lilting kind of sound, a query at the end of his growl.
Maybe I should be offended. But I wasn’t going to win that race—it was my first. She did the right thing. Raia met the lion’s golden eyes. She knew she was imagining it, but she thought he looked as worried as Trainer Verlas. Worried about me? The thought almost made her smile. “It’s okay. This is good,” she said to both the lion and Trainer Verlas. “It means we’ll get another chance.”
She knew it wasn’t possible, but he seemed as if he understood. While all the other kehoks fought their riders and racers as they were shoved back into their cages, the lion walked docilely inside his cage and lay down, paws crossed in front of him. She climbed into the cage with him and sat in the corner. “And next time, we’ll outrun them.”
He growled as if in agreement.