As the crowd cheered, Raia soothed her lion, “Slow, slow, it’s over. Breathe.”
Flowers were tossed onto the racetrack, as the other racers were led back to the stable. Soon, Raia and the lion were the only rider-and-racer pair left on the track. She felt enveloped in cheers, as if the excitement of the crowd were lifting her into the sky. She raised her arms and, with her thoughts alone, guided the lion back to the finish line.
Guards and race officials swarmed around them, clamping shackles on him.
Don’t fight them, she thought at him. You won! We won! She didn’t know if he could feel her thoughts beneath the barrage of others, but he didn’t resist.
Trainer Verlas appeared at her side, as if by magic. She hauled Raia off the lion’s back and hugged her. “You did it!” she shouted. “I knew you would!”
Raia felt as if she’d never stop smiling. She’d never felt this kind of overflowing joy, as if she wanted to wrap the whole city, the whole desert, the whole empire, and everyone in it in her arms. Joy had replaced her blood, coursing through her and making her laugh and cry all at once. She was lifted up on the shoulders of riders and trainers. Cheering, they carried her to the base of the royal viewing box and set her down.
Smoothing her tunic, she smiled up at Dar. With palace guards on either side of him, he approached her.
“Congratulations, Rider Raia!” His voice rang across the sands. “Grand champion!”
The crowd roared loud enough to shake the sky. She thought they’d be heard across the desert. The cheers rang in her skull, and she thought she’d never, ever forget this moment.
Carrying an ornate black box, the high augurs filed onto the sands, and Dar led Raia to a dais that had been constructed during the chaos under the finish line banner. Trainer Verlas was already standing on it, beaming at her.
Where’s my lion?
Raia scanned the crowd—if he wasn’t with Trainer Verlas . . .
“Steady,” Trainer Verlas whispered. “First you, then the kehok. It’s how it’s done.”
Squashing her worries, Raia waved at the spectators as Dar led her up the steps and presented her to the stands. “Your grand champion, Rider Raia!”
She waved at the crowd as Dar presented her with a medallion. It was stamped with the symbol of the Becaran Races, the victory charm, and it hung from a blue silk ribbon. He lowered the ribbon around her neck. She felt the heavy weight of the medal. She waved again, and in the sea of faces, she saw Silar, still on the shoulders of Jalimo and Algana. As the others cheered for her, Silar clapped her hands together and shook them in victory.
As Raia came off the dais, Trainer Verlas wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Shalla hugged her waist. Lady Evara fluttered around them, proclaiming how she always knew, she always believed in them, and she was so very proud.
Next, it was her kehok’s turn.
The crowd hushed as her lion was led in shackles by guards and trainers toward the dais. Growling, he was trying to snap at them through the chain muzzle. Raia broke away from her friends and ran toward him. As soon as he saw her, he calmed. She knelt in front of him.
“You don’t need the chains,” she told the guards.
“He can’t approach the emperor-to-be unchained.”
She didn’t argue with them. This will all be over soon, she thought at him. At sundown, he’d be reborn and have no more need of chains or cages. Clasping the lion’s face in her hands, she said out loud, “It’s all right. You did it. Everything’s going to be fine now. Very soon, you’ll be free.”
She then walked alongside him up to the dais.
Dar bowed to the kehok.
The lion knelt and inclined his head.
Around Raia, she heard gasps and then whispers—people were amazed at the control she had over the lion, that she could make him bow. She didn’t say that she hadn’t done it. The lion had bowed on his own.
Soon, he’ll be free.
I’ll miss him.
She kept that voice inside her very quiet. This was a joyous day, and she wanted the kehok to know she was proud of him and happy for him.
Then the high augurs stepped forward, and one of the high augurs, an ancient man with a face as weathered as a rock in the wind, addressed the crowd. “As the winner of the Becaran Races, this kehok is to be redeemed.”
Beside Raia, the lion tensed.
She laid a hand on his mane. It’s all right, she soothed him.
The high augur went on with his speech, and Raia sensed the lion becoming more and more agitated. She whispered, “What’s wrong?”
This didn’t make sense. The lion understood what was going on, at least she thought he did. He wanted this! She wondered if he was afraid of how it would happen. To be reborn, he would have to die. But after that, he wouldn’t be a monster anymore. He’d have a chance to start over, and his death and rebirth would save his brother.
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered.
She knew they’d take him to the temple and perform the ritual at sundown. She wished she’d asked if she could go with him. He’d be alone, and frightened.
For the first time, she wondered if winning was what she’d wanted after all. They’re going to kill him, she realized, in order to free him. And she wouldn’t be able to help or comfort him or even be nearby. She wouldn’t be allowed in the inner sanctum of the temple.
Maybe we should have run.
She told herself to stop thinking like this. It was just a selfish fear, because she’d miss him and miss racing the sands with him. “Go to them,” she told the lion. “They’ll set you free.”
Stepping back, she let him walk forward toward the dais.
A high augur, a woman who had been standing near Augur Yorbel, stepped forward. Seeing her, the lion halted. Raia saw his gaze fix on each of the high augurs. His growl intensified.
Raia had a sudden terrible thought. What if it wasn’t death he feared? What if it was them?
As a kehok, he’d never seen the high augurs before. He shouldn’t have recognized them as anything but strangers. He should have no reason to feel threatened by them, but he was acting as if they were a source of danger.
The soldiers tried to prod the lion forward as the high augurs formed a line, blocking the lion’s view of Dar. As soon as Dar disappeared behind them, the lion reacted.
He charged toward the high augurs.
The soldiers reacted, seizing his chains.
Raia cried, “No! Stop! They’re not your enemies!”
As the lion was subdued by the will of the nearby trainers and the strength of the guards, he continued to thrash and try to bite, and Raia thought, What if they are?
She looked at the high augurs.
Impossible.
The high augurs were the most pure beings in Becar. They guarded and guided the souls of everyone. Except not all augurs are kind, a little part of her whispered. She knew how much Trainer Verlas feared they’d take Shalla from her. Granted, that was entirely different—the augurs at Shalla’s temple believed they were doing the right thing for Shalla and for Becar.
But was it all that different? Because her parents believed they were doing the right thing too.
It was a horrible thing to think, that the augurs could have played a role in Zarin becoming a kehok.
But she trusted her lion, and he feared them as if he remembered them. She watched him whimper as one of the high augurs approached him. Giving a command, the high augur gestured at a cage. The guards and race officials hauled the kehok into it. A red velvet cloth was tossed over it, and the final thing Raia saw was her lion’s sad, beautiful, frightened eyes.
She heard a voice inside her head—a voice she’d heard only once before. His voice.
Pain, his voice said. Death.
And then: They killed me.
He was afraid because he remembered them. He remembered his death!
“Wait!” She pushed through the crowd and ran to the cage.
Behind her, Trainer Verlas called, “Raia, what are you doing?”
“Let me in the cage. I need to fix his chains,” she lied to the nearest guards. “He’s shackled wrong—he’ll break free if I don’t fix it.”
Believing her, they opened the cage. She threw herself inside. Hands shaking and heart pounding, she unlatched his shackles and loosened his chains. He lunged out past her.
Trainer Verlas rushed to block him. “Stop!” She was flanked by other trainers and riders, all of them bearing down with their will on the lion.
He halted as if he’d been frozen.
Raia ran to his side. “Please! I have to save him.”
“We’re trying to save him!” Trainer Verlas said. More calmly, she said, “This is what has to happen. You have to let the high augurs take him. They’ll use the victory charm, and then he’ll be saved.”
“They won’t!” Raia knew she was crying—she felt the tears on her cheeks, tasted them on her lips. “Please, Trainer Verlas—if you won’t trust him, then trust me!”
On the dais, she saw Prince Dar stride toward her, flanked by his imperial guards. In his robes, with a circlet of gold on his head, he was nothing like the boy who had wept for his brother. He was as radiant as a legend. “Rider Raia, I demand you stop at once! This kehok must receive his reward!”
She sprang onto the lion’s back. He was snarling and snapping but wasn’t attacking, held in place by the will of the riders and trainers. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she cried, “I can’t! They won’t! Dar, the high augurs killed your brother! They murdered the emperor!”
She’d shocked the riders and trainers—she felt it the second their will faltered, like a spring released. “Run,” she ordered the lion. As the crowd exploded into shouting around them, the lion pivoted and carried Raia off the racetrack.