Dar hated all the subterfuge. He also hated the musicians he’d hired to obscure his sensitive conversations. Calling today’s contingent of personal guards into his throne room, he paced in front of them. “I have a problem,” he announced.
The head guard bowed. “We live to serve.”
“By the River, I hope not. You should serve to live.” He then winced at himself. That was one of those un-emperor-like statements that always made Zarin laugh, right before his brother would caution him never to say that out loud. “Never mind. My problem is that I wish to consult with my racing team about strategy before the final race tomorrow, without fear that someone will overhear and share with my competitors or use that knowledge to help their bets. But spying on me seems to be everyone’s favorite hobby. Any thoughts on how I can have a chat without feeling as if my every word is being sold to the highest bidder?”
The horrendous music had worked well for a while, but by now most of courtiers had caught onto his trick. A few of them had even showed up holding their own instruments, in the hopes of getting close enough to hear something interesting between the squeaks and squeals. Others simply bribed the musicians.
“Vigilance,” the guard said. “We will ensure no one comes close enough to overhear.”
“So you’ve been only halfheartedly guarding me until now?” Dar knew that wasn’t the case, but honestly, if the man was going to make such a unhelpful suggestion . . . The whole idea behind this conversation was to make his guards feel more personally invested. It was, he thought, a different approach than his brother, but he still thought Zarin would have approved. “Any rooms that my predecessors used that are spy-proof?”
Another guard stepped forward. “Your Excellence, your brother preferred the aviary.”
“I know that. He liked to visit the river hawk that was once our mother . . .” He trailed off. The aviary was, by his brother’s imperial order, kept empty so Zarin could visit their mother in solitude. Clever, Zarin. He felt a pang—his brother was again helping him, even after death. “An excellent idea. I’ll visit her as well. Please lead the sweep to ensure it is empty—courtiers, servants, everyone. If I learn afterward that I’ve been overheard, I will hold you personally responsible.”
The guard bowed. “It will be done.”
Barking at a contingent of guards, she led them marching out of the room. He stood, smiled at the remaining guards, and said, “The races are thrilling, aren’t they? Are you excited for tomorrow’s championship race?”
At that, the guards began to chatter, sharing their thoughts and predictions. Many confessed they’d bet on his racer. It was a pleasant way to spend the minutes while he waited for the aviary to be prepared and his guests to arrive.
When a servant signaled that all was ready, he strolled between his talkative guards out of the throne room and through the halls. Drifting out from where she waited by a pillar, Lady Nori matched pace with him.
He grinned at her. “Sneaky. I didn’t even see you there.”
“It’s impossible to be alone with you these days.”
He waved at his guards. “This is hardly alone.”
“Closer to alone than we are in the stands, watching the races. Besides, if you can’t trust your guards, who can you trust?” But she peeked between them anyway, as if expecting to spot a palace spy, or just one of the court gossips, and then she bowed and said, “Your Excellence, apologies for the interruption.”
Dar smiled at her. “You don’t need to apologize, and you know I’m not excellent.”
“I’m glad to see you looking happy.”
“I’d say ‘hopeful.’ Not happy.” He thought of one thing that would make him happy, but it wouldn’t be fair to Nori to spring that on her. Not when everything was so complicated. He settled on saying, “I’m happier now that you’re here.” Then he winced, because he knew better than to be so honest in court. It was a thing that Zarin was always shaking his head at. You can’t just go saying what you feel, Dar, Zarin used to say. They’ll use it against you, any way they can.
Nori wrinkled her nose in that way he loved. “I wish I’d cornered you with news that would make you happier.” She lowered her voice. “I have heard rumors about the ambassador of Ranir. It’s said he’s been bribing augurs to delay the search for your late brother’s vessel, and it’s said he has the full resources of the king of Ranir’s treasury to draw from. Far beyond a mere ambassador’s typical funds. It’s also said that the movement of Raniran troops on the border is more than mere ‘military exercises.’”
“Augurs are immune to bribes,” Dar said. Their treasury was vast—augurs had no need of personal wealth when they had the vast resources of the temples at their disposal—and they were committed, by both training and temperament, to the purity of their souls. “And I am aware of the troop movements.” His generals kept him updated, as well as voicing their increasing frustration at their inability to do anything substantial about the massing army. Without imperial orders, they could do little but increase their standard patrols. He wondered if it would take an invasion for his generals to agree to break with tradition—and law—and defend Becar. Surely, if the threat grew serious enough, they’d rally, even at risk to themselves. In the meantime, he had a real enemy to find, one already within the palace, not across the desert.
“Dar . . . I think it’s more than merely flexing their muscles. If Ranir believes we’re weak—”
He’d heard Ambassador Usan at the Listening—Ranir was an ever-present threat but not an imminent one. There were many more close-to-home dangers for Dar to worry about, such as unrest within the capital city itself. He didn’t deny that Ranir was a threat, but he questioned how much damage one man, far from his home, could do.
But Nori only meant to help. “Thanks for telling me,” he said.
She’d taken a risk in talking to him outside the public eye. Until he was crowned emperor, it was a political gamble to be seen as being linked too closely to him. If he failed to be crowned and Lady Nori was known to be loyal to him . . .
She placed her hand on his. Her hand was soft, uncalloused, and warm. “I just . . . worry about Becar.”
She said Becar; he heard you. He stared into her eyes, barely noticing that he’d stopped walking. “I have every hope that this waiting period will be over soon.”
Her stunning smile spread across her face, and she took a step closer to him. “That’s wonderful news! You’ve located your brother’s vessel?”
He hated lying to her nearly as much as he hated not talking to her. “Not yet. But I have faith that he will be found. There’s a finite number of creatures in Becar, after all. It’s merely a matter of time.”
Stepping back, Nori withdrew her hand. “Time is something you might not have, if the ambassador is actively working against you to prime Becar for an invasion.”
Dar went very still, hating himself for the thought that went through his mind. “Nori—are you asking me to step aside?” He kept his voice as soft as possible, but he still heard the nearest guard hiss.
She looked so appalled that he almost smiled. “Of course not!”
He reached out and took her hand this time. “Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I’ve been on edge lately. Forgive me?”
She let out a frustrated huff. “I’d never ask you to sacrifice yourself. I merely . . . Dar, just watch yourself around Ambassador Usan, all right? He’s not to be trusted.”
“I will,” he promised.
They reached the aviary doors, and she retreated. He watched her go, wishing the conversation had ended differently, wishing he’d had the courage to tell her how he felt—though a piece of him whispered, She already knows.
She’d risked her reputation and her future safety to warn him. Wasn’t that a sign that she cared? And she wasn’t wrong—the ambassador was a threat. Just low on an ever-growing list of them.
It was worth considering the fact that Ambassador Usan had access to a vast treasury. That was valuable information he hadn’t fully considered. Drawing on a king’s funds, Usan could have afforded a charm to turn a man into a kehok.
The more Dar thought about it, the more he believed it to be possible. If the king of Ranir were planning an invasion, destabilizing Becar from the top would be a brilliant move. Dar had studied enough history to know that Becar’s strength—an emperor guided by the purity of the augurs—was also its weakness. Becar had never been without a crowned emperor for so long. We’re ripe for conquering.
Thank you, Nori, he thought. You may be more right than you know.
She would make a spectacular wife and empress.
He mulled over Usan’s possible treachery as he left his guards and entered the aviary alone. The peaceful quiet, punctuated by birdcalls and the rustling of leaves, descended on him. Centuries old, the aviary used to be his brother’s favorite place. It was filled with lush trees and flowers that wouldn’t survive outside this glass enclosure. All the winding paths were mosaics, and hidden fountains were tucked into the bushes, creating tiny pools for the birds who lived here.
He missed his brother so terribly that for an instant, he couldn’t breathe.
It kept striking like that these days. He’d think he was fine. He’d be moving forward, focusing on the problems of the country or even more simply what to wear that day or whether he liked a particular soup, and a memory would strike him, leaving him feeling as if he’d plunged into a hole.
He walked through the aviary, carrying his grief with him, until he reached a courtyard with a circle of chairs carved to look like waves of water. A river hawk was perched on the back of one.
“Mother,” he said.
Startled, the hawk spread her wings as if to take flight. She only managed a sort of hopping fall to the ground, before scurrying in between the bushes. She’d had her wings clipped. She never seemed to remember him as well as she’d remembered Zarin.
“Your Excellence?” a guard called across the aviary. “Your guests have arrived.”
“I am here,” he called back.
He composed himself, forcing back thoughts of his mother and his brother, as the rider Raia, her trainer, Augur Yorbel, and Lady Evara were led into the courtyard. All of them bowed. He gestured to the chairs. “Please, sit. Make yourselves comfortable. I believe I have found a location where we can, at least for the time being, speak freely.”
“It’s beautiful,” Raia said, looking around. “You could almost believe it wasn’t a cage.”
“Raia,” the trainer muttered.
Raia blushed. “Oh! I didn’t mean . . . Forgive me, Your Excellence! It’s only . . . My family had an aviary, but you could see the walls and the wire mesh above. With the glass, the birds have the sky. I think that’s wonderful.”
“My brother loved this place,” Dar said, and then his throat clogged. He cleared it, as if he’d merely swallowed wrong. “But I asked you here for a purpose, not pleasantries. Rider Raia, congratulations on all your wins. Trainer Verlas, how are our prospects for tomorrow’s championship race?”
“She can win, if people will stop trying to murder our racer,” Trainer Verlas said.
The word “murder” felt like cold water being thrown in his face.
Lady Evara rolled her eyes. “Forgive her, Your Excellence. I’ve often considered Trainer Verlas’s bluntness to be a virtue, but I recognize that not everyone agrees with me.”
Dar tried not to look as alarmed as he felt. “Tell me all.”
Trainer Verlas described an attempted attack on the lion in the stables. Most of it he’d heard when Lady Evara requested the use of palace guards for the kehok, but he’d assumed it was an accident. The trainer, though, was clear that she did not consider it an accident. She suspected that the latches had been weakened on purpose. She believed it was too great a coincidence that the three kehoks with weakened latches also had loose shackles and also aimed their attack at the same target—she believed the attack was orchestrated and guided. After listening to her, Dar was inclined to agree.
“We should arrest the suspect trainer,” he said.
“With all due respect,” Lady Evara said, “our sneaky little trainer is no longer a threat, and we should be focusing our attention in other directions.”
“But we can’t let this criminal walk free—not when there’s only one race that stands between us and an end to this! We can’t allow anything to interfere with tomorrow.”
“Precisely my point,” Lady Evara said. “The racing commission has been alerted. They view any attempt to tamper with race results as the ultimate crime. She is being interrogated and will be dealt with. At the very least she won’t dare make another attempt. But she is not the only threat.” Lady Evara related how a courtier had approached her with a threat of blackmail and an offer of riches. She named the man as Lady Nori’s cousin, Lord Petalo, a man known for his heavy gambling on the races. She wasn’t specific about the details of the blackmail, but Dar considered that a lesser issue.
Lady Evara added: “Just for the record, I did not try to poison the kehok.” She smiled at them as she said that, as if expecting great praise for not committing treason and murder.
Raia picked up the story, describing how a palace guard, or someone impersonating one, had attempted to poison the black lion. The suspect had fled. “We’re watching his food even more carefully now,” she said. “It won’t happen again. And the lion is helping—he knows not to eat until I’ve tested his food.”
“Uncanny,” Trainer Verlas muttered.
Dar heard her. “What do you mean?”
“He’s a highly intelligent kehok.”
My brother was a highly intelligent man, Dar thought.
“No, Dar,” Yorbel said quietly, as if sensing his thoughts. “He may have your brother’s soul, but he does not possess his mind. He is not your brother. He has the mind of a monster now, with all its limitations.”
Raia jumped in. “But he didn’t kill a man when he could have.”
That’s true, Dar thought. Was it so terrible for him to hope that some vestige of his brother survived whatever was done to him? After all, Zarin had come regularly to talk to the river hawk who had been their mother, claiming she carried some of her memories. It was said memories, at least the strongest ones, could return through exposure to past loved ones.
“Details aside, it remains that the poisoner is still out there,” Lady Evara said, “as is the one who hired him or her. . . . According to all I’ve been able to discover, Lord Petalo does not have access to the kind of funds he claims to. I believe that the corrupt trainer, the poisoner, and Lord Petalo are all puppets. Which means there will be other attempts.”
Raia let out a gasp.
“As much as I love surprises, perhaps there’s something we could do to minimize the effectiveness of our next aspiring assassin,” Lady Evara said. “Like, ooh, I know, set a trap!” She said it as if the idea had jumped into her head.
Dar didn’t believe for an instant that it was a thought she’d spontaneously had. Lady Evara was far more intelligent than she pretended to be. She’d merely been waiting for the right moment to introduce her idea. “Go on.”
“Instead of waiting to be surprised by our puppet master’s next move, why not present an appealing opening and see who rushes to claim it?”
“Terrible idea,” Trainer Verlas said.
Lady Evara pouted. “I think it’s brilliant.”
“You want to use my rider and racer as bait!” Trainer Verlas scowled at Lady Evara. “For one, it’s too risky. For another, Raia and the lion should be focusing on preparing for the final race, not being distracted by playing bait. I won’t permit it.”
Lady Evara let out a tinkling laugh. “Darling, you are in the presence of the emperor-to-be. I don’t really think it’s your place to permit or not permit anything. Besides, worrying about another murder attempt is already quite a distraction.” She flashed a charming smile at Dar. “Your Excellence, of course, it’s your decision.”
He considered it. “Your rider and racer are already targets. If we can anticipate when and where the next attack will be, it would give us a measure of control that we don’t currently have.” And it would be nice to control something, Dar thought. As it was, nothing in his life felt under control. If he could flush the ambassador of Ranir out into the open, it might be enough to convince the generals to act to defend the border even without a formal imperial order. “Yorbel, what are your thoughts?”
Yorbel looked startled, as if he’d hoped to blend into the greenery. “I . . . Couldn’t we simply increase security? All we must do is protect the kehok until he wins the final race.” His eyes slid over to Trainer Verlas, as if he were looking for her approval.
“This is the best way to protect him,” Lady Evara said. “Catching an assassin in the act could even lead to unmasking our puppet master. Wouldn’t it be lovely to know who is behind these attempts? It could be separate coincidences, or a pattern that points to one powerful, wealthy enemy. Don’t you want to know which? If this all works and you’re crowned emperor, your enemies aren’t going to—poof—vanish.”
“She’s right,” Raia said. “We’ll do it.”
“Raia!” Trainer Verlas snapped.
“I’m willing,” Raia said stubbornly.
Dar admired that. “You have my gratitude.” She had it twice now, the first being when she gave him hope that Zarin had been the man he thought he was. “Lady Evara is correct. If there’s a chance to identify and stop this enemy, that’s what we should do.” Especially if it were the same enemy who used a charm against Zarin. If he could expose that enemy . . . he could achieve both redemption and revenge for his brother. “Let’s discuss specifics.”
Tamra hated their plan.
It was simple, which she was assured by Raia, Yorbel, and the emperor-to-be meant that there were fewer ways it could go wrong. I do not feel reassured. All she had to do was leave Raia and the kehok on the racetrack for a few minutes.
By tradition, before the final races, every trainer was granted fifteen minutes with their rider and racer on the racetrack in private. You were supposed to use the time to work out any nerves, refine strategies, practice techniques—you weren’t supposed to play bait in a trap. But the wheels were already in motion. Lady Evara had spread word, amid her “twinkling,” that her rider was so confident of her abilities that she planned to use her time to bond with her racer on the track without her trainer. She’d be alone.
Of course, Tamra was nearby, hidden beneath the stands, ready in case the attack came in the form of other kehoks. And of course, the emperor-to-be had deployed several of his most trusted guards to rush in in case of a human attack. A few of his best archers were hidden in the stands as well. As Lady Evara had put it, “They’ll be safer in these fifteen minutes than they are at any other time during the whole Becaran Races.”
Tamra had felt even less reassured after that. The races were never safe.
Squeezed into her hiding place with her was Lady Evara herself, though she was blessedly silent now that the fifteen minutes had begun. Peeking out, they watched Raia and the racer run a lap. At the end of the lap, Raia dismounted and came around to her kehok’s face.
Lady Evara whispered, “What’s she doing now?”
“Talking to him,” Tamra whispered back. Wasn’t that obvious?
“She’s too fond of him,” Lady Evara noted. “You should speak to her about that. Augur Yorbel is right—whatever he used to be, he’s a monster now.”
But Tamra was no longer sure that was true.
Raia backed away from her kehok, then turned and walked slowly down the length of the track. The kehok watched her, motionless.
“Now what’s she doing?”
“Testing her control,” Tamra said. It was similar to the exercise they’d done on Raia’s very first day—call a kehok to her. Clever girl, Tamra thought. If she wanted to make the bait more appealing, separating from the kehok was a smart way to do that. Both of them looked even more vulnerable.
But what if this time the killer decided to target Raia instead of the kehok?
If the enemy hated the emperor-to-be, then targeting the kehok was logical. However, if the enemy hated Tamra or simply wanted to fix the races, then—
“Ooh, what’s this?” Lady Evara clutched Tamra’s arm.
A woman was walking onto the track. Tamra squinted, trying to see who it was. She didn’t appear to be armed, and Raia didn’t look as though she was afraid. “I’m going out there.” Tamra started to stand.
Lady Evara held her back. “See how it unfolds.”
“She could have a knife or—”
“She’s making the universal sign of I’m not going to stab you.” Lady Evara jutted her chin at the track, where the woman was approaching Raia with both hands raised, palms out. The woman halted a few yards away from Raia.
Now that she was closer, Tamra could see—Yes, I know her. Or more accurately, Raia did. “It’s Raia’s mother,” Tamra said flatly.
Lady Evara released her arm. “Maybe you should go out there. Nothing can mess with a person’s head more than family. My dear parents still mess with mine, and they’re dead.”
“Agreed.” Tamra began to move, but Lady Evara caught her arm again.
“Wait, no. Changed my mind. If you go, it wrecks the illusion that Raia’s on her own. The killer won’t show himself. Just wait and watch. Her mother won’t hurt her. Raia’s her ticket to wealth.”
Looking out, Tamra swore that if Raia looked the least bit distressed, even if Raia didn’t signal that she was in danger, she was going out there. I wish I could hear what they’re saying.
Raia walked away from her lion. She felt his eyes on her back, watching her. It was a risk to experiment with how much she could trust him. But with guards watching them from the shadows and Trainer Verlas nearby, she couldn’t think of a better time to test her theory.
He won’t hurt me, and he won’t leave me.
She made it to the end of the track without looking back and turned around. The lion remained where she’d left him. He was still watching her.
She had not used a single command to keep him there. She had merely explained what she wanted him to do. Even now, she wasn’t reaching out to control him, and he wasn’t trying to flee or fight.
This wasn’t how ordinary kehoks behaved.
Smiling, she began to head back to him when she saw a figure walk onto the track. She tensed, and then she saw who it was and tensed some more: Mother.
“I’m training, Mother,” Raia said.
“I heard your trainer isn’t here. You’re just playing.”
“This is private training time. You shouldn’t be here. Why did the guards let you through?” She wondered if Mother had sneaked past them. Or bribed them. Or . . .
“Because I’m your mother! Raia . . .” She took another step toward Raia, and Raia took a step backward. Mother stopped, a healthy distance away. “I want you to know that your father and I deeply regret our behavior. The truth is we were scared about the future. About your future, and about ours. Our fortunes have always been precarious, and when you left the augur school—”
“When I failed,” Raia corrected her.
“Suddenly, all our dreams vanished. You must understand that we thought we were doing what was best for all of us. We never meant to drive you away from us.”
Raia wished she could believe her. She’d always wanted the kind of mother who put her children first. But she remembered too many nights when she’d woken screaming from a nightmare, and her mother had come in and told her to be quiet, that children were to be seen and not heard. She remembered the first time her parents had paraded her in front of their friends, as if she were some clever trinket they’d bought, and then shooed her upstairs with orders to stay there until their party was over, forgetting she hadn’t eaten and couldn’t reach the kitchen without crossing the party room. She’d been hungry while the adults dined on sugar dates and other delicacies. Until Celin, there had never been a moment that tipped the scales into unbearably cruel, but it had been a hundred little things every day that said “we don’t love you,” even before her parents had tried to sign away her freedom.
“You never cared about me. Only about what I could get you. That hasn’t changed.”
“Oh, my baby, we want to try to make it up to you,” Mother said. She had tears in her eyes, and Raia couldn’t help but think they were real. Mother wasn’t that good an actress. She believed what she was saying. “Your father and I . . . we see we were terrible parents. You were a sensitive child, and we didn’t give you the love and affection you needed. I suppose it took an event like Celin’s death for us to realize it—and even then, we realized it too late. We treated you unkindly. We took you for granted and didn’t appreciate the fine woman you’ve become. Seeing you race on that track . . . Raia, we are so very proud of you.”
She was saying everything that Raia had always dreamed she’d say. With all her heart, she wanted to run into her mother’s arms and say I forgive you. But she didn’t move. It was too easy. Even if Mother had good intentions, that didn’t mean her actions were right. Especially what she’d done, or tried to do, with Raia and her so-called fiancé. “You said I’d be free of you if I won, witnessed by an augur. But you never thought I’d win. And now that I’m one race away from winning the grand championship, you’re regretting letting me go.”
“That’s right,” Mother said, more earnest than Raia had ever seen her. Raia felt tears prick her own eyes. “We only agreed because we thought we’d never lose you. Facing that loss now . . . it’s made us realize all that we’re losing. We want to try again, Raia, to be the parents you deserve.”
Raia took a step toward her. “I want to believe you.” She ached to believe with all her heart. All the memories, all the times she’d felt unloved—she’d wanted this moment so badly!
Mother crossed to her and clasped her hands. “Then believe us, darling.”
Maybe she could believe her. If they wanted to apologize at long last, then shouldn’t she at least give them a chance to—Wait a minute.
Them.
“Where’s Father?”
“We’re trying to be the parents you need.” Mother’s grip on Raia’s hands tightened. Raia tried to pull away. “Please understand. Everything we do is for love of you. So you can have the future you should have.”
It was as she said those words, so similar to what she’d said when they bargained for her engagement to Celin, that Raia realized this was about more than her mother trying to worm her way out of the agreement they’d made. Twisting, Raia yanked her hands out of her mother’s grip.
“Run!” she shouted at her kehok, with both her voice and her mind.
Her lion ran.
But he didn’t run away, as she’d ordered. He ran toward her.
As he did, she heard a whoosh and saw an arc of fire burst onto the racetrack. It impacted exactly where the lion had been standing waiting for her, and the flames spread—oil was pouring onto the track, and the fire raced along it.
From the stands, the palace guards were shouting. She saw Trainer Verlas burst out of her hiding place, and without thinking, Raia ran toward her lion.
Smoke billowed.
She couldn’t see him!
Flames filled the width of the track, roaring toward the sky. She skidded to a stop as the heat slammed into her, and Trainer Verlas yanked her backward, pulling her away. No! My lion! She fought her, trying to get back to the fire.
And then she saw a dark shadow in the middle of the fiery red, and her lion leaped out of the heart of the flames. He landed in the sands and let out a roar.
Fire licked over his metal body, and he shook, shedding sparks in every direction. He then ran toward her. She opened her arms.
“Stop!” Trainer Verlas commanded.
Come! Raia called.
He lowered his head as he ran past her, and Raia jumped. She grabbed on to his mane and swung herself up onto his back. He kept running. His metal body was hot, just short of searing her hands, but there was no way she was letting go.
Reaching the end of the racetrack, he didn’t slow. Instead he leaped over the gate. Faster, she thought. Away! He ran through the camp, past the other riders and trainers and kehoks, and then beyond the crowds gathered to watch the next race.
He kept running into the desert beyond.
Only when she had control again, when the fear wasn’t coursing through her veins stronger than blood, did he slow.
“You could have run away,” Raia said. “I told you to. But you ran toward me. To save me.” Leaning forward, she hugged his neck.
He came to a stop, and she slid off his back. She stood in front of him.
He regarded her with his golden eyes.
“You wanted to protect me,” she said.
He inclined his head.
“My parents tried to kill you. And I don’t know why. It doesn’t even make sense—the more I win, the more gold for them—unless that was just another twisted way to try to control my future? By taking you from me?” She wrapped her arms around his still-hot neck. “No one will take you from me.”
Unless we do win, she thought. If they won the victory charm, he’d be killed and reborn as a human baby. He wouldn’t know her or remember any of this, and he wouldn’t be her lion anymore. “I’ll visit you, when you’re human again. I can be your crazy aunt Raia who once won the Becaran Races.”
He rolled his golden tongue out of his mouth and, like a mother cat, licked her cheek. It felt like sandpaper against her skin. She laughed.
“You know, we could just leave. Run away, you and me. No one would ever catch us, or hurt us, if we ran far enough and fast enough.” As she said it, she knew she didn’t want that—to never see Trainer Verlas again, to always be living on the run, to be afraid again.
He sat down and curled his tail around himself, as if he didn’t plan to run anywhere.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said. “You want to go back?”
He nodded his head.
So do I, she thought. They can’t make me run away again. I choose to run, on the racetrack, toward the finish line. Not away from anything. “You understand everything I’m saying, don’t you? And everything that’s going on?”
Another nod.
“Do you . . .” She licked her lips. It was a crazy question, but she had to ask it. “Do you remember who you were?” No one remembered their past life. It wasn’t possible.
He hesitated. Shook his head. Then nodded. Then tilted his head to the side.
“You’re not sure? But you might? You were Emperor Zarin, emperor of all the Becar Empire.” She held her breath, studying his face. His golden eyes were fixed on her. “Your brother was Dar, who is now the emperor-to-be. He can’t be crowned until you’re found, but if you’re found as a kehok . . . The brother of a kehok can’t be emperor. The emperor-to-be’s only hope is if you win and are reborn.”
He began to trot past her, back toward the racetrack. He then stopped and looked at her, as if he wanted her to follow. She ran to catch up to him. “Do you remember him? Your brother? You called him Dar.”
He pawed the sand. Yes? Did that mean yes? She climbed onto him, and he began to walk at a steady pace, not slow but not hurrying either. Saving his energy for the next race?
“You want to race?” she asked him. “You want to win?”
He did keep walking implacably toward the racetrack. She wondered if she’d imagined it when she thought he understood her. Maybe she’d wanted that so badly that she convinced herself they were having a conversation. Or maybe a piece of him knew who he was, or at least knew this wasn’t what he was supposed to be.
She’d promised him freedom if he won the races.
Maybe he didn’t know who he was, but she thought he knew exactly what that meant: freedom from what he’d become.
If that was what he wanted, then she would do everything in her power to ensure he had that chance. “We will win,” Raia promised. “The killers—” She stopped. It felt so strange to refer to her parents that way, but that’s what they were. By now, they would be on their way to a jail somewhere, charged with trying to interfere with the championship race. Or maybe even treason. She wondered if they were behind the poison attempt, or even the loose latches in the stable. Her parents could have orchestrated all of it, some convoluted attempt to “save” their daughter. It might have had nothing to do with emperors and successions at all. If so, we’re safe now.
“The killers have been caught,” she said to both the lion and herself. One good thing had come out of this: “No one can stop us now.”