Standing at the edge of camp, watching the wind blow sand across the desert dunes, Tamra told herself she was not worried.
“You’re worried,” Yorbel said.
She glared at him. “Raia will come back. She has before.”
Tamra went back to staring at the desert, as if that would make Raia and the lion reappear. She was glad she’d sent Shalla to the temple for her lessons. She didn’t need to know about any of this. Tamra wished she could have protected Raia too. “Raia shouldn’t have to worry about any of this. She should be focused on the races and that’s it. She’s just a kid!”
After a moment’s hesitation, Yorbel reached over and took her hand. He held it lightly, as if he’d never touched a hand before. “It’s funny—as an augur, I am supposed to always know the right thing to say. Lately, I never do. Tell me how I can help you.”
She wanted to tell him that she didn’t need anything from anyone. But instead she squeezed his hand and said, “Just wait with me.”
Both of them waited, hand in hand, standing together on the sand, until at last the silhouette of a girl and a lion appeared on the horizon. Tamra felt as if chains were loosening around her. She could breathe fully again.
When Raia and the kehok reached them, she dismounted, and Tamra crossed the feet between them in two strides and folded Raia into her arms. Stepping back, she examined her—she seemed unharmed. The lion stood quietly beside her like a tame pet.
“My parents?” Raia asked.
“In custody,” Tamra said. “They won’t be able to hurt you again.” She hesitated, unsure how much she should say. It was likely her parents would be imprisoned for many years. “They claimed they wanted to ‘save’ their daughter from the corrupting influence of kehoks and racing.”
Raia laughed, a hollow sound. “Who is going to save me from the corrupting influence of my parents?”
“I am,” Tamra said. “And Shalla and Yorbel. Your friends from the training grounds.” She wasn’t quite sure of their names, but she knew Raia was fond of them. “Even that monster. You aren’t alone.”
Her lips trembling, Raia still managed to smile. “I know.”
She seems all right. Tamra wished she knew what Raia’s mother had said to her, how much damage she’d done. She wondered how much more of the truth to tell her—would it hurt her more, or would it help? “They also said it wasn’t their idea. They were offered a vast amount of gold—”
“Of course they were.”
Beside her, the lion growled.
Tamra shot him a look, wondering if he was responding to her words or to Raia’s emotion. He had to be feeding off her emotion; he couldn’t understand what was going on. Even as intelligent as he was, there were limits. He wasn’t the man he had been. “It was more than they would have received if you’d won.”
“Who bought them?” Raia’s voice was utterly flat.
She’s not all right, Tamra thought. As gently as she could, she answered the question. “They claim they never saw him or her.” That was the part that Tamra hadn’t wanted to say, to admit that the enemy was still out there, unknown and dangerous.
Raia wrapped one arm around her kehok, as if for comfort. “But it’s over for now?”
It’s not over. Whoever hired Raia’s parents, whoever was behind the attempt to bribe Lady Evara, whoever encouraged the fake guard to try to poison the kehok would try again. It could all be the same enemy, or it could be multiple enemies. All they’d done with their trap and everything they’d risked was remove a few puppets from the stage. “For now.”
“Then we should rest before the next race.”
Tamra’s heart ached for her. “You’ll have extra time. The championship race has been delayed so that the track can be fixed. We’ll be returning to the royal stables until it’s ready.”
“Good.”
Tamra nodded. But deep down, she was still worried.
Because this delay could have been part of the plan too.
Escorted by the emperor-to-be’s guards, Raia tried not to think about anything as she rode on a cart back to the royal stables. Plenty of gawkers lined the streets, watching them pass, but she barely saw them through the thick column of soldiers.
When they reached the royal stables beside the palace, she let the heavy silence wrap around her, smothering all her thoughts and feelings. Rejecting Trainer Verlas’s offer to help, Raia unlatched the cage and guided the kehok into the stable—after the guards had thoroughly checked the building and pronounced it safe. “I want to sleep in the stable tonight,” Raia told her trainer.
“I will as well,” Trainer Verlas offered.
“I’d rather be alone. Just the lion and me.” She didn’t know if her trainer would be offended by that, but she didn’t want anyone around her tonight.
“Then I’ll sleep outside the door. If you need me, all you have to do is call out.”
Trainer Verlas excused herself to arrange for cots to be provided, while Raia checked on the lion’s food and water. She tested both with the anti-poison powder, even though the guards had already done it. She then shut the lion into his stall without shackling him.
“I don’t want to leave you helpless,” she told him. “I’m trusting you not to hurt me.”
He made a sound that was nearly a meow, and she laughed in spite of herself, in spite of everything. It was such an innocent sound, as if he were trying to say how could anyone think he’d ever hurt anyone. “Yeah, that’s right, you’re just a sweet kitty cat.”
She settled in and tried to think of nothing. The worst part about her parents’ betrayal was how surprised she’d been. She knew what they were like, knew what they were capable of. They’d shown their true selves time and time again, and she still hoped she was wrong about them. They were never going to be the kind of parents she wanted, the kind who loved her as she was. They do love me, in their own way, she thought. It’s just that they love themselves more.
“Raia?” Trainer Verlas said through the door. “You have a visitor. I . . . don’t think I can send him away. I’m sorry.”
Raia took a deep breath to steady herself, guessing who her “visitor” was before Trainer Verlas even finished. She touched her bronze lion pin. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“It was a difficult thing that happened today. You don’t have to be ‘fine.’”
She wished that were true, but now wasn’t the time to fall apart and let herself feel things. She told herself that her parents’ actions were nothing new. They’d been consistent throughout her whole life, culminating in her engagement to Celin and today’s attempt to kill her racer. She couldn’t keep letting it surprise and hurt her. But it did every time.
“You can let him in,” Raia said.
Opening the door, Trainer Verlas bowed as the emperor-to-be walked into the stables. He hadn’t tried to dress as anything other than himself this time. His embroidered robe swept over the muck on the stable floor, and Raia thought about saying something, but she didn’t know if that would be appropriate.
“He wasn’t hurt?” Prince Dar asked.
“Not at all.” She liked that that was his first question.
“And you? Were you hurt?”
“I wasn’t . . . because he tried to protect me.” She didn’t know if he’d understand the significance of that. She knew it didn’t match anything she’d ever been told about kehoks and their behavior. “That’s not what ordinary kehoks do. I don’t know if he remembers anything about who he was, but Your Excellence, he’s not a monster.”
Prince Dar looked at her as if she’d gifted him with the moon. He was shaking as he approached the stall. “Zarin? Do you know me?”
The lion lifted his head.
“Open the door,” Prince Dar commanded.
“He’s not shackled,” Raia warned. “If he attacks faster than I can react . . . I can’t promise he won’t hurt you.”
“If any part of him is still Zarin, still good, I believe he won’t.”
She believed he wouldn’t too. It was nice to have another who saw him the same way. “My trainer would say this is stupid.” She then added, “Your Excellence.”
He flashed her a smile. “I’ve done plenty of stupid things.”
She was relieved he wasn’t offended. She ventured to say, “You know that’s a reason to feel lucky, not a reason to do more. Maybe if I come in the stall with you?” She could soothe the lion, watch him carefully, and be ready.
He nodded his permission. “That sounds wise.”
Raia unlocked the stable. Murmuring to the lion, she knelt beside him. She stroked his mane, the smooth metal cool under her fingertips. He seemed calm.
The emperor-to-be dropped to one knee in front of the lion. He held out his hand, palm up, as if greeting a dog. The lion stretched his neck, sniffed one finger, and then retreated. “I’m Dar. Your brother. And I miss you.”
She couldn’t tell if the lion understood or not.
“I miss how you used to tell me to watch my step every time we walked into the throne room together, even though you were the one who always tripped on that River-damned mosaic floor. I miss how you used to insist on a pear with every meal, because Mother told you once it would make you healthy, even though you hated pears. I miss how you used to misquote poets on purpose, to make me laugh at the expressions on our tutor’s face. I miss how you’d slip away after meetings and come find me—you said it was because you needed someone that you could talk to, and I was that someone. I miss being your someone.”
The lion was listening.
Raia held still, not sure if Prince Dar had forgotten she was there or simply didn’t care. She kept her hands on the lion’s mane, ready in case he suddenly snapped. She trusted the lion not to hurt her, but this man was a stranger to him. Or he should have been.
Prince Dar buried his face in his hands.
The lion stood, and Raia tensed, ready. But the lion merely stepped forward and pressed his forehead against the emperor-to-be’s, as if comforting him. The emperor-to-be lifted his head.
Raia held her breath.
They were inches away, face-to-face.
“Zarin?”
Prince Dar wrapped his arms around the lion’s mane, like Raia had done, and the lion let him for several long minutes. Then the lion stepped backward, retreating to the corner of his stall, and sat, watching and silent.
“He remembers me,” Prince Dar said, almost more of a question than a statement. “He’s still my brother. At least a part of him.”
Gently, Raia guided him out of the stall and shut and locked the door. Only then did she let her muscles unknot and her breathing return to normal. “He’s special.” He shouldn’t be able to feel loyalty to her or to understand the need to win the races, and yet he clearly did. Maybe it was because a part of him did remember who he’d been.
“I’m going to find who did this to him,” Prince Dar promised. Laying his hand on the stall door, he said, “I’ll make this right, Zarin. I swear I will, by the Lady, by the River, by the souls of our parents . . . I swear I will.”
The lion did not respond.
Maybe he remembers only sometimes? she wondered. Like a dream? Or he remembers pieces? She took a step backward, not wanting to interfere. It felt like such a private moment, and she was intruding. But she also didn’t dare leave.
“Your parents,” Prince Dar began, facing Raia.
Raia tensed. She wondered if he was about to blame her.
“I am sorry for how they treated you.”
She blinked. That was unexpectedly kind. He was wrapped up in his own grief and misery, yet still managed to think of her. “Thank you, Your Excellence. I am glad they can’t do any more harm.” That was as much as she could say without her voice breaking. She knew it was wrong to be happy her parents would be jailed, and she wasn’t happy precisely. . . . Relieved, maybe. Vindicated? Always, they’d blamed her for everything that happened, but it was their own choices that caused this, their own shortsighted selfishness that warped their view of reality.
“Mine died a long time ago,” Prince Dar said. “It was just Zarin and me. And an entire empire’s worth of people, I suppose, but it felt like just Zarin and me.”
“Your Excellence . . .”
“Dar.”
She hesitated.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “You’ve seen me bare my heart. I think that puts us on a first-name basis. You call me Dar, and I’ll call you Raia, if that’s all right with you.”
“Dar,” she repeated.
“You may be the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
She felt herself blush. “Trainer Verlas has been teaching me. . . .”
“Not only on the racetrack. Here. Every day. You could have run, after the attack this afternoon. I’m told you escaped into the desert, but then you came back. Why did you come back?”
“Because . . .” There were at least a half-dozen reasons. Because of her future. Because of the lion. Because of Trainer Verlas and her daughter, Shalla. Because she didn’t want to run away anymore. Because if she stayed, if she raced, if she won, then she was doing something extraordinary with her life, saving a dead emperor and helping crown a living one. “I wanted to.”
He smiled. “That’s a good enough reason.” Stepping toward her, he took her hand and raised it to his heart. He held it there for a moment. “Thank you, brave Raia.” Then the emperor-to-be of the great Becaran Empire bowed to her.