Race the Sands Page 11

  She didn’t know what the correct answer would be. Yes? No? For what? Should she ask more questions? She had plenty, starting with: Was it safe to be out here? Sandstorms popped up all the time in the desert. Plus wild kehoks roamed the sands. And desert wraiths lurked beyond the edges of every city.

  But Trainer Verlas didn’t wait for her to speak. She strode around the back of the cart with a hint of a limp. Raia wondered if it was a race injury and realized she didn’t know why Trainer Verlas had quit racing. She’d just assumed it was age, but Raia could recognize hidden pain when she saw it.

  She didn’t think her trainer would appreciate it if she asked, though. With difficulty, Raia held all her questions inside.

  Trainer Verlas unlatched the cage door and swung it open. “I am going to set him free, and you are going to keep him here,” she said to Raia.

  New, more pressing questions now jumped into her mind. Specifically: What?

  Yes, she’d called for him to come off the ferry, but he’d wanted to savage her, and there had been a chain net to stop him. Trust your trainer, Raia reminded herself. She wants you to succeed. In fact, she needs you to succeed. Still, there was something she needed to ask.

  “How?”

  “He’ll have two conflicting desires: stay and kill us, or run and be free. You must give him a third option: run with you.”

  “But . . .” She’d barely escaped his claws when he’d been caged! And he’d proven himself hard to control, even by multiple trainers.

  “Banish all stray thoughts,” Trainer Verlas said. “All doubts. All memories of the past. All dreams of the future. Exist in the here and now.”

  Raia nodded. She clenched and unclenched her hands. She felt just as tense as she had clinging to the bench of the cart.

  “Control your thoughts and you can control him, without weapons, without special tricks.” Trainer Verlas unshackled one of the kehok’s legs. He began to shift, his leg muscles taut as if he were ready to run.

  Focus, Raia told herself.

  “Keep from losing him,” Trainer Verlas said. “You lose him, you lose your future.”

  Raia swallowed and nodded. Without a racer, she couldn’t be a rider. If she failed at this, she might as well go back into hiding and to running from her family. I don’t want to run from anyone anymore. I want to run to something.

  “Feel the moment.”

  Closing her eyes, Raia felt the sand beneath her feet, heard the wind across the dunes, and inhaled the dusty, almost sweet smell that permeated the air.

  “Let your need fill you. What is it you want most of all?”

  Freedom. And this kehok was the key.

  She heard the clink of iron. The low growl of the black lion. She opened her eyes in time to see him rush out of the cage. His obsidian mane flashed in the morning desert sun.

  Without thinking, Raia threw her hands in the air, palms toward the lion. “Stay!”

  The lion faltered.

  Only for an instant.

  And then he was running. Sand flew in his path as he thundered past them toward the east, as if he intended to run straight into the sun’s glow.

  “Come back!” Raia called.

  But he didn’t slow. He was a black star streaking across the sandy sky. Unstoppable. She felt small, as if she’d been just another rock beneath his paws.

  She felt hands on her shoulders, squeezing hard. “Call him back,” Trainer Verlas said in her ear. “Now. Before he’s gone too far. Make him hear you. Make him feel you.”

  “Come back!” Raia cried. Ripping the scarf away from her face, she poured every bit of oxygen in her lungs into her shout. She thought of her parents, and the way they’d looked at her when she’d come home in tears after the augur exams. They already knew the news, and they looked at her as if she were muck that had stuck on their shoes. She thought of the man they wanted her to marry, the way his eyes had raked over her. She thought of his greasy fingers when he took her hand to kiss it, the way they caressed her arm, as if testing the thickness of a cut of meat. I can’t go back! Please, lion.

  “Come back now!”

  He kept running.

  He didn’t even slow.

  Trainer Verlas’s voice boomed across the sands, “You will return.”

  And the lion’s stride broke. Raia saw it—his rhythm hitched, and then he was running back toward them, as fast as he’d run before, with a cloud of sand haloing him.

  He ran without stopping into the cage, and Trainer Verlas sprang forward and slammed the door shut. He shook his mane, and it clanged like bits of glass shattering.

  “I failed,” Raia said.

  “It was your first try,” Trainer Verlas said. “And he is strong-willed.”

  “How did you do it? It took all of you before, when he broke out of the stables.”

  “He caught me by surprise then.” Trainer Verlas frowned as if she were angry at herself, as if it were her fault that the black lion had broken out. “Plus, I have more motivation now.”

  Raia watched the lion pace in his cage. She knew what that felt like—this wasn’t the first time she’d tried to run away. When she was first chosen as an augur, she’d made it to the end of the garden before her father hauled her back inside. Six months into her training, she’d tried again, and her family had sent her to live at the temple full-time. She hadn’t tried to run from there. She’d realized if she succeeded, she would have to return home. “I couldn’t bring him back.”

  “We’ll work on it.” Trainer Verlas sank down onto the sand, and Raia saw how strained she looked. Sweat was beaded on her forehead, staining the edges of her scarf.

  Raia hurried to the front of the cart, found a canteen, and brought it to her.

  Trainer Verlas drank a few swallows. “Been pushing myself lately. Body doesn’t obey the way I think it should.” She smiled wryly. “It won’t listen to my commands, at least not anymore. There’s a certain irony in that.”

  “I did everything you said. I focused on what I want. I want my freedom so badly that it hurts. I can’t want it any more badly than I already do.” Raia sank onto the sand next to her. “But it’s not enough.

  “I’m not enough,” she whispered.

  “You are enough,” Tamra said briskly. “You’re just not ready.” No self-pitying nonsense on her watch. It was a waste of the here and now.

  Looking out across the desert, Tamra considered the problem. The wind blew across the dunes, swirling the sand as if it were dancing, and Tamra remembered the first time she’d raced the sands, just her and a monster. It had felt . . . like power, like her blood was replaced by wind, like she was as strong as the river, like she was as unstoppable as the sun. She wanted Raia to have a chance to feel that.

  Raia was right: she did have the fire. Tamra could see it in the way she held herself and hear it in the timbre of her voice, so why wasn’t that enough for the kehok? If any of her paid students had displayed half that kind of desire, they would have had their kehoks squatting at their feet like obedient puppies. Maybe it wasn’t Raia, then. Maybe it was the lion. Certainly it had taken every ounce within Tamra to draw the lion back—she had surprised him, and that moment of surprise had allowed her to override his will. She’d never met a kehok so difficult to control.

  Beside her, Raia was hugging her knees to her chest. She looked, for a moment, like Shalla, and her disappointment felt like another of Tamra’s failures. This is my fault, Tamra thought. I promised her the moon. “We’ll find a way to make it work.”

  “In two weeks?”

  “Yes,” Tamra said firmly, though she wasn’t sure how. “You will be free. I promise.”

  That seemed to reassure the girl a little.

  Feeling as if a weight had settled on her, Tamra glanced at the cage to see the black lion kehok staring at her with his unreadable golden eyes. He was still and silent, alert and watching—which was very un-kehok. A thought occurred to her. “What exactly did you focus on?”

  “
How badly I want to be free.”

  And the lion had run.

  Huh.

  Usually it didn’t work like that. Kehoks responded to commands fueled by need, but they typically didn’t respond to the underlying need itself. But this kehok wanted his freedom too. He’d broken out of his stall and killed another kehok for that very purpose. . . .

  She felt an idea worming inside her. It was a risky, unusual idea that went against much of what she knew about kehoks.

  But then again, everything about this situation was risky and definitely went against what she knew.

  To win a race, rider and racer had to share a singular purpose. Typically that was imposed on the racer by the rider. What if, though, Raia and the lion could share the same purpose? What if instead of trying to stop his bid for freedom, they could make him understand that racing was his way to freedom?

  It was a complex concept for any kehok to grasp, and she didn’t know if it was possible for any kehok to be intelligent enough to understand the ramifications of the reward that awaited the grand champion. But this beast was much more alert and aware than most.

  It could work.

  Standing, Tamra steadied herself. She limped closer to the cage—her old wound was really throbbing now. The sand shifted around her feet, slowing her. She saw Raia pop up and hurry to her, ready to help, but she shooed her away. In front of the lion, she unwound her scarf and shifted her tunic so that her tattoo showed. “Do you know what this is?” she asked the kehok. “It’s a picture of the victory charm. If you race and you win, you win this charm. If you race and you win, you will break the cycle. You will be reborn as human. You won’t be a kehok anymore. If you race and you win, you have a second chance. You will have your freedom.”

  The lion was watching her. She didn’t know if he understood any of it.

  “Running away from us . . . it won’t make you free, because you bring who you are with you. The only way to be free of your fate is to race.” She tapped her tattoo. “If you race with Raia, you win this. Your freedom.”

  “Does he understand?” Raia whispered.

  “One way to tell,” Tamra said. “You need to ride.”

  “I’ll die!” Raia said. “You saw how I failed!”

  How could Trainer Verlas even think she was ready to ride him? She hadn’t even made him stop, let alone come back.

  “That’s the thing,” Trainer Verlas said, approaching the cage. “I don’t think you did fail.” Padding back and forth within the narrow cage, the lion was watching her. “I think he ran in part because he wanted to, and in part because you wanted to. If you run together, you with him, perhaps he’ll understand.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  “I’m sure we don’t have a better choice.”

  This was crazy.

  “I’ll keep him from killing you.”

  Raia thought of how the others had warned her about Trainer Verlas and said she breaks riders, not racers. She thought of the problems her trainer had already had in controlling the kehok, and she remembered the rumors she’d heard about last year’s final championship race. Could she trust her trainer?

  Do I have a choice?

  Of course she did. You always have a choice. It was just that the other option was terrible.

  Raia took a deep breath. There was one question she needed answered before she’d do this. “What happened in the final championship race last year?”

  Trainer Verlas halted. It was obvious it was a question she’d heard before and just as obvious it was one she didn’t want to answer. But Raia needed the answer. It wasn’t curiosity or because she wanted to gossip or anything like that.

  “My rider lost control.”

  “Just like that? He’d survived every other race, but in the final one, close to winning everything he wanted—”

  “Yes. It was too much. All of it. He wanted too much, and it consumed him.”

  “You mean—”

  “You’ve heard the rumors. It was just as bad as they say. His kehok killed him before anyone could make it through the track’s psychic shield to intervene. But it wasn’t rage. It wasn’t destruction. It was hunger.”

  “You’re saying his kehok ate him?”

  “I said ‘consume.’ I meant it literally.”

  Raia shuddered. That was a terrible way to die.

  “He was still screaming when the kehok began. It didn’t wait for him to die.” Trainer Verlas’s eyes were fixed beyond the cage, beyond the horizon, as if she wasn’t seeing any of the desert at all. Her jaw was locked, and Raia was grateful she didn’t have the memory that her trainer was reliving. “It was my fault. I should have seen the danger signs—when the race council reviewed his case, they agreed I should have known. Some argued I must have known and had proceeded anyway, because I wanted to win more than I wanted my rider to survive. I was fined for negligence, nearly barred from racing. But the truth is that I didn’t see. I wanted to win so badly too that it blinded me—which is almost certainly worse.”

  Raia licked her lips. They were gritty from the sand. She tasted the dry dust—the desert had its own taste, oddly peppery and a bit like old paper. She felt hyperaware of everything as she stared at Trainer Verlas’s face. “What were the danger signs?”

  “To race, you must focus on the moment. Your aura must be steady, concentrated on the present. If you lose who you are, if you lose why you are doing what you’re doing in that moment, then it’s over.” Trainer Verlas tore her eyes from the horizon and shifted to look at her student.

  Raia felt as if the sun were beaming at her, so intense were Trainer Verlas’s eyes. She thought she understood what Trainer Verlas was saying—she felt focused right now, as if she were absorbing as well as hearing every word Trainer Verlas said.

  “I don’t think you will suffer that fate. You know who you are.”

  Who am I? Raia wanted to ask. “I’m the girl who failed to become an augur.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “I’m the runaway who’s hiding from her family.”

  “And?”

  “I’m a student trying to become a rider, but I don’t know if I can. I’ve failed every task you’ve given me. I can’t even call my kehok back to me. I don’t know why you think I’d be ready to ride, except that you want me to so badly that it’s blinding you.”

  Trainer Verlas’s eyes bored into hers with such intensity that Raia felt dizzy. “Don’t think about failing. Don’t think about winning. Just answer me this: What do you want, Raia?”

  “To be free.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . because I’m afraid he’ll hurt me if I marry him.”

  “And?”

  “Isn’t that enough? I’ll be afraid every day. I won’t be happy.”

  “Because you won’t have love? You won’t have your own special someone to hold you close at night, to whisper your secrets to, to tell you you’re beautiful?”

  Raia shook her head. She hadn’t even thought of what she did want. She’d been so subsumed by fear of what she didn’t. “It’s not that I want to marry someone else. I don’t want to marry him.”

  “You didn’t want to become an augur either.”

  “I did!” Eventually. When she saw there was no other choice. When it seemed like the best choice. “But I failed. I disappointed my teachers and my family and—”

  “And you felt a shred of relief, because that wasn’t the future for you,” Trainer Verlas pressed. “You felt a little bit free, because you hadn’t chosen the augurs. They chose you, based on a past life you don’t remember. And when you failed, you set yourself free. Life isn’t just about who you were—it’s about who you choose to be.”

  “I didn’t want to fail! I worked hard, but I just didn’t have the talent—”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Raia agreed. She’d never had the natural strength they expected her to have. Her instinct with auras
was weak, and she’d never been able to hone it properly, the way the others did. She’d struggled, asking question after question about things her teachers believed should have been obvious, trying to understand why she couldn’t do what they asked of her, and it only became worse as she advanced through the levels. It had been a kind of relief to fail. But her family hadn’t felt that way.

  “Why did you come to me?” Trainer Verlas asked.

  “Because you’re the best,” Raia said promptly. And because I thought you might take me. You’re desperate. Like me.

  “Why racing?”

  Because I need the prize money. Because I have no other skills. Because it’s said anyone can become a racer. Because I have no other options. But she didn’t think those were the reasons Trainer Verlas wanted to hear. She opened her mouth to say something about the excitement of the races, the thrill of the crowd, the hunger for the prize. None of those words came out. Instead, she found herself saying, “Because I want something that’s mine. All my life, I’ve never gotten to choose. I didn’t pick my family. I didn’t want to become an augur. I never agreed to marry.”

  She couldn’t read Trainer Verlas’s expression. She had no idea if this was the right answer or not. But Raia couldn’t seem to stop talking: “It’s not like I’ve dreamed of becoming a rider. I chose this because it was the best out of my terrible options. But . . . I chose it. Myself. And that matters. Doesn’t it? It should matter.”

  Pushing off her knees, Trainer Verlas stood. “Yes, it should.” She limped to the cage. “Help me saddle him. You’re going to ride him, and I’m going to keep him from killing you.”

  Raia jumped to her feet. “Wait—was that the right answer?”

  “There isn’t a right answer. Anyone who says there is is lying.”

  Free from his shackles, the lion lunged at Trainer Verlas as she approached the cage door. But she held up one hand, and he slunk backward. Raia hadn’t heard her say a word.

  “Why did you stop racing?” Raia asked. She clearly still had control over kehoks. Raia wasn’t sure she’d seen any rider who was so comfortable with them.

  “Injury to the leg. Can’t stay in the saddle for long enough to complete the race. No more questions now.” Trainer Verlas opened the cage door. “Bring me the saddle.”