Race the Sands Page 8

  This was a foolish, impossible plan.

  By the time the repairs were finished, Raia had convinced herself to quit. But she couldn’t say the words. Not with Trainer Verlas so silent.

  Growing up in her house, Raia knew how to read silences. There were peaceful ones, where you were content inside the warmth of your own thoughts. There were waiting silences, where you watched time stretch and lengthen. And there were silences like the sky that expects a storm, where the air quivers with unshed lightning—angry silences that you don’t dare break. This was one of those, and Raia knew better than to break a quivering quiet.

  Tamra spoke first. “You’ll stay with me and my daughter tonight.”

  “I . . .”

  “I’m not leaving you here with him. Not tonight. Or any other night. It won’t be luxurious, but we have enough spare blankets that you can set up a pallet on the kitchen floor. At least you won’t have to worry about your kehok breaking through the wall while you’re asleep.” She glared at the kehok.

  Tell her you want to quit, her mind whispered. But Raia couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Especially not if speaking up meant she’d lose the offer of a safe place to sleep tonight. She glanced once at the black lion, pinned beneath his chains. She hadn’t relished the thought of another night near the monsters, not with the image of what he’d done so stark in her mind, but a night in a real house, safe and warm . . . It was too much temptation. She told herself she was being practical, not cowardly, though she was glad there was no augur around to read her aura right now. I’ll tell her in the morning.

  Leaving the stable, she trailed Trainer Verlas across the sands and toward the city. The sun had begun to set while they were cleaning up from today’s catastrophe. It painted the sky with streaks of rust, and it made the Aur River look like liquid gold.

  It was only a couple miles before they reached the cluster of houses and shops on the northern shore of the river, the poorer area of Peron. Raia noticed that a lot of the shops were boarded up, and all the homes looked worn-out, as if they’d weathered too many people and too many years. Up close, the white walls were stained from age, and the blue roof tiles were chipped. By doorways, statues honoring the ancestors’ vessels were cheap stone carvings, roughly in the shape of herons, turtles, and hippos. Well-loved, she corrected, not worn-out. Still, she hoped it was safe to be out after dark here. She’d heard rumors of riots in some cities. Even a few deaths.

  As they walked between the houses and shops, she watched her trainer brighten when she saw a soft amber glow through some curtained windows. Her pace quickened, and Raia hurried after her.

  Raia checked her hands. She’d scrubbed the blood and dirt off of them at the stables. She couldn’t do anything about the speckled grime on her tunic. She hoped she was suitable enough to meet her trainer’s daughter. She always got nervous meeting new people. She thought of Silar, Algana, and Jalimo, and how she’d felt when she met them—that hadn’t been her finest moment, convinced they planned to pummel her.

  “Shalla!” Trainer Verlas cried.

  Following her inside, Raia saw Trainer Verlas hugging a young girl who was hugging her back just as happily. She looked to be about ten or eleven and reminded Raia of the kind of bird that pecked for bugs on the riverbank—all quick movements and alert eyes. When they broke apart, the girl asked, “Mama, is that blood? Are you hurt?”

  “Not mine, and nothing for you to worry about,” Trainer Verlas said. “It was a difficult day, but all the trainers and students are fine.” Raia noticed she didn’t mention the kehoks. “Shalla, I’d like you to meet my newest rider. This is Raia.”

  Raia heard the words “my newest rider” and froze for an instant—would she still be that in the morning? Then Raia remembered her manners and bowed her head. “Thank you for allowing me into your home. I hope I’m not an intrusion.”

  Shalla bowed back before bounding over to drag her farther inside. She shooed Raia into a chair and pushed a plate with a slice of bread into Raia’s hands. “Here’s what you need to know. My mother’s like fresh-baked bread. Crunchy on the outside but soft and sweet on the inside. If she took you on as a rider, then that means you’re family, and you’re welcome here.”

  Raia glanced at Trainer Verlas and was surprised to see how much her expression had softened in the presence of her daughter. Her lips were curved in what was almost a smile, and she was looking at Shalla as if the girl had carved the crescent moon.

  “I’ve been wanting a sister for a while,” Shalla continued. “Last rider was a boy.”

  Trainer Verlas protested, “I had more girls than boys with the last batch of paying students, if you want to count them. And there’s nothing wrong with boys.”

  “Generically, no,” Shalla said. “I like them fine. But not in my house. Do you have any idea how badly their feet can smell?”

  Trainer Verlas laughed. “Yours aren’t roses either.”

  “But they’re my stinky feet, and I’m used to them.” Turning to Raia, she asked, “Do you want fruit on the bread? We have a jar of pomegranate spread. Just to warn you: it’s a little sweet.”

  “Sweet for my sweet,” Trainer Verlas sang.

  “I made it,” Shalla admitted, “and I kind of dumped a lot of sugar in. A lot of sugar. You should sleep in my bed tonight. I’ll take the floor. You’re probably sore from training. Mama doesn’t go easy on her riders.”

  She jumped between topics so quickly that it made Raia’s head spin. “I’m fine on the floor, but thank you. And pomegranate sounds nice.”

  Shalla grabbed a jar and ladled a spoonful onto the slice of bread. She beamed at Raia, and Raia stared back at her.

  When Raia was Shalla’s age, she was constantly punished for speaking out of turn. Her family didn’t believe in children expressing opinions until they were old enough to . . . well, never really. She glanced at Trainer Verlas and thought she had to be an incredible mother for Shalla to be so open and so happy.

  She thought about what Shalla had said, about how she was now family. She didn’t believe that—your family was your family, whether you wanted them to be or not—but she did feel safer and more welcome here than she had in a very long time, even before she’d felt the need to climb out her bedroom window.

  Picking up the bread, Raia took a bite. Sugar exploded in her mouth, so sweet it made her teeth ache—it was much, much too sugary. Shalla was watching her anxiously, as if it were important to her that Raia be as happy as she was.

  Raia smiled at her. “It’s perfect,” she said. Not the bread. That was awful. But Trainer Verlas and her daughter, and the way they’d welcomed her in.

  Shalla beamed back at her. “Good. It’s important you’re happy here.”

  She seemed so very earnest that Raia couldn’t help asking, “Why does it matter to you? You just met me.” Certainly her own family hadn’t cared for her happiness. Why did this perfect stranger?

  “Because you’re our only hope.” Shalla said it so matter-of-factly, as if it weren’t a terrifying statement. “Right, Mama? She needs to win races so Mama can pay the augurs so that we can be together.”

  The sugar suddenly tasted like sand on Raia’s tongue. “You need me to win?” It was one thing when she was racing just for herself—a chance at her own freedom—but this . . .

  Trainer Verlas sighed. “I wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but yes. My daughter is training to be an augur, and I will be using the trainer’s share of the prize money to pay for her tuition.”

  “If we can’t pay, we can’t be together,” Shalla said.

  She was looking at Raia with so much hope and trust that Raia felt sick. She thought back to what the other students had said, and the fact that she hadn’t seen anyone else training with Trainer Verlas.

  I can’t be their only hope!

  And the fact that Shalla was training to be an augur—it hit too close to home. Her parents wanted her to repay them for the augurs, and now this girl . . . Ab
ruptly, Raia stood, dropping the bread. “This was all a terrible idea. You know I’m too weak to be a rider. You need to find someone who—”

  Trainer Verlas cut her off. “I found you. Sit down, Raia, and finish your bread.”

  Raia didn’t sit. This was a mistake. She should have kept going and never visited Gea Market. She could still sneak on board another ferry and make it farther south, far beyond Peron, far beyond all the cities of Becar, until she found a village too remote for her family to ever think of searching there. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have stopped running—”

  “Your family will find you eventually. If you stay and race the sands with me, then when they do find you, you can give them the money we’ve won from the races—once we win enough, we can pay my debt to Lady Evara, Shalla’s to the augurs, and yours to your family.” Trainer Verlas smiled encouragingly at her. Her voice was calm, but her hands were clasped so tightly that her knucklebones shone white through her skin. She was trying (and failing, Raia thought) to hide how much this mattered to her. “And then we will be both safe and free.”

  Raia blinked. Her eyes felt hot. This was all too much. She hadn’t wanted to be responsible for anyone else’s future. For the first time in a while, she wished one of her teachers were here, so she could ask what the right path was. “How many races do we need to win to be safe and free?”

  Trainer Verlas’s smile became even more strained.

  “Well . . . all of them.”

  Chapter 7

  Dar—known to his people as His Highness Prince Dar, the emperor-to-be of the Becar Empire, blessed by the Aur River—thought he would suffocate inside the mourning robes. He was wearing six layers of linen, each in deepening shades of gray to symbolize the dimming of a life, as well as a red silk scarf wrapped around his left arm as a reminder of rebirth. It was just shy of tight enough to cut off circulation.

  He’d hoped the discomfort would distract him.

  It wasn’t working.

  He still wanted to bash his bejeweled fist into every snake-smooth courtier and ambassador who expressed his wish to honor his brother’s memory. That, however, wasn’t done. Emperors-to-be didn’t curl their hands into fists. They laid their hands peacefully across their laps, and then nodded at precisely the same incline at every fellow mourner.

  They might mourn him, Dar thought. But they don’t miss him.

  Not the way Dar did, where he woke each morning and remembered anew that Zarin was gone, the memory like a knife in Dar’s gut every time. He felt filleted as he went about the ceremony of his day, every nerve exposed and raw.

  Everything made him miss his brother.

  The taste of a lemon.

  The whistle of the wind.

  The crash of a platter from the kitchen and then the frantic whispers of the servants.

  Years ago, shortly after Zarin had first become emperor, he’d heard a clatter from the kitchen and sprung off his throne to rush to help. Six servants had fainted on the spot at the sight of their new emperor picking up shards of glass from the tiled floor, and three councillors had resigned. Or so Zarin liked to say. Every time he’d told that story, the number of fainting servants and appalled courtiers had increased. Every time a citizen told that story, he or she gushed at the example of their emperor’s greatheartedness.

  And so when Dar heard a crash, he didn’t move. Not because he felt he was above helping, but because that was Zarin’s story, and Dar wasn’t going to take it from him. The way I took his throne, he thought.

  This was Zarin’s. All of it. The throne. The crown. The linen robes and silk scarves, the exact nods, the precise words, the time spent in the official Hours of Listening, when the great ruler of all Becar silently listened to the advice, complaints, requests, and words of his people for three hours every two weeks without speaking a word. Or scratching an itch. Or sneezing. Or fidgeting in any way.

  I don’t know how Zarin did it.

  Zarin used to complain about the Listening, how the nobles of Becar liked to monopolize it to drone on and on, and how he wished sometimes he could sew his mouth shut so he wouldn’t have to exert so much effort clenching his jaw to try not to speak.

  Dar had always met his brother in his chambers or in the aviary after the Listening, so that Zarin would have someone to vent to. He’d had so many pent-up words to say, and he needed a safe receptacle to empty them into. I never minded listening to him.

  He did mind listening to these sycophants.

  He amused himself the way Zarin had told Dar he did: by imagining what animal the nobles would be reborn as and picturing a hippopotamus or a stork waxing on about flood levels and taxes. Sometimes it even helped. But only a little.

  In front of him now was a woman whom Dar was positive would be reborn as a vulture. “Oh, Great Emperor-to-Be.” She bowed, a fraction lower than was strictly custom, and Dar wondered if his brother had ever stuffed cotton in his ears to dull their voices. “Accept my humble wishes for peace in your heart and allow me to express my deep sorrow that your brother’s reborn soul has not yet been presented for our adoration.”

  Ouch. That one wasn’t even subtle.

  Gritting his teeth, Dar inclined his head. The word “yet” hung in the air like rancid perfume. After an emperor died and was reborn, tradition dictated that he be found in his new vessel and granted a life of luxury in the palace, regardless of whether he regained any memories of his past life or not.

  Dar had been a child when their parents died—young enough that he had only sketchy memories of them as they were. But he remembered how every day he’d visit a toad in one of the palace ponds that was supposed to have been their father, and how Zarin had insisted they spend one afternoon a week in the aviary with a river hawk that had once been their mother. Two noble rebirths. Both lived lives of comfort and honor, their father hemmed in by garden walls and their mother’s wings clipped so she wouldn’t try to fly from the palace. Their father had never given any sign that he remembered who he’d been, but their mother often seemed to understand them.

  Zarin used to say he hoped he didn’t come back as a bird. He wouldn’t want his wings clipped, even for the fanciest aviary in the known world, which this was.

  If he is a bird, Dar thought, I hope he’s flying free.

  But if he was a bird, Dar also hoped he’d fly home soon. Tradition may have dictated the treatment of a prior emperor, but law dictated the treatment of the next one. Namely, Dar couldn’t become emperor until his predecessor was found and properly honored.

  It was now approaching three months since Zarin’s death, with no sign of his new vessel.

  “Your Glory-to-Be-Realized—”

  Seriously? Is that what she’s going to call me?

  “—I hope you understand the gravity of our concerns. There is much of importance that is frozen while we wait for your coronation. Construction has been halted on the East Temples, and the tombs of your forefathers have not been tended to. Of particular concern to the Fifth District of Mesoon is the unsigned law regarding fishing regulations . . .”

  Dar resisted the urge to slump in his throne and shove his fingers in his ears.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care that construction couldn’t continue or laws couldn’t be signed. He did care about the problems of his people. It was that there was nothing he could do about it. He already had dozens of augurs combing Becar for any hint of a child, bird, tadpole, or insect with Zarin’s soul. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to do!

  If Zarin were here, he could have asked him.

  But of course if Zarin were here, he wouldn’t be having this problem. Dar would be back to being the spare brother, the one who was never supposed to become emperor, because Zarin was supposed to live, marry, and produce lots and lots of other heirs.

  As always when he thought about marrying, Dar’s gaze slid to Nori. Across the throne room, Lady Nori of Griault laughed with her head tilted back at a comment Dar couldn’t hear. He wished he were with h
er, laughing with her, instead of stuck on the dais. She was in profile, beside a column, and the sight reminded him of all the nights they’d stood side by side on one of the palace balconies, looking out over the Heart of Becar. They’d been friends since they’d been kids, and Dar clung to the hope that someday they’d be more. If I ever get up the nerve to tell her how I feel.

  They were distant enough cousins that she was royal without being too-close kin, so a match would make the nobles happy, and she came from an impressive fortune, which would make the royal coffers happy. He didn’t care about any of that, though. He just liked her for who she was.

  She turned, her eyes meeting his—she must have felt him staring, or another noble had noticed and alerted her. Nori cocked one eyebrow at him and then mouthed the words, “Pay attention.”

  Dar dragged his gaze back to the next supplicant, who was a man he shouldn’t have been ignoring, the ambassador from Ranir, the country that squatted on their southern border, beyond the desert. “—difficulty in explaining the situation to my superiors in Ranir,” Ambassador Usan was saying. “Our laws have no such condition, and they—we—do not understand why, if you do not possess the authority to renew our treaty, that another cannot be delegated to do so. My superiors are concerned that it is a negotiation tactic, or even a prelude to hostilities. If you could give me some assurance to pass on to them . . .”

  Becar had a complex and tenuous relationship with Ranir, due to the king of Ranir’s tendency to invade at semi-regular intervals throughout history. During times of peace, Becar typically pretended those incursions hadn’t happened, because Ranir was such a valuable trading partner. Listening to the ambassador always gave Dar a headache—Usan could have sought an audience at any other time, but the ambassador deliberately chose the one time Dar was unable to respond. It was obvious that he wanted to emphasize the emperor-to-be’s weakness, but Dar thought the ambassador also just enjoyed being annoying. He’d likely be reborn as a housefly.