Race the Sands

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “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.”

  Chapter 26

  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 i
f 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.”