Race the Sands

by Sarah Beth Durst

  The twenty riders and racers were the best in Becar. Most had been racing for years. Only a few were newer. And none were as new as Raia and her lion—to be in the first heat in your first season was extraordinary, and she knew others were waiting for her to falter.

  But Tamra had no fear.

  She felt as if she were running along with Raia and the lion. Her heart, mind, and soul were with them as they charged toward the first turn, picking up speed. The lion dug his paws into the turn, attacking it, and gained speed for the straightaway.

  “Mama! She’s catching up to the lead!” Shalla cried.

  “Run,” Tamra whispered. “Just run.”

  Raia felt the wind on her face and tasted the sweat that dripped off her lip. The roar of the crowd was distant thunder, a storm that didn’t touch her. She felt as if nothing could touch her. She was flying, on the back of her lion.

  “Faster, my love,” she called to him with her mind, heart, and soul.

  She was aware of the other racers: a red lizard who breathed fire, a silver-and-black jackal with a snake’s tail, a winged crocodile, a beetle the size of a hippo, an elephant that looked as if it were made of rocks. . . . All of them were racing with her, kicking sand into the sky. She felt as if she were buoyed by them, by their speed, as they careened along the first straightaway.

  Ahead of her was Gette, whipping his silver spider kehok.

  She saw every movement with clarity. Beside her the rock elephant bashed against the shoulder of the beetle. It bashed back, biting. Sand clouded the air, thrown upward in the clash, and she felt as if she could see every grain.

  The crowd’s cheers roared louder as Raia saw the first turn ahead. Own the turn, she thought. Use the turn. She felt the lion run faster, his paws digging into the sand, shoveling it behind him. She was shoulder-to-shoulder with the red lizard. Flames ringed its neck, and Raia breathed in the heat. She lay flat against her lion’s cool metal mane.

  Another racer slammed hard into her side—the silver-and-black jackal. She slipped an inch to the side, then righted herself. Her lion shouldered the jackal back and kept running. Now the red lizard was ahead of them.

  Next straightaway.

  She was speed. She was wind. She was a sandstorm. The lion ran faster than he’d ever run before, gaining on the lizard. Raia heard the pounding of racers’ hooves and paws behind them, as if the sound was pushing them forward. As they neared the next turn, the lion ran low, his strides so smooth that Raia could barely feel the impact of his paws on the sand.

  They whipped around the turn, and they passed the red lizard. She heard its rider screaming and saw him in a frenzy, beating the lizard with a spiked club as they fell behind.

  Only Gette and the spider were left in front of her. He twisted in his saddle to look at the competitors behind him, and their eyes met. His lips quirked into a smile, and he faced forward, rose up in his saddle, and hit the spider so fast and hard that his arm was a blur.

  Beneath her, she felt her lion’s growl build. It vibrated her legs until she felt herself growling with him. Her focus narrowed to Gette, and she felt a strange kind of hunger, sharp and predatory.

  Faster, Raia and the lion closed the distance between them.

  Closer. Closer.

  They were inches behind them, with the spider’s many legs stabbing the sand in front. Her kehok roared, his jaws open, snapping at the spider’s legs, and Gette steered sharply left. The lion’s teeth closed on empty air. For an instant, she thought she saw fear in Gette’s eyes. She now snarled at him and in that instant he was everyone who had ever let her down: her parents, the augurs who turned her away, all the people who had never cared but were supposed to.

  In the stands beyond Gette, Raia caught a glimpse of three familiar faces: Jalimo and Algana, with Silar hoisted between them on their shoulders. Their mouths were open, screaming for Raia and cheering her on as they’d promised they would. Silar was punching the sky.

  Raia saw the scene in a millisecond, and it wiped all thought of Gette from her mind. He no longer mattered. And he had no power to stop her.

  As the spider lunged to attack, the lion spurted ahead, and Gette faltered as their target suddenly disengaged. She heard his kehok scream in rage, but Raia didn’t look back. As she and the lion took the lead, everything and everyone faded behind them until there was only her and her kehok. They ran as one.

  “Fly, my love,” Raia whispered to the lion.

  Smooth, fast, and strong as wind, they flew through the final lap.

  Alone in the lead, they surged across the finish line.

  Chapter 28

  As the crowd cheered, Raia soothed her lion, “Slow, slow, it’s over. Breathe.”

  Flowers were tossed onto the racetrack, as the other racers were led back to the stable. Soon, Raia and the lion were the only rider-and-racer pair left on the track. She felt enveloped in cheers, as if the excitement of the crowd were lifting her into the sky. She raised her arms and, with her thoughts alone, guided the lion back to the finish line.

  Guards and race officials swarmed around them, clamping shackles on him.

  Don’t fight them, she thought at him. You won! We won! She didn’t know if he could feel her thoughts beneath the barrage of others, but he didn’t resist.

  Trainer Verlas appeared at her side, as if by magic. She hauled Raia off the lion’s back and hugged her. “You did it!” she shouted. “I knew you would!”

  Raia felt as if she’d never stop smiling. She’d never felt this kind of overflowing joy, as if she wanted to wrap the whole city, the whole desert, the whole empire, and everyone in it in her arms. Joy had replaced her blood, coursing through her and making her laugh and cry all at once. She was lifted up on the shoulders of riders and trainers. Cheering, they carried her to the base of the royal viewing box and set her down.

  Smoothing her tunic, she smiled up at Dar. With palace guards on either side of him, he approached her.

  “Congratulations, Rider Raia!” His voice rang across the sands. “Grand champion!”

  The crowd roared loud enough to shake the sky. She thought they’d be heard across the desert. The cheers rang in her skull, and she thought she’d never, ever forget this moment.

  Carrying an ornate black box, the high augurs filed onto the sands, and Dar led Raia to a dais that had been constructed during the chaos under the finish line banner. Trainer Verlas was already standing on it, beaming at her.

  Where’s my lion?

  Raia scanned the crowd—if he wasn’t with Trainer Verlas . . .

  “Steady,” Trainer Verlas whispered. “First you, then the kehok. It’s how it’s done.”

  Squashing her worries, Raia waved at the spectators as Dar led her up the steps and presented her to the stands. “Your grand champion, Rider Raia!”

  She waved at the crowd as Dar presented her with a medallion. It was stamped with the symbol of the Becaran Races, the victory charm, and it hung from a blue silk ribbon. He lowered the ribbon around her neck. She felt the heavy weight of the medal. She waved again, and in the sea of faces, she saw Silar, still on the shoulders of Jalimo and Algana. As the others cheered for her, Silar clapped her hands together and shook them in victory.

  As Raia came off the dais, Trainer Verlas wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Shalla hugged her waist. Lady Evara fluttered around them, proclaiming how she always knew, she always believed in them, and she was so very proud.

  Next, it was her kehok’s turn.

  The crowd hushed as her lion was led in shackles by guards and trainers toward the dais. Growling, he was trying to snap at them through the chain muzzle. Raia broke away from her friends and ran toward him. As soon as he saw her, he calmed. She knelt in front of him.

  “You don’t need the chains,” she told the guards.

  “He can’t approach the emperor-to-be unchained.”

  She didn’t argue with them. This will all be over soon, she thought at him. At sundown, he’d be reborn and ha
ve no more need of chains or cages. Clasping the lion’s face in her hands, she said out loud, “It’s all right. You did it. Everything’s going to be fine now. Very soon, you’ll be free.”

  She then walked alongside him up to the dais.

  Dar bowed to the kehok.

  The lion knelt and inclined his head.

  Around Raia, she heard gasps and then whispers—people were amazed at the control she had over the lion, that she could make him bow. She didn’t say that she hadn’t done it. The lion had bowed on his own.

  Soon, he’ll be free.

  I’ll miss him.

  She kept that voice inside her very quiet. This was a joyous day, and she wanted the kehok to know she was proud of him and happy for him.

  Then the high augurs stepped forward, and one of the high augurs, an ancient man with a face as weathered as a rock in the wind, addressed the crowd. “As the winner of the Becaran Races, this kehok is to be redeemed.”

  Beside Raia, the lion tensed.

  She laid a hand on his mane. It’s all right, she soothed him.

  The high augur went on with his speech, and Raia sensed the lion becoming more and more agitated. She whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  This didn’t make sense. The lion understood what was going on, at least she thought he did. He wanted this! She wondered if he was afraid of how it would happen. To be reborn, he would have to die. But after that, he wouldn’t be a monster anymore. He’d have a chance to start over, and his death and rebirth would save his brother.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered.

  She knew they’d take him to the temple and perform the ritual at sundown. She wished she’d asked if she could go with him. He’d be alone, and frightened.

  For the first time, she wondered if winning was what she’d wanted after all. They’re going to kill him, she realized, in order to free him. And she wouldn’t be able to help or comfort him or even be nearby. She wouldn’t be allowed in the inner sanctum of the temple.

  Maybe we should have run.

  She told herself to stop thinking like this. It was just a selfish fear, because she’d miss him and miss racing the sands with him. “Go to them,” she told the lion. “They’ll set you free.”

  Stepping back, she let him walk forward toward the dais.

  A high augur, a woman who had been standing near Augur Yorbel, stepped forward. Seeing her, the lion halted. Raia saw his gaze fix on each of the high augurs. His growl intensified.

  Raia had a sudden terrible thought. What if it wasn’t death he feared? What if it was them?

  As a kehok, he’d never seen the high augurs before. He shouldn’t have recognized them as anything but strangers. He should have no reason to feel threatened by them, but he was acting as if they were a source of danger.

  The soldiers tried to prod the lion forward as the high augurs formed a line, blocking the lion’s view of Dar. As soon as Dar disappeared behind them, the lion reacted.

  He charged toward the high augurs.

  The soldiers reacted, seizing his chains.

  Raia cried, “No! Stop! They’re not your enemies!”

  As the lion was subdued by the will of the nearby trainers and the strength of the guards, he continued to thrash and try to bite, and Raia thought, What if they are?

  She looked at the high augurs.

  Impossible.

  The high augurs were the most pure beings in Becar. They guarded and guided the souls of everyone. Except not all augurs are kind, a little part of her whispered. She knew how much Trainer Verlas feared they’d take Shalla from her. Granted, that was entirely different—the augurs at Shalla’s temple believed they were doing the right thing for Shalla and for Becar.

  But was it all that different? Because her parents believed they were doing the right thing too.

  It was a horrible thing to think, that the augurs could have played a role in Zarin becoming a kehok.

  But she trusted her lion, and he feared them as if he remembered them. She watched him whimper as one of the high augurs approached him. Giving a command, the high augur gestured at a cage. The guards and race officials hauled the kehok into it. A red velvet cloth was tossed over it, and the final thing Raia saw was her lion’s sad, beautiful, frightened eyes.

  She heard a voice inside her head—a voice she’d heard only once before. His voice.

  Pain, his voice said. Death.

  And then: They killed me.

  He was afraid because he remembered them. He remembered his death!

  “Wait!” She pushed through the crowd and ran to the cage.

  Behind her, Trainer Verlas called, “Raia, what are you doing?”

  “Let me in the cage. I need to fix his chains,” she lied to the nearest guards. “He’s shackled wrong—he’ll break free if I don’t fix it.”

  Believing her, they opened the cage. She threw herself inside. Hands shaking and heart pounding, she unlatched his shackles and loosened his chains. He lunged out past her.

  Trainer Verlas rushed to block him. “Stop!” She was flanked by other trainers and riders, all of them bearing down with their will on the lion.

  He halted as if he’d been frozen.

  Raia ran to his side. “Please! I have to save him.”

  “We’re trying to save him!” Trainer Verlas said. More calmly, she said, “This is what has to happen. You have to let the high augurs take him. They’ll use the victory charm, and then he’ll be saved.”

  “They won’t!” Raia knew she was crying—she felt the tears on her cheeks, tasted them on her lips. “Please, Trainer Verlas—if you won’t trust him, then trust me!”

  On the dais, she saw Prince Dar stride toward her, flanked by his imperial guards. In his robes, with a circlet of gold on his head, he was nothing like the boy who had wept for his brother. He was as radiant as a legend. “Rider Raia, I demand you stop at once! This kehok must receive his reward!”

  She sprang onto the lion’s back. He was snarling and snapping but wasn’t attacking, held in place by the will of the riders and trainers. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she cried, “I can’t! They won’t! Dar, the high augurs killed your brother! They murdered the emperor!”

  She’d shocked the riders and trainers—she felt it the second their will faltered, like a spring released. “Run,” she ordered the lion. As the crowd exploded into shouting around them, the lion pivoted and carried Raia off the racetrack.

  Chapter 29

  Tamra shielded Shalla as chaos erupted all around them. The palace guards, the augurs’ soldiers, and the track officials marched through the crowd, shoving people back toward the stands. Closing ranks, the high augurs filed out of the racetrack, while the emperor-to-be’s personal guards spirited him safely out of sight.

  “Follow me,” Lady Evara commanded.

  Herding Shalla with her, Tamra said, “Come on.”

  All around them people were shouting at each other. She saw one man punch another, and a fight broke out to their right. I have to get Shalla out of here! And find Raia! She felt a hand on her elbow and saw Yorbel was there, helping shield Shalla from the crowd.

  The tension that everyone had been bottling up during race season, the passion that had built up during the races themselves—all of it was bursting out. It was as if the people were transforming into monsters right in front of her. Every bit of rage that they’d held in was exploding out of them. Fights were erupting in the stands and on the racetrack. Everyone was screaming louder than a horde of kehoks, as if they’d been just waiting for the right moment to unleash all their anger and frustration at life.

  The only saving grace was that the actual monsters, the kehoks, were locked in the stable, as was protocol after every race. The stable! Tamra thought. It was the one place that the rioters wouldn’t enter, no matter how inflamed they were. If Raia had any sense, she’d run there. It was the next best thing to fleeing into the desert, which was the opposite direction from where she’d fled. “To the kehok stable!�
�� she shouted at Lady Evara.

  Lady Evara nodded once, to show she’d heard, and led the way, wading through shouting people, elbowing them aside. Her enormous hat was easy to see and follow as they pushed through the panicking crowd.

  Beside Tamra, Shalla stumbled as a woman crashed against her. Tamra and Yorbel immediately flanked Shalla, protecting her on either side. “Stay close!” Tamra shouted at the others.

  It felt like an eternity of pressing through the crowd, but at last Tamra saw the stable ahead of them. She could hear the shrieks of the kehoks inside, echoing the mood of the rioters behind them.

  Reaching the stable, Tamra expected to find a knot of guards, but they’d been drawn away toward the thick of the fighting. Lady Evara yanked open the door and shooed them inside. There was none of the flighty aristocrat about her now. She looked more like a soldier, her eyes darting around, taking stock of their situation. The bulk of the chaos was by the track, but it could easily spread here. “Quickly!”

  I never thought I’d feel better having Lady Evara with me, Tamra thought.

  They ducked inside, and together Tamra and Lady Evara slammed the door behind them and lowered the lock, a thick iron bar. It was a door designed to keep kehoks in; it would keep a horde of people out. Plus the walls of the stable were thick stone.

  Inside, the noise was like being within a tornado. There were hundreds of kehoks, shrieking inside their stalls, bashing at the walls and doors. Wincing from aches she was just starting to feel, Tamra turned and saw Shalla retreating, her eyes locked on the face of a jackal-like kehok that snapped its jaws at her. Behind her, a hulking rhino-like brute bashed its stall door so hard that it shook. “Shalla, watch out!”

  Shalla jumped away, her mouth open in a scream that Tamra couldn’t hear because of the kehok shrieks. In the next stall over, another kehok, a monkey-like creature with sword-length claws, swiped at her.

  “Back!” Tamra ordered with both her voice and mind. “Down!”

  The two kehoks skittered back and then lay, cowed, in their stalls.