Race the Sands

by Sarah Beth Durst

  The bearded augur objected. “But we don’t know if it’s true—”

  “The people are afraid because they have seen the purest of the pure be corrupted. They do not know how they can continue to make the right choices if those who should have been incorruptible could not. At least this gives them an explanation: the old high augurs were not special. They were not better. All I ask, Your Excellence, is that you call it a theory, and together all Becarans will explore its truth.”

  “Very well,” Dar said. “It will be done.”

  The head augur bowed, and the others followed suit before retreating.

  Raia waited for the door to shut before she sagged against the kehok. She’d held her breath for much of that conversation—just thinking of the ways in which this revelation could change Becar, most especially the lives of everyone like her who’d never wanted to be an augur but thought they’d had no choice. . . . It made her head feel as if it were whirling.

  “Did that go the way you wished it to?” Dar asked the kehok.

  The lion looked up at the river hawk perched above them.

  Raia answered for him. “I believe it did.”

  Raia and the kehok mostly kept to the background while Dar continued his day, meeting with various nobles and advisers. He heard updates on the rebuilding of the city, signed various documents, refused to sign a few others, and delegated tasks as necessary.

  After a while, Raia and the kehok drifted away, wandering the paths of the aviary. She followed the sound of a man-made stream that trickled between the trees. A few statues decorated the paths.

  The kehok remembered who he had been for most of the time now. Raia wasn’t sure if it was because they were in his old home or spending so much time with his brother, but walking through the aviary, she felt as though she was with a friend, not a beast she’d tamed. The spectators at the races would have been stunned to see them.

  Beside her, the kehok stopped.

  A river hawk was perched on top of one of the statues. It watched them for a moment, and then inclined its head before spreading its wings and disappearing into the tops of the trees.

  Raia didn’t know what it meant, but she sensed peacefulness from the kehok. She hadn’t felt that from him before. Resting her hand on his back, she meandered with him back to Dar.

  “One more left for today,” Dar said when they returned, “and I would like you here with me for this.” He looked into the kehok’s eyes. “You’ll tell me if I make a mistake, right?”

  That sounded worrying. “Who is it?”

  “The ambassador from Ranir.”

  “I thought you’d imprisoned him.” As well as my parents, Raia thought.

  His gaze shifted to her. “I did. But it’s time for him to deliver a message.”

  Raia swallowed. “You don’t think destroying their army was message enough?”

  Dar didn’t reply. Instead he straightened in his throne as the guards crossed the aviary, escorting a disheveled man in chains. He was unshaven, and he looked as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. But his expression was peaceful—he looked, Raia thought, like a man prepared to face his own death.

  She inched closer to the kehok and hoped that they wouldn’t be the cause of that death.

  “Ambassador Usan,” Dar greeted him.

  “I don’t think I still have the right to that title,” the man said, holding up his shackled wrists. “My king has most likely decided I failed in my duties.”

  “That is his right to decide,” Dar said. “You can ask him when you see him.”

  The man cocked his head, as if mildly interested. “You aren’t executing me? Curious. You know I murdered the woman you reportedly loved. Like you murdered mine.”

  Dar looked taken aback by that—most wouldn’t have noticed, but Raia saw the tightening of his hands on the arms of his throne. She felt the kehok stiffen beside her.

  “She was in the army that was supposed to invade. A captain in the third battalion.”

  “She may have survived,” Dar said. “The extent of the losses aren’t known.”

  “You unleashed an army of several hundred murderous beasts,” Usan said with a shrug. “After so much time listening to your nobles discuss betting on your sun-blasted races, I know bad odds when I hear them.”

  “We are returning you to Ranir, for the good of Becar,” Dar said. “The invasion, as well as your actions here, were an act of aggression we cannot and will not ignore. You will carry treaties that your king will sign.”

  “And if he does not?”

  “Kehoks can travel across the desert. I do not think your king would like to find an army of them on his doorstep.” Dar adopted the same casual tone as the ambassador, but Raia could feel the underlying tension.

  “To warn you, my king may take it as a sign of weakness that you allowed me to live.”

  Raia burst out, “Are you asking to die?”

  He shrugged again. “I’d prefer to die someplace where I’m not so thirsty all the time. I don’t know how you Becarans can stand it here. People aren’t meant to be surrounded by so much sand. So, if you’re offering me a chance to live long enough to leave this place, I’ll take it.”

  “You will be provided with an escort, as well as a written list of demands for your king. And you will deliver a special message.” Dar nodded to the kehok.

  Standing, the lion walked toward the ambassador.

  For the first time, Usan looked frightened. Shrinking back, he began to tremble. Raia didn’t know what the kehok was doing, but she didn’t sense rage. Perhaps this was something Dar and the kehok had worked out between them. Often, Dar talked with his brother, and Raia gave them space, moving herself out of earshot but staying close enough to control the kehok, if necessary. They’d managed to find their own ways to communicate.

  She was musing over this when the lion swiped his claws diagonally across Usan’s body. Usan cried out as the metal tips gouged his skin. Blood sprang from the long gash, and Usan fell hard onto his knees.

  To the guards, Dar said, “Make sure it scars. Then send him home.” To Usan he said, “If you return, the claws will cut through your heart. And if your kingdom moves against us again, it will be your king’s heart.”

  The bleeding man was carried out of the aviary.

  Raia and the kehok met the emperor in the aviary the next day, and the next. The emperor wanted his brother present, and it was unsafe for the kehok to be without her—she couldn’t guarantee he would hold on to his memories, and his guards wouldn’t allow the risk.

  Sometimes the meetings were fascinating, sometimes boring. None were as monumental as either the meeting with the new high augurs or with the former ambassador from Ranir . . . at least until the day when no one walked through the aviary doors for the next meeting.

  “Isn’t there anyone coming?” Raia asked.

  “This time is reserved for you,” Dar said. He drew a roll of parchment out of a pocket in his tunic. “These were made official just this morning.”

  She took it, unsure what it could be. It was tied with a gold ribbon, as if it were a new law or a proclamation. Feeling Dar watching her, she untied it—there were two papers. She flattened them on her lap.

  As she read the first one, she felt her throat clog. It was a release statement from her parents, obtained from them in prison, admitting they had no claim over her, that she owed them nothing, and that all debt and relations between them were canceled.

  A hot tear landed on the parchment.

  It was what she wanted, but it still tore her up to read. Her parents had disowned her in a statement that was fully legal. They had no claim to her, nor she to them. I’m free. She didn’t know why that didn’t make her happier.

  The black lion nudged her hand, and she stroked his metallic muzzle. He laid his head on her lap, comforting her.

  “Read the second,” Dar urged.

  She flipped to the second paper and read. This one was an adoption certificate. Even though s
he was a full legal adult, this paper claimed her as part of the family Verlas. Daughter of Trainer Tamra Verlas, sister to augur-in-training Shalla Verlas. If she chose to accept. There were no financial ties within it—no obligations from either the family to her, or her to the family.

  But they were legally bound, if she wished to be.

  Now she was crying in earnest.

  “I can’t tell if you’re happy or not,” Dar said.

  “I can’t either,” she admitted.

  He gestured to the papers. “Do you want this?”

  “Yes! Oh, yes!” She clutched both to her chest. Free from the family who never loved her. And tied to a family who did. Yes, she wanted this very much. She’d never imagined it was possible to change something that felt as immutable as the family she was born into. But I did. I changed my life, my future, my destiny.

  The kehok leaned against her, and she heard the words in her head: You changed mine.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, as far as they would reach, and wept into his mane.

  Chapter 37

  Shalla sat next to her mother, looking out at the desert. She rested her head against her mother’s shoulder and breathed in the familiar scent: a little sand, a little sweat, a little hibiscus, and a little wildness. It was a smell that always made Shalla feel safe.

  “You have a choice now,” Mama said. “The new high augurs promised you would. All students can choose whether they want to continue to train to become augurs.”

  Ever since the emperor had issued his proclamation, she’d known this was coming: Mama would ask her what she wanted. What she didn’t know was what Mama wanted her to choose. “Emperor Dar is making a lot of changes.”

  “Yes, he is. And not everyone likes that. But sometimes the world has to change.” Mama paused as if considering her words. “Or be changed.”

  Shalla thought about that. So much of what she understood about the world she’d thought couldn’t change, and that had been proven wrong. Because Mama had changed it. Shalla looked out at the wind dancing over the sand and wondered if she dared ask the question that had been haunting her for days now. “Are you sorry for what happened?”

  “You mean am I sorry I saved you? No. Am I sorry I used the monsters to stop the invasion? No. Am I sorry it’s my fault all those people died? I . . . don’t know. Because I can’t have one without the other. I did a terrible thing at the same time I did the best thing I’ve ever done. And if I had to do it all over again . . . I would do the same.”

  Shalla absorbed that.

  “Do you understand, my star? I would destroy the world for you.”

  Shalla didn’t know if that was right, as Augur Clari would consider it, but it made her feel warm and safe. She wished, though, she could forget what she’d seen and heard in that chamber. It woke her in the night, and for a few seconds, she’d be convinced she was still there. But then she’d remember her mother had come to save her and had kept her safe when the monsters attacked, and it would be okay again. “I love you, Mama.”

  She heard her mother make a small hiccup, and she tilted her head to see Mama’s face. There were tears on Mama’s cheeks. Did I say the wrong thing? she wondered.

  But Mama just squeezed her tighter and said, “I love you too, my star.”

  “I still want to be an augur,” Shalla said. “Like Augur Yorbel was.” Even if being able to read auras didn’t mean she was inherently special, she was still good at it. And she liked the idea of helping people be better. “Are you mad at me, for wanting to keep training?”

  “I’m proud of you,” Mama said. “After what they did . . . After what you saw . . . No one would have blamed you if you said no.”

  “I thought you might want me to say no. Because of the high augurs.”

  Mama hugged her again. “I only want you to be happy. And you . . . should have something in your life that’s separate from me. Because I have a lot to atone for.”

  “You saved me,” Shalla said firmly. “And Emperor Dar. And everyone in the entire empire.” And then, to be honest, she added, “Except for the ones who died.”

  Mama gave a tight laugh, and Shalla thought maybe she shouldn’t have said the “except for the ones who died” part. “You’re right. But, Shalla, I want you to know that if you still want to be an augur, you can be. I promise I’m not mad at you.”

  Shalla felt the bit of nervousness that had been inside her belly unknot. She smiled, and they sat together quietly for a while. Then Shalla thought of something else she’d been wanting to say. “You shouldn’t be mad at Augur Yorbel either.”

  Her mother stiffened. “I’m not. He’s dead.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t still be mad.”

  Mama laughed again, a little freer, though Shalla didn’t think what she’d said was funny. “My wise little star. I think I believe he was a good man. He wanted to make the right choices. . . . Sometimes I even think he might have meant for me to do what I did.”

  Shalla studied her mother for a minute. “You have to forgive yourself too.”

  Mama’s laughter faded, and she looked out across the desert again. “Perhaps I do.”

  Tamra caught the silver jaguar first.

  He was lurking on the outskirts of the Heart of Becar. She’d taken to living at the now-deserted stables out at the racetrack, even though Emperor Dar had offered her and Shalla a place in the palace. Shalla swore she didn’t mind, and Tamra felt more at home there.

  During the day, while Shalla was at the temporary temple for her augur training, Tamra felt like she was paying penance by cleaning the massive kehok stables by herself, fixing the broken doors, and strengthening the chains and shackles. All the temporary tents from the campsite were gone, but the permanent structures that remained were massive and in need of work, after the damage they’d sustained in the riots. She refused every worker that Emperor Dar sent, and she was blessedly alone when she heard the growl outside the door.

  She crept out, still holding the wrench she’d been using, and saw the silver jaguar pawing through the wreckage of the campsite. “Come,” Tamra ordered.

  The jaguar froze, and then he trotted toward her, as if that had been his plan all along. She stared into his golden eyes and knew this monster wasn’t like the black lion—he hadn’t been a pure soul tricked and trapped in a fate he didn’t deserve. This soul deserved his fate. And maybe I deserve him, she thought.

  She contemplated him for a moment. He shuddered, and his silver scales rustled as the shudder traveled down his back. “We ride,” she decided.

  He knelt at her command, and she climbed onto his back.

  “Let’s find the others,” she said, then made it an order: “Find the other kehoks.”

  They ran across the former campsite and past the racetrack. That afternoon, they found three. She corralled them with the force of her will back to the stable and locked each of them in stalls.

  There were hundreds still out there, roving the desert, hunting people who couldn’t protect themselves, destroying fields and houses and anything they could find.

  But I can bring them back.

  She started shortly after dawn the next morning, after Shalla was escorted, by palace guards, to her lessons. Taking the silver jaguar as her mount, Tamra rode out into the desert and returned by nighttime with another five kehoks.

  She felt happier than she had since the coronation. She hummed to herself as she latched the locks on the stable doors. I have a purpose. There’s good I can do.

  Every day, she hunted kehoks, sometimes returning with several, sometimes returning with none. It occurred to her that she’d be more effective if she wasn’t working alone. Plus she’d be able to stay out longer, if she had someone in the stable taking care of feeding and watering the kehoks she’d already caught.

  When Raia came to visit for dinner with Tamra and Shalla, Tamra told them what she’d been doing. Shalla clapped in approval, and Raia said, “I’ll go with you.”

&nbs
p; “You can’t,” Tamra said. “Emperor Dar needs you—if he keeps insisting on having his brother with him all the time, he needs someone who can control him if the kehok forgets his humanity. We didn’t do everything we did to lose our emperor in an accident.”

  “Then who do you want?”

  Tamra thought about it. “Riders and trainers who want to help. And hunters.” She thought of the man who had sold her the black lion—he’d be perfect for this. “I’ll also need people who can feed and water the kehoks while I’m out finding more.”

  Raia nodded. “I’ll talk to Dar.”

  Shalla giggled. “You call the emperor of all Becar just ‘Dar.’ Like he’s an ordinary person.”

  “He is!” Raia insisted. “He worries about things, like ordinary people. He likes some people and doesn’t like others, even though he has to be fair to all of them. He hates mushrooms and loves mangoes. He thinks his official robes itch too much, and the many-generations-old crown is too small and gives him a headache. He . . .”

  Tamra grinned as Raia continued on. And on.

  She wondered if Raia was even aware of how fond she was of the emperor. She’ll figure it out, Tamra thought. As will he. They made a formidable trio: the emperor, the kehok, and the girl who linked them together.

  Within a few days, Tamra had her crew. The hunter from the Gea Market was one of them, as were a handful of trainers she recognized, plus a few riders who were friends with Raia—they introduced themselves as Jalimo, Silar, and Algana, and this time she made a point of remembering their names. Silar rode with Algana, strapping herself into the saddle. She couldn’t ride solo anymore, due to the paralysis in her legs, which meant she couldn’t race, but nothing prevented her from wielding a weapon, a net, and her will. Together the two girls made an effective team.

  Thankfully, none of the riders and trainers she couldn’t stand volunteered. It’s possible they can’t stand me either, she thought.

  On the back of the silver jaguar, she issued orders. “You”—she pointed to the hunter, who called himself Lormat (and his sword Ebzer)—“track any kehoks outside the city. We’ll start north and work our way around. You and you”—she pointed to two trainers, an older woman named Yelna and a younger man named Jacrin—“be bait. After Lormat finds the kehoks, you draw them closer to me. I’ll hold them while Silar nets them. Got it?”