Race the Sands

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “Strangely, I think it went better.”

  Raia smiled.

  “And I meant what I said,” Tamra told her. “You can be my second daughter, if you wish, as soon as we can arrange it.” Before anything else, though, she had to explain to Shalla why she had to leave again for even longer.

  Tamra hurried across the sands as the mourning bells began to ring.

  In response to Augur Yorbel’s summons, the carriers had arrived quickly, and she’d left after they’d wrapped the body in linens. Escorted by bells, they would carry Celin to the Silent Cliffs, where his body would be stacked with others within the dark and lifeless caves. Under the blessing of the stars, his name would be carved on the stone entrance to the caves, and the official mourners would sing the rites to guide his spirit to its new vessel. Probably to his new life as a river snail, she thought. Or a leech. Or perhaps, somewhere out in the desert, a brand-new kehok had popped into existence, fully grown and hungry to kill.

  She knew she should be thinking kinder thoughts, for the sake of her own soul, but screw that. He’d frightened Raia in life and turned their lives upside down in death. She wasn’t inclined to think charitably about him.

  Maybe he’ll be a slug, the kind that’s caught on a rock in the heat of the day, then withers and is reborn as a trout. That was a pleasant thing to imagine as she hurried toward the temple.

  She buried those thoughts deep as she approached the temple. Giving her name to the guard at the visitor’s entrance, she asked to speak with Augur Clari. She hoped it wasn’t too late for visitors to be admitted and was relieved when she was led to the augur’s office.

  Inside, Tamra dropped a bag of gold pieces, a portion of her winnings from betting on Raia’s race, on Augur Clari’s desk. “Tuition.”

  Augur Clari glanced up. “I am surprised. But you could have left your payment with the bursar. Instead you asked to see me in person? There’s more you wish to say?”

  “I . . . I need to go to the Heart of Becar for the rest of the race season.”

  The augur’s lips pinched together, and Tamra couldn’t tell if she was pleased or annoyed. She felt as if she were being judged and was failing.

  “You know Shalla cannot accompany you,” Augur Clari said.

  “I know.” The law was clear. Shalla’s training could not be interrupted. “Will you . . . Can you . . .” The words burned in Tamra’s throat as she tried to speak.

  “She always has a home here, I’ve told you that,” Augur Clari said in a kind voice. “And if you do not return, she will continue to be cared for.”

  Tamra reeled back as if she’d been slapped. “I will return!”

  Augur Clari smiled soothingly. “Of course you will.”

  Tamra squeezed her hands into fists, digging her nails into the flesh of her palms, as she willed herself to control her emotions. “With your permission, I’d like to take Shalla home tonight, so I can explain.”

  Standing, Augur Clari swept to the doorway, her robes brushing against the stone floor. “Have the student Shalla prepare herself,” she told the temple guard. “Her mother is here to take her home for the night.” The guard disappeared down the hall, and Augur Clari turned back to Tamra with her hands clasped in front of her. “I know you think ill of us, but we truly want only what is best for your daughter. I hope someday you understand that. We are not your enemy. The sooner you understand that, the more peace your soul will feel.”

  Tamra bit back her usual response: What’s best for her is to be with someone who loves her. But how could she say that when she was leaving? By the time she got back, Shalla could have grown another quarter inch, learned countless more things, had a thousand more thoughts and moments that Tamra wouldn’t share. . . . Instead, she bottled that all up as she thanked Augur Clari, then returned to wait outside, back by the gate, for Shalla to appear.

  Only a few minutes later, Tamra saw her walking sedately at first and then breaking into a huge grin when she saw her mother. She practically flew out of the gate and into Tamra’s arms. “Did Raia win?”

  Of course that was her first question. She couldn’t have known everything that had happened after the race. “Third. But it was enough to pay for tuition. All is well.”

  “Knew she’d be fast!” Shalla crowed. Looping her arm through Tamra’s, she half walked, half skipped away from the temple. Tamra let herself be tugged along through the lantern-lit streets. “Is she at our house?”

  “She’ll be there by the time we are. She had some things to finish up first. Shalla, my sweet star . . .” She couldn’t find the words to tell her, not just yet. Instead, she let Shalla chatter about her day and all her lessons while they walked home. They paused at a bakery just about to close, and Tamra bought a bag of sweets, which Shalla guessed were to celebrate the race. “Have one.”

  “Now?” Shalla said. “Before bed?”

  “Okay, fine, have two.”

  Shalla laughed but didn’t argue, popping one of the sugary sweets into her mouth.

  As they drew closer to their house, Tamra knew she was running out of time. She’d planned to tell Shalla at the start of the walk, so she’d have time to react before seeing anyone else. She also wasn’t convinced that she’d stay unemotional, and she didn’t want Raia to see that and blame herself for this mess. “Shalla . . .”

  “Can you just tell me whatever awful thing you have to tell me?” Shalla asked. “You’ve been acting melodramatically tortured the entire way home.”

  Tamra smiled in spite of herself. “I’m that obvious?”

  “Really obvious. Did someone”—she lowered her voice—“die?”

  “Yes, but we didn’t like him so it’s okay.”

  “Mama! That’s terrible!” She tucked the sweet into her cheek, making it bulge. “You know that’s not a nice thing to say, and Augur Clari says—”

  “I need to leave,” Tamra blurted out. “For the racing season. You’ll need to stay at the temple while I’m gone. But I promise at the end of the season, I’ll be back, and everything will be better.”

  Shalla tried not to cry—Tamra could see her trying so hard—but in the end, she sobbed against Tamra’s shoulder, just outside their front door, while Raia watched through the window.

  The next morning, Raia did her best to avoid cartwheeling with joy on the road to the training grounds. She knew how hard it had been for Trainer Verlas to say goodbye to her daughter, but Raia felt stuffed full with hope and light and also Shalla’s ludicrously sugary jam.

  Her mood crashed, though, as soon as she saw her parents at the dock. Several travel cases were stacked next to them. Clearly, they intended to join them on the trip to the Heart of Becar. Slowing, she felt as if her brain were stuttering to a halt.

  Seeing them, Trainer Verlas ordered Raia, “Get the kehok ready.”

  Grateful to her trainer for understanding she didn’t want to talk to her parents, or frankly ever see them again, Raia hurried to the stable, hoping they hadn’t seen her. Inside, she skirted the stained floor—the worst of the blood had been scrubbed away by the carriers, but nothing could erase the deepened shade of gray stone around where Celin had fallen.

  As she opened the stall door, she heard a sound behind her and tensed.

  “Hey,” Jalimo said.

  She breathed out. It was just Algana, Jalimo, and Silar entering the stable, not her parents. “Hi. You, um . . .” Raia didn’t know how to ask if they knew what had happened, but from the way they were staring at the stain, she didn’t have to.

  “Is that where . . .” Algana trailed off.

  “Yes,” Raia answered.

  “He was your fiancé?” Silar asked.

  “My parents wanted him to be.” Raia thought of the night she’d climbed out her window to escape how badly they wanted him to be. So convinced they knew what was best for her, they hadn’t been willing to listen to what she wanted. “He walked into the kehok’s stall, and . . . It all happened so fast.”

  “
Are you traumatized forever?” Algana asked. “Is that why you’re leaving?” Jalimo elbowed her. “What? It’s a legitimate question. Okay, maybe I could have phrased it more sensitively. I’m working on that.”

  “I’m not . . . I mean, I am, but . . .” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say and what she wasn’t.

  But she was spared from coming up with an answer by Silar, who yanked her close and enveloped her in a hug. To Raia’s surprise, the other two crowded around, wrapping their arms around her too, sandwiching her between them.

  She hadn’t realized they were on hugging terms, but . . . this was nice. “Um, thanks?”

  Releasing her, Silar said, “Listen, if you want to talk . . .”

  “Thanks, but I just want to forget it ever happened.”

  “You know, we’re here for you, even if we’ll technically be a lot of miles away and you don’t actually know us all that well when you think about it,” Algana said.

  Silar rolled her eyes. “What she’s trying to say is: Riders have to stick together.”

  “Except on the track,” Jalimo amended. “Then I’m just trying to win.”

  Algana and Silar laughed, and Raia tentatively joined in. One of the kehoks screamed, hating the sound of their laughter.

  Raia’s laugh died as she looked again at the faded bloodstain on the stable floor.

  “Want us to help you with your kehok?” Jalimo offered. He unhooked a barbed stick from his belt.

  But Raia stopped him with a shake of her head. That wasn’t the way Trainer Verlas liked her to handle her kehok, though she wasn’t sure how to say that without insulting Jalimo and his trainer.

  “You know, it’s okay to let down your guard sometimes and trust that people just want to help,” he said.

  Not today, it isn’t. Until she was safely on that ferry without her parents . . .

  She had a sudden, wonderful idea. “Actually, there is something you could help me with. Could you . . . talk to my parents?”

  “What? I don’t do parents,” Jalimo said, backing away as if she’d suggested he cuddle a kehok. “I mean, I’m not good with them. They hate me.”

  Silar nodded. “That’s true.”

  “It doesn’t actually matter what you say to them. I just need them distracted for long enough that we can leave without them.” Raia was sure that Trainer Verlas wouldn’t let them on the ferry, but she couldn’t risk the chance of Augur Yorbel overruling her. It would be better if they simply missed the departure.

  Jalimo brightened. “Ah! That I can do! How about we tell them there’s an emergency and they’re needed immediately on the other side of the sands? What kind of emergency would distract them?” He rubbed his hands together as if gleefully imagining the possibilities.

  “And not alarm anyone else,” Silar added. “An emergency is a terrible idea. How about we offer a free tour of the training track?”

  “Or we ask for their help in finding a bag of lost gold,” Jalimo said.

  Algana rolled her eyes at him. “They aren’t four-year-olds who want a treasure hunt.”

  He ignored her. “We say it was winnings from the last race, belonging to some rich guy, and there’s a reward for whoever finds it. It’s plausible!”

  Raia grinned. “Anything. So long as they miss my departure.” She felt like hugging all of them again. Somehow, miraculously, she’d made friends here, even though it hadn’t been long. She wished briefly that she were staying, that she could have spent more time with them. She wished she could put into words how grateful she was for their helping her now.

  “We’ve got this,” Jalimo told her.

  “Safe journeys,” Silar said. “May you travel with the ease of a heron.”

  “And we’ll see you soon!” Algana said. “After the qualifiers are over. Maybe we’ll all race together in the Heart of Becar.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Raia said, and meant it.

  Jalimo tugged Silar and Algana out of the stable, and they chattered to one another, elaborating on his lie, expanding it, making it more plausible. . . .

  As their voices faded, Raia turned back to the kehok. He hadn’t made a noise or a move since she’d opened the stall door.

  “Ready?” she asked him, almost back to the way she’d felt when she’d woken up this morning, as if the sun had risen just to greet her.

  He retreated, pressing against the wall.

  Raia realized no one had come and explained to him what had happened. She moved closer in slow, unthreatening steps. “You aren’t being punished. We’re going on a boat to the Heart of Becar, to race for the emperor-to-be.”

  Behind her, she heard someone enter the stable, but this time her attention was focused on the kehok—she was too close to him to risk losing focus, no matter who had come in.

  A soft, sad voice said, “He won’t understand you. He’s a kehok.” It was Augur Yorbel. “Alone for so long . . . without reminders of his past life . . . he cannot be anything but a kehok.”

  She wished she could have a moment, just her and the kehok, to do what Trainer Verlas had asked her to do, but she couldn’t ask an augur to leave. She kept her concentration on the kehok. “Come on. We’re going to the boat. You and me. I’ll be with you.”

  “He’s never been to the capital, and he can’t know what an emperor is. All memory is lost when one is reborn. Even if he once knew . . . To him, he’s only existed for a few months.”

  She couldn’t tell Augur Yorbel to leave, but she could ignore him. Raia stared into the liquid-gold eyes of her kehok and kept talking to him. “The emperor-to-be wants us to race for him, in the Heart of Becar. We’re going to run more races, and we’re going to win. But you need to come with me, if we’re ever going to meet the emperor.” She didn’t expect him to understand every word, but she thought he would grasp the need of it. “Come with me.”

  The black lion stepped forward.

  Raia slid a chain over his face, muzzling him, and then moved to unlock the shackles from the wall. At some point, chains had been tightened around him, constricting his legs. If she could keep him calm, this wouldn’t be any different than taking him to the starting gates of the racetrack.

  He walked beside her out of the stall. Seeing Augur Yorbel in the stable doorway, he stopped and made a noise that was halfway between a growl and a whimper. Raia hadn’t heard him make that noise before. She didn’t know what it meant. “You might want to keep your distance,” she advised the augur.

  Augur Yorbel backed away, out of the stable and then out of sight beyond the door. She guided the kehok out and down toward the dock. The kehok came with her easily, as if he were a tame dog, and she wondered if he was beginning to trust her. She didn’t think her focus had improved so much, especially as frayed as it was right now. But he gave her zero trouble as he walked toward the cage on the dock and then inside it without any resistance. He wants to come, she thought. Maybe he does understand?

  “Nicely done,” Trainer Verlas said.

  Raia wanted to say it wasn’t her doing, but the trainer had moved on to preparing the cage to be loaded onto the ferry. Raia glanced around and saw her parents’ travel cases, but her parents were nowhere in sight. “Were Algana, Jalimo, and Silar here?”

  “Yes. You may not be surprised to hear it, but they just went off with your parents.” Trainer Verlas sounded amused. “I’ve let the ferryman know there’s no need to wait.”

  Raia grinned. It’s nice to have friends.

  When the ferry arrived, they loaded the crate, and Raia, Tamra, and Augur Yorbel boarded. Lady Evara was already on board, along with three of her servants—they must have boarded at any earlier stop.

  As they prepared to set sail, Raia noticed the kehok staring unblinkingly at the augur. Maybe because he’s new? she thought. But the kehok showed no interest in the ferryman, who was scurrying all around preparing the boat. She was unable to consider it further, though, because it was time to leave.

  The ferryman and his helper
s pushed off from the dock.

  In the distance, across the sands, Raia saw multiple figures: her parents and her friends. Her three friends were waving enthusiastically, while her parents jogged toward the ferry—too far away to reach them.

  Smiling, Raia waved back as the sails filled with wind.

  If her parents shouted for them to stop, she didn’t hear.

  Standing between her trainer and the black lion, Raia turned her back on the training grounds, on her friends and her parents, and faced her future.

  Part Two

  The Heart of Becar

  Chapter 16

  The High Council of Augurs filed into a black-walled room. Each one of the eight men and women paused at the threshold until the others who had already entered said in unison, “You are known to us.” It was an ancient ritual, performed at every council meeting for the past five hundred years.

  Before reaching the windowless room, each high augur first had to walk in darkness through a labyrinth of stone walls at the heart of the temple. Legend said that those walls were coated in a poison so ancient that both its ingredients and its antidote had been lost to history. Legend also said that five hundred years ago, the makers of the labyrinth had been murdered to keep its secrets and reborn as jackals whose descendants guarded the entrance to the labyrinth to this day.

  Regardless of the legend, it was fact that the multiple layers of stone walls between the room and the world made it impossible for spies to hear what was discussed. And it was fact that all the high augurs avoided the guard dogs at the entrance, and none of them touched the labyrinth walls, out of a healthy mix of respect for tradition as well as paranoia.

  Inside the room, each of the eight high augurs claimed their seat, stone thrones carved with the images of the birds, animals, and people their predecessors had become in their next lives.

  The eldest and the head of the council, High Augur Etar, sat in a throne carved with the images of men and women.