be found easily as a newborn human baby, then, and all riots and chaos would be averted.
Lady Evara’s eyes widened. “It’s an incredible risk. He could lose. Or the secret could come out before the final race. My plan is far more practical.”
Tamra touched her tattoo. It would solve . . . well, everything. If the kehok were reborn as a human and then found, Prince Dar could be crowned. The augurs would be blameless. Shalla would be safe.
Everyone would have everything they wanted.
“You know, when I said I wanted a grand champion, that was to motivate you!” Lady Evara said. “Before this news, if you’d failed, it would merely impact my treasury. But the situation has changed. The risk is too great. Win with a first-time racer and rider?”
Crossing to stand beside Raia, Tamra looked at the black lion. He snarled, biting at the shackles that bound him. He was every bit as strong as she’d thought when she first purchased him, and Raia had proved she had the determination, if she could harness it for the races. The first qualifier had shown there was definitely the potential. . . .
“Can you convince the emperor-to-be to keep this secret until the end of the races?”
“I believe I can,” Augur Yorbel said. “Can you truly win?”
Tamra looked at Raia. All would depend on her. That was a heavy weight to put on her shoulders. But she won’t be carrying it alone. “Yes. We can.”
Chapter 20
It was late when Yorbel at last reached the sanctuary of his room in the augur temple. He shed his outer robe, hung his pendant on a hook, and then flopped onto his cot.
“Ow.”
The cot was too stiff to fall onto like that. But he kept lying there anyway, because he never wanted to move again. He felt like a rug that had been washed and beaten, yet was still very, very dirty.
It was not that the day had been physically exhausting—I’d rather have scaled a mountain or crossed the desert, he thought, if I didn’t think either would kill me—but it had been draining in every other way possible. Mentally, emotionally, and—most important—spiritually.
After the kehok’s rider had learned the truth and they’d all agreed to withhold it, Yorbel had spent a full hour being coached by Lady Evara, a morally questionable socialite, on how to be morally questionable. She’d grilled him not only on what he’d say if anyone asked him about the kehok, but also how he’d say it. Apparently the “how” was as important as the “what” when one lied, and he had to pay special attention to eliminating any twitch that would betray his guilt.
It had been an unsettling hour, to say the least.
Afterward, he felt as if his insides were coated in filth that he didn’t think would ever clean off. Plus, he and his clothes smelled faintly of kehok and stable.
As soon as he had enough energy, he was going to drag himself to the baths and soak in water that smelled like nothing but sandalwood and lavender, and then he was going to sleep uninterrupted until the dawn bell and not venture outside the temple for days. He just wanted—
A knock sounded on his door.
“By the River,” he muttered.
Peeling himself up off the cot, he lurched over to the door and opened it. He intended to tell whoever it was that he was indisposed, and unless the temple was burning down around his ears—
It was Gissa.
She was holding a plant and smiling at him. “I heard you were home.”
“Gissa!” He’d thought there was no one he wanted to see. I was wrong. Seeing her was better than a soak in sandalwood-scented water. Looking at her, knowing that if everything went as planned, he was going to spare her from her terrible task, helped more than he would have thought possible.
“May I come in?”
“Of course!” He backed away from the door so she could enter. She set the plant on his table and checked the leaves. “You fixed it.”
“Water it once a week. Just once a week.” She sat on the edge of his cot and then wrinkled her nose. “You may want to consider watering yourself more often.”
“I’ve been traveling.”
“With at least one fragrant companion, or so I’ve heard.”
He sank down onto the cot next to her. He wanted so badly to tell her what he’d found—she should know that she would not have to kill Dar and sully her soul. She could remain pure and still serve the