“I don’t understand how this could have happened. He shouldn’t have died. And he shouldn’t have been reborn as . . . this. He was a good man. A great brother. All I want to do is set things right, and if you can win the races . . . It won’t fix everything. But it will help.” He was talking openly about the secret, but then he must have felt secure that they were alone in the stable.
Raia dared move a little closer, to see into the stall beside him. “What was he like?” She tried to imagine her lion as a human. She thought he’d be determined. And strong. And angry.
“He protected me,” he said simply. “The court is a piranha tank, and he let me stay out of it. Whenever people tried to draw me into their political machinations—dropping hints that they hoped I’d pass to him, feigning friendship in hopes of creating an alliance—he’d find a reason to send me elsewhere, a task that needed doing, a site that he needed me to visit. Every time he could, he made time for me. He used to love stargazing—you wouldn’t think that of an emperor, but he’d memorized all the constellations by the time he was ten, and he liked to climb up onto the dome above his bedroom and look at the stars. I never had any interest in them, but I’d climb up there with him, and he’d spend hours trying to teach me which star was which. I used to pretend I was incapable of remembering any of them, just to mess with him. Just so he’d spend more time with me, pointing out the stars. Does that sound like the kind of man who deserved to be punished like this?”
She knew from her augur lessons that the universe was never wrong. But she wasn’t going to say that to him. “We’ll win, and he’ll have a second chance. The charm will set things right.”
A thought occurred to her.
“I . . . only had a few years of augur training, so there’s probably a very good reason why this couldn’t be possible, but . . .” Raia licked her lips, unsure if she should say her thought out loud. She’d already started though, and the emperor-to-be was staring at her. “If there’s a charm that can make a kehok be reborn as a human . . . is there any chance there could also be a charm that could make a human be reborn as a kehok? I mean, a human who didn’t deserve it?”
Prince Dar stared at her. “I don’t know. I never considered . . . But it does stand to reason. Yes, I suppose it could be possible. . . .” A smile lit his face. “I think I want to kiss you.”
Startled, she took a step back.
“Oh! No, I didn’t mean . . . Don’t be alarmed. My heart belongs to another.”
Raia felt herself blush. She hadn’t really thought . . . Well, she had thought for a moment, but of course it was absurd. He was a prince, and she was only a rider.
Only a rider. The thought nearly made her smile. For the first time, she hadn’t thought of herself as a failed augur, a disappointment to her parents, or a runaway.
“I need to talk to Augur Yorbel. Yes, he’d know if that was possible.” He didn’t try to kiss her, but he did wrap her in a hug. He smelled of sandalwood and lavender. She hadn’t been hugged often and never by an emperor-to-be. It was . . . nice. Releasing her, he beamed at her, and the joy in his face was like dawn after a cold, dark night. “You’ve saved me today, and you will save my brother in the races.”
He then sprinted out of the stable.
Raia stood without moving. The hint of sandalwood and lavender still hung in the air. She breathed it in, and felt better than she had in days.
Dar climbed onto the gold dome above his bedroom—a thing he hadn’t done since Zarin had died. He remembered which tiles were loose and where to lie with the best view of Zarin’s favorite constellations: the Jackal, the Wheel, and the Lady with the Sword.
“Lady, tell me: Am I clinging to false hope?”
In the hour since he had sneaked down to the stable, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the words of the kehok rider. A charm to turn a