would prod her into the tent for a proper rest—but for right now, this was fine.
She hoped that Shalla wouldn’t mind if she greeted her later. She was grateful to her for distracting Trainer Verlas. It was nice to have a few minutes without anyone fussing over her.
We did it, she thought. She tried to muster up enough energy to feel excited, but she just wanted to collapse on her cot and sleep. They’d won race after race, and it was nearly over. Only one race left: the final championship race. The only one that mattered.
From the cage, the lion huffed.
It was an unusual enough sound that she lifted herself off the ground to peer into the cage. He was sniffing at his dinner, and she suddenly realized she hadn’t checked it first. “Wait! Don’t eat it yet,” she told him.
His head shot up.
Hauling herself up to her feet, she unlatched the cage.
“Excuse me, lady?” one of the guards they’d borrowed from the palace said. “But are you sure you should go in there while he’s eating?”
“He won’t hurt me.” She knew Trainer Verlas would scold her for even thinking that—the second a rider started to trust her racer was the second she opened herself up to disaster. It happened often enough.
But my lion isn’t like other kehoks.
“Calm,” she said to the kehok. “I have to make sure it’s safe to eat.” Ever since Lady Evara had reported an attempt to bribe her to poison their racer, Raia had been checking her lion’s food. It was easy enough to do—a drop of medicine. If the meat sizzled, it was bad. No reaction, it was fine. She usually remembered to do it before she put the dinner into the cage.
The lion growled at her.
“Back,” she told him.
He retreated one step.
“Rider Raia, I must insist.” The guard clamped his hand on her arm. “He isn’t shackled.” She had taken to leaving the lion unchained within the cage—he was secure enough within it, and his muscles needed to be able to stretch after all the racing. Plus, she hated seeing him piled underneath all the iron.
The lion growled deep in his throat.
Raia glared at the guard. He was a new one. He must have missed Trainer Verlas’s “don’t mess with my rider” lecture, which she gave to all the guards sent from the palace. “It’s all right.”
He was sweating. “You can’t risk—”
As she opened her mouth to tell him to let go of her arm, the lion launched himself against the half-open cage door. She was knocked flat on her back, and her kehok landed directly on top of the guard.
The guard screamed.
“No! Stop!” Raia shouted.
But the lion didn’t move. He stayed on top of the guard, pinning him with his massive paws. She heard a commotion around her as other guards, trainers, and riders came running. One of them struck at her lion with a spiked whip, and her kehok snapped his jaws fast and hard toward the trainer.
Raia shouted with every bit of strength she had. “Into the cage!”
Growling and resisting, the lion retreated paw by paw.
Another guard tried to strike her kehok, but Raia jumped toward the guard and knocked his club to the side. With her focus broken, the lion surged forward, knocking the same guard—the one who had grabbed Raia—back down again.
Then Trainer Verlas was there. “Back into the cage!”
Together, Trainer Verlas and Raia focused their will on the lion. He made a whimpering kind of sound, eyed the prone guard, and then walked back into the cage calmly, as if he hadn’t attacked.
Rushing forward, Raia slammed the cage door shut and latched it.
“What happened?” Trainer Verlas demanded. She glared at all the onlookers who had gathered. “Show’s over,” she barked at them. “Go back to your tents.”
They scattered like gazelle.
“I don’t know,” Raia said. “He—” She turned to point at the guard, but during all the chaos, he’d slipped away and run. She had a terrible thought. A terrible, wonderful thought.
Turning back to the cage, she unlatched it again.
“Raia, don’t!” Trainer Verlas barked.
The lion didn’t budge. Raia grabbed the bowl of meat and pulled it out of the cage. Trainer Verlas shut the door and locked it.
Hands shaking, Raia pulled the vial with the poison-testing powder out of her tunic pocket. She sprinkled it on the meat. It sizzled the instant it touched.
Both Raia and Trainer Verlas stared in horror.
He knew! The lion had known—not only had he avoided the poisoned meat, but he’d targeted the one