shortsighted selfishness that warped their view of reality.
“Mine died a long time ago,” Prince Dar said. “It was just Zarin and me. And an entire empire’s worth of people, I suppose, but it felt like just Zarin and me.”
“Your Excellence . . .”
“Dar.”
She hesitated.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “You’ve seen me bare my heart. I think that puts us on a first-name basis. You call me Dar, and I’ll call you Raia, if that’s all right with you.”
“Dar,” she repeated.
“You may be the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
She felt herself blush. “Trainer Verlas has been teaching me. . . .”
“Not only on the racetrack. Here. Every day. You could have run, after the attack this afternoon. I’m told you escaped into the desert, but then you came back. Why did you come back?”
“Because . . .” There were at least a half-dozen reasons. Because of her future. Because of the lion. Because of Trainer Verlas and her daughter, Shalla. Because she didn’t want to run away anymore. Because if she stayed, if she raced, if she won, then she was doing something extraordinary with her life, saving a dead emperor and helping crown a living one. “I wanted to.”
He smiled. “That’s a good enough reason.” Stepping toward her, he took her hand and raised it to his heart. He held it there for a moment. “Thank you, brave Raia.” Then the emperor-to-be of the great Becaran Empire bowed to her.
Chapter 27
Shortly before dawn on the day of the championship race, Ambassador Usan prepared a messenger wight. He’d been sending dozens of them over the past week, all with innocuous complaints about the sand or the food or the heat or the atrocious manners of the Becarans. All true, he thought. But all of them were designed to conceal the important updates. Namely, that Becar was on the brink.
He was confident that there would be riots after the final race, when people went to collect their winnings. Emotions were running high, and it would take only the slightest spark to ignite the fire. He’d bribed enough people to start that spark one way or another, and he’d bribed others to spread it once it started. There were always those who wanted to take advantage of chaos, even in a country as uptight as Becar.
Everything is in place, he thought.
Years of planning. Months of careful maneuvering, judicious bribes, and outright lawbreaking—and soon it would all pay off.
Carefully, he spoke the name of the recipient: his lover, Captain Sarna of the Third Battalion. She would see his message was relayed to the appropriate people, in particular the general himself. While the kehoks raced and the Becarans cheered, the Raniran army would be on the move. They’d cross the desert while the riots raged, and they’d surround the capital, a noose around the Heart of Becar. Meanwhile, the Becarans would be so involved in their own race-and-riot combo, they wouldn’t even be aware—and those who were aware would be unable to act without an emperor to issue the proper orders. By dawn, while the Becarans stood in the wreckage of a nightlong riot, the Ranirans would be ready.
He released the messenger wight from the window and watched it soar smoothly over the Aur River, buoyed by the ever-present wind. It receded to a dot of white on the horizon. In it, he’d mentioned the exact time of the final race, all the while complaining about the barbarism of the vicious event.
What kind of people harnessed monsters for gambling?
In Ranir, you killed kehoks. You rounded them up and slaughtered them, for the safety of all. Certainly you didn’t bring them in close proximity to your capital city and surround them with your wives, husbands, children, and elders. You didn’t gather them in a single location within a few mere miles of your palace and temples. Idiocy, he thought. Any sensible Raniran knew that you kept kehoks away from your cities. You built towering walls and fortresses. You watched your borders. You didn’t play with them, any more than you’d play with fire, and you certainly didn’t bring hundreds of them together for sport; you hunted them down and destroyed them.
Fools, he thought.
But he had no choice but to attend. It was important that he be visible and therefore above reproach. He allowed his servants to dress him, and then he, with an escort, joined the thousands of spectators flowing toward the racetrack in the predawn light.