he would have to die. But after that, he wouldn’t be a monster anymore. He’d have a chance to start over, and his death and rebirth would save his brother.
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered.
She knew they’d take him to the temple and perform the ritual at sundown. She wished she’d asked if she could go with him. He’d be alone, and frightened.
For the first time, she wondered if winning was what she’d wanted after all. They’re going to kill him, she realized, in order to free him. And she wouldn’t be able to help or comfort him or even be nearby. She wouldn’t be allowed in the inner sanctum of the temple.
Maybe we should have run.
She told herself to stop thinking like this. It was just a selfish fear, because she’d miss him and miss racing the sands with him. “Go to them,” she told the lion. “They’ll set you free.”
Stepping back, she let him walk forward toward the dais.
A high augur, a woman who had been standing near Augur Yorbel, stepped forward. Seeing her, the lion halted. Raia saw his gaze fix on each of the high augurs. His growl intensified.
Raia had a sudden terrible thought. What if it wasn’t death he feared? What if it was them?
As a kehok, he’d never seen the high augurs before. He shouldn’t have recognized them as anything but strangers. He should have no reason to feel threatened by them, but he was acting as if they were a source of danger.
The soldiers tried to prod the lion forward as the high augurs formed a line, blocking the lion’s view of Dar. As soon as Dar disappeared behind them, the lion reacted.
He charged toward the high augurs.
The soldiers reacted, seizing his chains.
Raia cried, “No! Stop! They’re not your enemies!”
As the lion was subdued by the will of the nearby trainers and the strength of the guards, he continued to thrash and try to bite, and Raia thought, What if they are?
She looked at the high augurs.
Impossible.
The high augurs were the most pure beings in Becar. They guarded and guided the souls of everyone. Except not all augurs are kind, a little part of her whispered. She knew how much Trainer Verlas feared they’d take Shalla from her. Granted, that was entirely different—the augurs at Shalla’s temple believed they were doing the right thing for Shalla and for Becar.
But was it all that different? Because her parents believed they were doing the right thing too.
It was a horrible thing to think, that the augurs could have played a role in Zarin becoming a kehok.
But she trusted her lion, and he feared them as if he remembered them. She watched him whimper as one of the high augurs approached him. Giving a command, the high augur gestured at a cage. The guards and race officials hauled the kehok into it. A red velvet cloth was tossed over it, and the final thing Raia saw was her lion’s sad, beautiful, frightened eyes.
She heard a voice inside her head—a voice she’d heard only once before. His voice.
Pain, his voice said. Death.
And then: They killed me.
He was afraid because he remembered them. He remembered his death!
“Wait!” She pushed through the crowd and ran to the cage.
Behind her, Trainer Verlas called, “Raia, what are you doing?”
“Let me in the cage. I need to fix his chains,” she lied to the nearest guards. “He’s shackled wrong—he’ll break free if I don’t fix it.”
Believing her, they opened the cage. She threw herself inside. Hands shaking and heart pounding, she unlatched his shackles and loosened his chains. He lunged out past her.
Trainer Verlas rushed to block him. “Stop!” She was flanked by other trainers and riders, all of them bearing down with their will on the lion.
He halted as if he’d been frozen.
Raia ran to his side. “Please! I have to save him.”
“We’re trying to save him!” Trainer Verlas said. More calmly, she said, “This is what has to happen. You have to let the high augurs take him. They’ll use the victory charm, and then he’ll be saved.”
“They won’t!” Raia knew she was crying—she felt the tears on her cheeks, tasted them on her lips. “Please, Trainer Verlas—if you won’t trust him, then trust me!”
On the dais, she saw Prince Dar stride toward her, flanked by his imperial guards. In his robes, with a circlet of gold on his head, he was nothing like the boy who had wept for his brother. He was as radiant as a legend. “Rider Raia,