her different answers. “It says we need to come by sundown. Maybe . . . Maybe they’ll make the trade. Me and the lion for Shalla. Maybe we should make that trade. I . . . had my freedom. I raced, and I had everything I ever wanted. Shalla . . . she should have a chance to live. If this is the only choice . . . Trainer Verlas, is this the only choice?”
Tamra sank onto the floor of the stable, her back to the stable wall. The three loose kehoks were staring at her, their golden eyes unreadable. She breathed. That was what she did. She drank in the moment. And the moment was this:
The high augurs had souls worse than kehoks.
The high augurs were the monsters.
“I don’t believe they’ll honor the trade.” Tamra felt the truth of it as she said it. “I think they’ll kill us all. Shalla included.” It’s what a monster would do. It was the practical solution. If they wanted to hide their sins, the logical choice was to destroy every bit of evidence. “They’ll say we died in the riots. Or at the claws of the kehok.”
“You think it’s a trap.” Raia’s voice shook but didn’t break. And she wasn’t asking.
The augurs never failed to act “for the good of Becar.” It was their excuse for choosing Shalla’s future for her. It was their excuse for continually pushing to take Shalla from Tamra. It had been their excuse for how they’d treated Raia, first taking her from her family then tossing her back like unwanted garbage. “I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself,” Tamra said.
“But your daughter . . .”
“We set her free.”
Tamra stared into the golden eyes of the kehoks. Brave words, but how could she free Shalla? And Prince Dar? And keep the lion and Raia safe? How could she fight people who were monsters inside . . . ?
“How?” Raia asked. “They’re the high augurs!”
Her back twinging, Tamra pushed herself to standing again. An idea was forming in her mind. A terrible idea. “We fight monsters with monsters.” Her hands were curled into fists.
So the high augurs wanted her to bring a kehok. Oh, she’d do that. And so much more. Tamra turned to face Raia. “You can stay here, if you want. Stay safe.”
Raia shook her head. “You can’t attack the temple alone.”
Tamra smiled, stretching her scar. “Oh, I won’t be alone.”
Kneeling, Raia whispered to the black lion. She tilted her head as if listening to the lion reply, which Tamra would have thought was impossible, except she would have also thought it was impossible for the high augurs to be this corrupt.
She wondered what other atrocities the high augurs had committed over the years. There’s rot in the heart of the empire. It must be rooted out.
“He wants to save his brother,” Raia said. “He . . . told me.”
Tamra didn’t question it. There would be time to wonder at the miracle of that later. And she had no interest in wasting time arguing—Raia was old enough to make her own decisions. Besides, Raia could help. I can’t do this alone. “I will go for Shalla. You and the lion free Prince Dar. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Raia said.
“Help me unlock the stalls.”
Raia came out of the kehok’s stall, with the lion close behind her. “How many?”
Tamra felt her anger and fear rolling inside her. It was a power unlike anything she’d ever felt before. All the sorrows and humiliations and struggles of the past were colliding inside her with all her fears and dreams for the future—she felt the moment, even more intensely than she used to on the racetrack. Her will stretched through the stable, unstoppable.
“All of them.”
Chapter 32
Ambassador Usan needed to delay the coronation, or everything would be ruined. His king’s army wasn’t close enough yet! Just a few more hours, and they’d be in position. If Prince Dar were executed and Lady Nori crowned before they arrived . . . the Becaran military could be redeployed to defend the capital city, and the invasion could fail. He’d never imagined the Becarans would act so quickly.
My timing should have been perfect!
He’d been right about the riots. They’d begun as soon as the races ended, and the spectators he’d paid to escalate any conflict had done their job admirably. It had blossomed into full-fledged chaos, with violence spilling out into the streets and across the city, as perfectly as if he’d orchestrated it all. Which he’d