The pressure was enormous, but she would not break.
Behind her, the kehoks pawed the floor. She felt them strain at the weakened chains, inches from freeing themselves. Not yet, she ordered them. And they waited.
She felt as if she were expanding, her skin stretching, her blood pulsing through a thousand veins, her heartbeat magnified—she was them, and they were her. She breathed with them. Every kehok in the stable, hundreds of them, breathing together as one, with Tamra.
“How are you doing this?” Raia whispered. Her eyes were wide.
“They are me, and I am them.” She heard her own voice, distant and hard. My rage is their rage. She felt focused in a way that exceeded anything she’d ever felt before. Crystallized. In this moment, with Shalla at stake, with every fear and every failure culminating inside her, her will smothered theirs. As she finished with the final stall, she pivoted and marched straight toward the stable door. “Get on your lion. Rescue Prince Dar. And most important, keep yourself alive.”
Raia scurried to the black lion and mounted. “What are you going to do?”
“We are going to destroy the high augurs,” Tamra said.
“But . . . but . . . Trainer Verlas! You can’t!”
“I can. And I will. I’m tearing it all down.”
And with that, she released the monsters.
They screamed as one, yanked their chains, and broke free. Behind her, they burst through the doors to their stalls. Tamra lifted the bar over the stable door and pushed it open. The black lion ran out first, carrying Raia. In their wake, Tamra strode out. The monsters followed her, fanning out to either side.
Outside, people were still fighting. A fire burned in the stands. Most of the tents had been torn apart, and debris littered the campsites. Several bodies lay prone, and the city guards were still trying to quell the violence.
Tamra selected a silver jaguar the size of a rhino and forced it to stop in front of her. Climbing onto his back, she ordered, “Run!”
All the hundreds of kehoks ran. She was in the front, leading the way as they thundered through the crowd that had spilled beyond the racetrack, breaking apart the riot, leaving the people stunned.
Her army poured into the city, filling the streets. Statues that had stood for hundreds of years were knocked over. Palm trees snapped and fell beneath the onslaught. The kehoks flattened everything in their path: carts, fruit stands, benches. . . . People ran screaming into buildings and alleyways. Controlled tightly by Tamra, the kehoks didn’t chase them. United, Tamra and the monsters had one goal: the temple.
As they ran through the streets, Tamra saw the augur temple perched on the hillside, a hundred times more glorious than the temple in Peron. Every dome was sheathed in gold, and every wall was made of a brilliant white marble. A blue stone path led to an arched gate that had been painted in blue and gold. It had stood for hundreds of years.
She led her monster army to the front gate and then halted.
Behind her, the kehoks screamed. She stayed on the back of the silver jaguar and let them scream. When the augurs’ guards rushed to fill the archway, Tamra silenced the kehoks. She spoke into the eerie quiet. “Evacuate the temple, and bring me my daughter and the high augurs.”
“You can’t come here with them!” one of the guards shouted.
She fixed her gaze on him. “I can, and I have. Empty the temple.”
The guard blustered. “No one dares attack the augur temple! It is the bastion of goodness and light and hope for the Becar Empire! This temple has stood for hundreds of years—”
Enough, she thought. “And it will fall today,” Tamra said.
She murmured to her army, “Chase them. Herd them. Frighten them. Force them all outside. And then pull the buildings down behind them. Destroy everything.”
Tamra released the monsters.
Raia and the black lion hid behind a pillar as Trainer Verlas faced down the temple guards. Wearing black armor with jackal-shaped helmets and carrying eight-foot spears, the guards looked terrifying. Raia had always avoided them as much as possible when she was a student. But Trainer Verlas, with her army of kehoks, regarded them as if they were unruly children.
She felt the lion’s eagerness. His muscles were quivering beneath her. Leaning forward, she stroked the smooth metal of his mane. “Wait for our moment,” she murmured.