When all eight high augurs lay dead, Tamra sent the kehoks to join the others, rounding them up as if they were within a corral, circling the other augurs. Stay, she told them.
They stayed.
Still with her hands shielding her face, Shalla was sobbing.
Tamra slid off the back of the silver jaguar. She walked forward, trying to feel nothing but feeling everything. She smelled the bitter tang of blood in the air and walked into the chamber. Between Tamra and Shalla were the bodies of the high augurs. Or what remained of them.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Tamra told Shalla.
Crossing to her, Tamra wrapped her arm around her. She led her out of the chamber, and Tamra instructed a few kehoks to collapse its walls. While Shalla clung to her, Tamra picked her way across the rubble of the temple, back to where her army of kehoks surrounded the augurs.
All several hundred kehoks turned to look at her with their beautiful golden eyes, awaiting her next command. And she didn’t know who was the monster anymore—them or her.
Chapter 34
Raia, with Dar, rode on the black lion across the sands. It was nearing sunset on what felt like the longest day of her life. The whole desert glowed amber, and the wind tasted sun-warmed. She knew they couldn’t run forever, but for now, it felt right.
“What’s that?” Dar called in her ear.
“Where?”
“On the horizon!” He pointed past her toward a darkened cloud.
“Desert wraiths?” she guessed. She’d never seen any up close but they were known for lurking around the edges of sandstorms. Wisps of souls, like the messenger wights, who never found their way to their new vessel. Parents used to scare their kids by saying if they didn’t stick close to home, they’d be lost and become a desert wraith. My mother once said she hoped I’d become a wraith, Raia thought.
But that time was long behind her. She’d rescued a prince, who was a kind man who missed his brother. She’d never imagined doing anything like this.
“I don’t think it’s wraiths,” Dar said in her ear.
“Sandstorm?” It didn’t look like a sandstorm, at least not exactly. A gray billowing cloud of sand, it seemed to have shapes inside.
They ran toward it, the black lion carrying them without any instruction from her, as if it were something he wanted to see as well. She wasn’t certain this was wise. Shouldn’t they run away from a sandstorm, not toward it?
The shadows within the cloud of sand began to take shape: figures. People. Soldiers, she thought. Rows and rows of soldiers. The lion slowed. “It’s an army,” Dar said. “From Ranir. And no emperor sits on the Becaran throne.”
“I saw Becaran soldiers in the city, subduing the riots,” Raia said.
He nodded grimly. “One battalion, scattered and distracted. No one is guarding the city borders while the center is imploding.”
Everything we’ve done, and we could still lose it all, Raia thought. Staring at the coming army, she felt as if she’d merely delayed her fate. Maybe I was always destined to fail. Maybe my parents were right . . .
“Without an army at the ready, the Heart of Becar will fall,” Dar said flatly.
He had to be seeing his dreams dissolve in front of them too. And they were so close to having everything! Raia ached for him, as well as herself.
The lion made a huffing noise and pawed the ground.
Dar let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Zarin, I know you have teeth and claws now, but you can’t take on an army by yourself. You’re only one.”
Raia had an idea. Another terrible, wonderful idea. She didn’t know if it would work. She didn’t know what was happening back at the temple—the guards could have rallied to fight the kehoks, the high augurs could have captured Trainer Verlas, and she could have been outmaneuvered. It was also possible that Trainer Verlas had already lost control of the kehoks. But Raia didn’t believe any of that was true. “I know where there is an army.”
Dar went still, and she knew he’d guessed what she meant. “No. That’s impossible. Kehoks are never used for war. They’re too unpredictable. Too hard to control for an extended amount of time.”
“We don’t need them for an extended time,” Raia pointed out. “Only long enough to convince the Ranirans to turn around.”
Dar was silent for a long moment. “I think I love you.”
Raia smiled, and they turned and ran back toward the temple. Behind them, the enemy army advanced on the