“I thought you might want me to say no. Because of the high augurs.”
Mama hugged her again. “I only want you to be happy. And you . . . should have something in your life that’s separate from me. Because I have a lot to atone for.”
“You saved me,” Shalla said firmly. “And Emperor Dar. And everyone in the entire empire.” And then, to be honest, she added, “Except for the ones who died.”
Mama gave a tight laugh, and Shalla thought maybe she shouldn’t have said the “except for the ones who died” part. “You’re right. But, Shalla, I want you to know that if you still want to be an augur, you can be. I promise I’m not mad at you.”
Shalla felt the bit of nervousness that had been inside her belly unknot. She smiled, and they sat together quietly for a while. Then Shalla thought of something else she’d been wanting to say. “You shouldn’t be mad at Augur Yorbel either.”
Her mother stiffened. “I’m not. He’s dead.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t still be mad.”
Mama laughed again, a little freer, though Shalla didn’t think what she’d said was funny. “My wise little star. I think I believe he was a good man. He wanted to make the right choices. . . . Sometimes I even think he might have meant for me to do what I did.”
Shalla studied her mother for a minute. “You have to forgive yourself too.”
Mama’s laughter faded, and she looked out across the desert again. “Perhaps I do.”
Tamra caught the silver jaguar first.
He was lurking on the outskirts of the Heart of Becar. She’d taken to living at the now-deserted stables out at the racetrack, even though Emperor Dar had offered her and Shalla a place in the palace. Shalla swore she didn’t mind, and Tamra felt more at home there.
During the day, while Shalla was at the temporary temple for her augur training, Tamra felt like she was paying penance by cleaning the massive kehok stables by herself, fixing the broken doors, and strengthening the chains and shackles. All the temporary tents from the campsite were gone, but the permanent structures that remained were massive and in need of work, after the damage they’d sustained in the riots. She refused every worker that Emperor Dar sent, and she was blessedly alone when she heard the growl outside the door.
She crept out, still holding the wrench she’d been using, and saw the silver jaguar pawing through the wreckage of the campsite. “Come,” Tamra ordered.
The jaguar froze, and then he trotted toward her, as if that had been his plan all along. She stared into his golden eyes and knew this monster wasn’t like the black lion—he hadn’t been a pure soul tricked and trapped in a fate he didn’t deserve. This soul deserved his fate. And maybe I deserve him, she thought.
She contemplated him for a moment. He shuddered, and his silver scales rustled as the shudder traveled down his back. “We ride,” she decided.
He knelt at her command, and she climbed onto his back.
“Let’s find the others,” she said, then made it an order: “Find the other kehoks.”
They ran across the former campsite and past the racetrack. That afternoon, they found three. She corralled them with the force of her will back to the stable and locked each of them in stalls.
There were hundreds still out there, roving the desert, hunting people who couldn’t protect themselves, destroying fields and houses and anything they could find.
But I can bring them back.
She started shortly after dawn the next morning, after Shalla was escorted, by palace guards, to her lessons. Taking the silver jaguar as her mount, Tamra rode out into the desert and returned by nighttime with another five kehoks.
She felt happier than she had since the coronation. She hummed to herself as she latched the locks on the stable doors. I have a purpose. There’s good I can do.
Every day, she hunted kehoks, sometimes returning with several, sometimes returning with none. It occurred to her that she’d be more effective if she wasn’t working alone. Plus she’d be able to stay out longer, if she had someone in the stable taking care of feeding and watering the kehoks she’d already caught.
When Raia came to visit for dinner with Tamra and Shalla, Tamra told them what she’d been doing. Shalla clapped in approval, and Raia said, “I’ll go with you.”