for the worst of souls. The bulk of augur training focused on ordinary souls. Kehoks were a cautionary tale. “I think if my ‘fiancé’ were to be reborn as a kehok, he wouldn’t have your eyes. There’s nothing good about him.”
It was funny, but the longer she talked to the black lion, the easier it was to stay in the stable. She could almost forget she was surrounded by monsters. At least until the other students began to come inside, and the kehoks burst into rage-filled roars again.
Quickly, Raia ducked into an empty stall.
Peeking out, Raia saw three students: two girls and a boy, all about Raia’s age. One of the girls had a shaved head, the boy had a scar on his left arm that looked like a crescent moon, and the other girl towered over Raia by at least two feet. All three of them wore sleeveless tunics that showed off their arm muscles. Looking at them, Raia was aware of how few muscles she had, anywhere. She was also aware that they had blocked the stable’s only exit, and that she was effectively cornered inside a stall.
One of the girls whispered something to the boy, and he laughed.
Raia shrank deeper into the stall and wondered if they’d noticed her yet.
“Hey, new girl,” the tall girl called between the kehok screams. “Come on out.”
Heart thudding, Raia inched forward. She wondered if they planned to hurt her and if she could stop them. Trainer Verlas will stop them, she thought. But how would Trainer Verlas know she needed her? Any call for help would be drowned out by the cries of the kehoks. And any screams would be lost beneath theirs.
“Whoa, relax!” the girl with the shaved head said. “You look more scared of us than of the kehoks. Promise we don’t bite. At least not as hard as they do.”
“It’s because I’m tall,” the tall girl said knowingly. “You think because I’m tall I have the overwhelming urge to drop heavy objects on smaller people.”
“You don’t?” the boy asked. “I always assumed you did.”
“Of course I do,” the tall girl said, “but I resist those urges because I’m civilized. Unlike you. You are literally standing in monster crap.”
The boy looked down. He’d stepped in a mound of manure. “Shit.”
“Yes,” the tall girl agreed.
Watching them, Raia didn’t think they seemed threatening. Maybe she didn’t need to be afraid of them. Still, experience had taught her caution.
“I’m Silar,” the tall girl said. “This is Algana, and he’s Jalimo.”
Jalimo pointed to his feet. “And these were new boots.”
The shaved-head girl, Algana, clicked her tongue. “You should know better than to wear new boots to a stable. What were you going to do when Trainer Osir asked you to muck out stalls?”
“I was going to bribe you into doing it for me,” Jalimo said, then turned to Raia. “So what’s your name, who’s your trainer, and are you a paying student?”
Before Raia could answer, Algana jumped in. “She has to be a paying student. Look at her.” To Raia, she said, “Not that there’s anything wrong with paying—the trainers need to eat. You just don’t look like someone who . . . Well, you don’t look . . . Silar, help me out here.”
“Oh, no, you stuck your foot in your mouth all by yourself.” Silar was grinning. But it wasn’t an unfriendly grin. Raia allowed herself to relax minutely.
“My name’s Raia, and I’m not a paying student,” Raia said.
“Yes!” Jalimo said, punching the air. “Another one of us! We’re all training to be champions. The paying students . . . they’re just paying to play being brave. Fierce rivalry between us and them.”
Silar rolled her eyes. “No, there isn’t.”
“We at least look down on them,” Jalimo said in a wounded voice.
“And they look down on us,” Algana said.
“It’s a mutual condescension thing,” Jalimo agreed. “But the trainers won’t allow an actual rivalry. They said it will distract us from our training. And besides, the kehoks bruise us up plenty. We don’t need to fight among ourselves.”
“So you aren’t going to beat me?” Raia burst out, before she thought about her words.
All three of the students stared at her with appalled expressions.
“Like some kind of hazing-the-new-student thing, or establishing of the hierarchy?” Raia tried to explain. It didn’t happen inside the training temple, with augurs everywhere to check your aura for any hint of misbehavior, but her parents had always told her it was common elsewhere—they’d stressed that every time they wanted