is how you repay me? You purchase an uncontrollable racer and hire an unsuitable rider. Oh, yes, I saw her little performance out on the sands, and I am not impressed.”
“It was her first attempt,” Tamra said.
“It should be her last,” Lady Evara snapped. “Are you trying to make a mockery of me? Truly, I do not know what to think.” Spreading open a golden-edged fan, she waved it as if trying to shoo away this disaster.
“The potential is there.” Tamra was gritting her jaw so hard that her cheeks began to ache. If only I didn’t need a sponsor, then she’d see mockery. “All I ask is that you trust my judgment.”
Lady Evara snorted, an unrefined sound that seemed at odds with her exquisitely bejeweled self. “‘All’ you ask is trust?” Closing her fan, she smacked it against her open palm. “My trust is not lightly bestowed, and this is hardly the first time you have disappointed me. And I am not the only one. Must I remind you that your students have abandoned you, save this urchin you have found?”
Tamra met her eyes and wished she felt as confident staring her down as she did confronting a kehok. As firmly as she could, she said, “I can win with this racer and this rider.”
“Correction: you must win with this racer and this rider. I will be recouping my losses from today’s fiasco out of your winnings from your first qualifying race.”
Tamra had planned for her share of Raia’s winnings to pay for Shalla’s tuition. First, second, and third place walked home with gold pieces. She began to calculate the number of races, both in the qualifying round and in the minor races, they’d need to win to pay for both the dead kehok and the augur’s bills. And then she realized that Lady Evara had said “first qualifying race.”
It was rare for a racer and rider to place that high in the rankings in their first race. That’s why you were allowed to race the sands twice before you were slotted for either the major or minor races in the capital city, the Heart of Becar. Tamra had hoped to ease Raia and the black lion into the circuit, use the first race to grow familiar with the track, have a decent showing in her second qualifier, and then press her to win in the minors. We don’t have that luxury anymore. Not if Lady Evara demanded immediate prize money. “You know the first race is traditionally a practice—”
Lady Evara cut her off. “Replacing a kehok is a significant expense. I require the prize money from a first place win. If your rider fails to win enough gold to compensate me for my loss, our association is finished. Are we clear?”
Finished? Tamra had no viable backup plan. She had no skills but training kehoks. If she lost her patronage entirely . . . She’d taken a massive blow from the racing commission’s fines last year. She couldn’t weather another.
In a falsely sweet voice, the kind you’d use to talk to children if you were the sort who hated children, Lady Evara said, “Now, what are the little words we say when someone does you a favor you do not deserve?”
In just as sweet a voice, Tamra said, “Screw you, Lady Evara.”
For a brief moment, Lady Evara’s expression darkened, but then she plastered over it with a laugh and a smile. “You’re a fighter, Trainer Verlas. That’s what I’ve always admired about you. And that’s what I am counting on. I am giving you your shot at redemption, and I expect you to give me mine.” She leveled a look at Tamra. “Let me be blunt, Trainer Verlas: I expect a grand champion.”
Tamra gawked at her. “With a new rider and racer?” Last year, before the accident, Tamra had been on the path to achieving the grand prize. But this year, with a new racer and a new rider, she’d hoped merely to win enough races to pay the augurs—and now the fee for the dead kehok.
That had been an achievable goal.
This was crazy.
“Win, and keep winning. And the gold will keep flowing. But lose, and this is your final season. I have no more patience to spend on you.” With that, Lady Evara swept out of the stable.
Tamra was left feeling as if she’d weathered a sandstorm, with glasslike bits of sand flaying her skin. She glanced at the black lion. “You’d better not be a mistake.”