And the fact that Shalla was training to be an augur—it hit too close to home. Her parents wanted her to repay them for the augurs, and now this girl . . . Abruptly, Raia stood, dropping the bread. “This was all a terrible idea. You know I’m too weak to be a rider. You need to find someone who—”
Trainer Verlas cut her off. “I found you. Sit down, Raia, and finish your bread.”
Raia didn’t sit. This was a mistake. She should have kept going and never visited Gea Market. She could still sneak on board another ferry and make it farther south, far beyond Peron, far beyond all the cities of Becar, until she found a village too remote for her family to ever think of searching there. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have stopped running—”
“Your family will find you eventually. If you stay and race the sands with me, then when they do find you, you can give them the money we’ve won from the races—once we win enough, we can pay my debt to Lady Evara, Shalla’s to the augurs, and yours to your family.” Trainer Verlas smiled encouragingly at her. Her voice was calm, but her hands were clasped so tightly that her knucklebones shone white through her skin. She was trying (and failing, Raia thought) to hide how much this mattered to her. “And then we will be both safe and free.”
Raia blinked. Her eyes felt hot. This was all too much. She hadn’t wanted to be responsible for anyone else’s future. For the first time in a while, she wished one of her teachers were here, so she could ask what the right path was. “How many races do we need to win to be safe and free?”
Trainer Verlas’s smile became even more strained.
“Well . . . all of them.”
Chapter 7
Dar—known to his people as His Highness Prince Dar, the emperor-to-be of the Becar Empire, blessed by the Aur River—thought he would suffocate inside the mourning robes. He was wearing six layers of linen, each in deepening shades of gray to symbolize the dimming of a life, as well as a red silk scarf wrapped around his left arm as a reminder of rebirth. It was just shy of tight enough to cut off circulation.
He’d hoped the discomfort would distract him.
It wasn’t working.
He still wanted to bash his bejeweled fist into every snake-smooth courtier and ambassador who expressed his wish to honor his brother’s memory. That, however, wasn’t done. Emperors-to-be didn’t curl their hands into fists. They laid their hands peacefully across their laps, and then nodded at precisely the same incline at every fellow mourner.
They might mourn him, Dar thought. But they don’t miss him.
Not the way Dar did, where he woke each morning and remembered anew that Zarin was gone, the memory like a knife in Dar’s gut every time. He felt filleted as he went about the ceremony of his day, every nerve exposed and raw.
Everything made him miss his brother.
The taste of a lemon.
The whistle of the wind.
The crash of a platter from the kitchen and then the frantic whispers of the servants.
Years ago, shortly after Zarin had first become emperor, he’d heard a clatter from the kitchen and sprung off his throne to rush to help. Six servants had fainted on the spot at the sight of their new emperor picking up shards of glass from the tiled floor, and three councillors had resigned. Or so Zarin liked to say. Every time he’d told that story, the number of fainting servants and appalled courtiers had increased. Every time a citizen told that story, he or she gushed at the example of their emperor’s greatheartedness.
And so when Dar heard a crash, he didn’t move. Not because he felt he was above helping, but because that was Zarin’s story, and Dar wasn’t going to take it from him. The way I took his throne, he thought.
This was Zarin’s. All of it. The throne. The crown. The linen robes and silk scarves, the exact nods, the precise words, the time spent in the official Hours of Listening, when the great ruler of all Becar silently listened to the advice, complaints, requests, and words of his people for three hours every two weeks without speaking a word. Or scratching an itch. Or sneezing. Or fidgeting in any way.
I don’t know how Zarin did it.
Zarin used to complain about the Listening, how the nobles of Becar liked