wall, and the girl—pinned between her mount’s back and the wall—cried out in pain. Shaking off the crash, the lion-lizard then charged at the rhino-croc. He lashed with his claws, and the croc clamped down with his massive jaws.
Tamra was already running. She leaped onto the sands of the track with no thought but to save her students. Ahead of her, the two kehoks were tearing into each other.
She threw herself forward, feetfirst, skidding between them on her back. Hands up, she roared with every fiber of her being: “STOP!”
Later, the other trainers would tell her what she did was suicidal.
You’re crazy.
You don’t throw yourself between out-of-control kehoks.
You don’t lie prone beneath their hooves and claws.
But Tamra did.
What she didn’t do was allow a shred of doubt or fear into her mind. They would stop because they must stop. Her livelihood depended on it. Her daughter depended on it. I will not lose these students.
You. Will. Stop.
And they did.
Snorting and snuffling, the two kehoks dropped back onto four feet and retreated from her. Rising to her feet, hands outstretched, one toward each, Tamra felt her whole body shaking with . . . She had no name for what she felt. But they would calm. Now.
She heard the others running toward them. Shouting for healers, the other trainers unstrapped her two riders. She heard the screams of her other students, their voices melding as if they were a single scared beast. One of the riders, Fetran, was howling in pain. The other, Amira, was frighteningly silent.
But Tamra kept her focus on the two kehoks.
She walked toward one and took his harness. Then she took the other. She led them along the racetrack, crossed the finish line, and then led them back across the training ground to their stalls. It felt ten times as far as it was.
Only when they were locked in did she allow other thoughts to enter her mind.
Her students.
Were they dead?
Was it her fault?
Yes, of course it is. She was their trainer. Part of her job was teaching them not to die.
For a moment, Tamra couldn’t make her feet move. She’d rather face a herd of kehoks than exit the stables now and see what damage had been done.
One of the kehoks snorted as if it were mocking her cowardice.
Go, she ordered herself.
And she walked out of the stable to see how badly her students were broken, and to take responsibility for letting her hopes destroy their dreams—and possibly her own.
Chapter 2
Neither was dead, which was a miracle.
Both were broken, though. Badly. Left leg, one rib for Amira. Three ribs and a concussion for Fetran. Their parents had descended on the training ground, cleared out their belongings from their rooms, canceled their lessons, and demanded that Tamra compensate them for all healers’ bills.
She’d argued they’d signed contracts, relieving her from responsibility for the cost of any injuries or funerals, except in cases of negligence.
Putting unprepared students onto the racetrack counted as negligence, they’d argued.
She had little defense against that.
The injuries proved she’d made the wrong choice.
It didn’t matter that she couldn’t afford the healers’ fees, not on top of everything she owed the augurs for her daughter’s training. And it didn’t matter that if the riders-to-be had been talented enough to become real riders, they would have risen to the challenge. Instead of dreaming of glory, she should have coddled them—that’s what their parents had wanted.
I misjudged that. I thought they’d want me to turn them into winners, if I could.
Riders got hurt. It was what happened in the Becaran Races. It was part of why the people loved them—there was true risk. And there were stiff penalties for anything the officials ruled as negligence. “Racing comes with risk,” she told the parents.
They swore to go directly to her patron. Insist Lady Evara rescind her patronage. Kick Tamra off her training grounds. And then they’d file a complaint with the racing commission. Insist the commission charge her with overt negligence and revoke her training permit. Require her to submit proof of an acceptable augur reading before ever being allowed to work with children again, a demand usually made only of proven criminals. Or bar her from the tracks across all of Becar.
She should have groveled—as elite south-bank Becarans, they were used to the lower classes groveling at their feet—but she’d never been good at that. “Do what you need to do,” she’d told them, and they’d stomped off to the ferry dock, following their injured offspring, whom Tamra