as she saddled him. “Today we’re not going out into the desert to train. We’re going to run around a racetrack. So I need you not to eat me.”
She never knew how much he understood, but it made her feel better to talk.
“You know we’re a team. We want the same thing. Are you going to work with me today?” She shouldn’t phrase it as a question. More firmly, she said, “We’re going to work together. You and me.”
Yanking on a strap, she tightened the saddle. He growled, low. “Sorry, but it has to be tight,” she told him. Otherwise she’d go flying off, which he’d probably like, but she wasn’t keen to try.
He glared at her, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He no longer wore the iron chain net—it would slow him down too much in a race—but he wasn’t loose either. His head was muzzled, and his legs were shackled. Regardless of the progress they’d made, she wasn’t releasing him until Trainer Verlas told her it was time. Just because I’ve ridden him doesn’t mean I’m not still afraid of him. She was fully aware of what he could do.
She heard footsteps enter the stable.
The other kehoks screamed.
“Oh, shut up.” It was Jalimo, one of the other students.
Rising up on her toes, Raia peeked over the stall door and saw two of the three students she’d met before—Jalimo and Algana. She hadn’t had a chance to talk with them since she’d arrived, and she still hadn’t met any of the other students who trained here or any of the paying students. She’d always been here and on her way out into the desert before they arrived, and back well after they left. Her throat suddenly dry, she said tentatively, “Hi.”
“Hey, you’re not dead!” Jalimo said. He elbowed Algana. “She’s not dead.”
Algana beamed at her. “Raia! We heard a race cart was out, and we thought . . . well, that is . . .”
Jalimo jumped in helpfully. “What she means to say is: we thought you were dead and your trainer took a cart to dispose of your body. Lots of sand. Jackals. You know.”
“That is not what I meant to say,” Algana said.
“It wasn’t?”
“Well, it was, but then I thought better of it. She obviously wasn’t dead because the cart kept coming back and going out again.” Algana picked up a saddle and slung it onto the back of a rhino-like kehok with cheetah markings on her side.
“Right,” Jalimo said, clearly having not put those facts together. “Anyway, I thought those carts were just for getting to races,” he continued as he began to prepare another kehok, a lizard with powerful elephant-like legs.
Raia felt her face warm, and she hoped they couldn’t tell. “We, um, borrowed one?”
“You should have trained here with us!” Algana said. “What were you doing out in the desert anyway? My trainer says it’s dangerous to give the kehoks a taste of freedom. They’ll spend the whole race trying to break out of the track.” She quickly added, “Not that I’m criticizing your trainer!”
“She is,” Jalimo said.
“A little bit,” Algana admitted. “But we were worried about you.”
“You were?” Raia hadn’t thought they’d give her a moment’s thought beyond their one conversation. She hadn’t thought about them at all, and now she felt bad about that. She’d been so focused on running faster and faster with the black lion. That was one of the best things about riding: not thinking about anything else.
Okay—she didn’t feel that bad.
Silar entered the stable, ducking through the doorway—she wasn’t quite tall enough that she needed to duck. It was most likely habit. “Yeah, they gossip about you all the time. Hi, Raia, good to see you again.”
“Friendly, worried gossip!” Algana yelped.
“Nothing bad,” Jalimo said. “Just that you’d probably been gored by your kehok, left while you bled out, and then dumped in the dunes for the buzzards to find and destroy any evidence.”
“But it was friendly because we didn’t want that to happen,” Algana said, with a hopeful don’t-be-angry-at-me smile. “And if it had, we wanted you to be reborn as something nice. Like a butterfly, at least.”
Raia laughed.
Silar went directly to another stall, one with a kehok that looked like a dog made of silver metal. “Trainer Osir said we’ll be racing one another.”
Raia’s laugh died. When Trainer Verlas said she’d be on the racetrack, Raia had assumed it would be solo—a few laps to get the feel of the track. She didn’t think she’d