A rider knocked into her shoulder, hard. She nearly slipped off the saddle, and then a hand caught her elbow. She pulled herself back up and looked over into Gette’s smiling face.
“Told you I’d win. Better quit while you’re not dead. You’re not thirsty enough for this.”
He winked at her, released her elbow, and let himself be swallowed by the adoring crowd. A second later, Trainer Verlas was beside her.
“Get off and help me chain him,” Trainer Verlas ordered.
Raia blinked at her. “I don’t want to quit.”
“Good. I didn’t think you did.”
“I felt it,” Raia told her. “At the end. No future, no past, exactly like you said. But it was too late. I was too late.”
Trainer Verlas nodded and held out a hand to help her slide down. “Focus on your lion now. Keep him calm. Keep yourself calm. The aftermath of a race can be even more dangerous than the race itself, especially once the racers are exposed to the emotions of the crowd.” She slapped the hook of a chain onto the lion’s collar. “Muzzle him.”
Obediently, Raia slipped the chain muzzle over the lion’s face. He didn’t fight her. “You ran well,” she told him. “It’s not your fault. I failed you.”
“You’ll do better next time,” Trainer Verlas said briskly.
Raia shook her head. “There isn’t going to be a next time, remember? I want to race again, but we can’t. This was it. We had to win. You told me so yourself. Lady Evara—”
“You placed third,” Tamra said. “That’s good enough for your first race.”
“But Lady Evara said—”
“She said I had to repay her for the slain kehok with our winnings. And third was enough for that.” Tamra shook a pouch clipped to her belt, which Raia looked at with surprise. “Let’s discuss what went wrong, and what you’re going to do next time.” Together, they led the lion across the fields toward the campsite.
Raia didn’t know what to feel. Confusion. Relief. How would the winnings from third place at a qualifying round possibly be enough to satisfy Lady Evara? And the augurs for Shalla? And her parents? “But how . . .”
“You weren’t going to win that race. You will win the next—you can still qualify for the major races if you win your second qualifying race. It’s best of two that determines placement. But to have that chance, I had to do it.” Trainer Verlas took a deep breath, then confessed, “I bet against the present so we can have a future.”
Raia realized that Trainer Verlas was looking at her anxiously, as if she were worried. Trainer Verlas so rarely looked worried. It was a strange expression on her face: the crinkle in her forehead, the extra-hard grip on the kehok’s chains. She’d heard that trainers didn’t bet on their riders, at least the good ones didn’t, the ones who trained champions. “You placed a bet? Against me?”
The lion made a lilting kind of sound, a query at the end of his growl.
Maybe I should be offended. But I wasn’t going to win that race—it was my first. She did the right thing. Raia met the lion’s golden eyes. She knew she was imagining it, but she thought he looked as worried as Trainer Verlas. Worried about me? The thought almost made her smile. “It’s okay. This is good,” she said to both the lion and Trainer Verlas. “It means we’ll get another chance.”
She knew it wasn’t possible, but he seemed as if he understood. While all the other kehoks fought their riders and racers as they were shoved back into their cages, the lion walked docilely inside his cage and lay down, paws crossed in front of him. She climbed into the cage with him and sat in the corner. “And next time, we’ll outrun them.”
He growled as if in agreement.
Chapter 13
After Raia climbed into the cage with her racer, Tamra hitched the rhino-croc kehok to the transport cart. She was aware she was smiling, which probably looked alarming to anyone close enough to see, but she didn’t care. That could have been a disaster, and it wasn’t! She’d happily celebrate a non-disaster.
“Well run,” Osir said from behind her.
“Thank you,” Tamra said.
“Except for that hesitation. You know, I could work with her on that.”
“She’s my rider. Poach elsewhere.” She swung herself up onto the bench and flashed her smile at him. He was scowling at her, as if he were deeply insulted. She noticed, though, that he didn’t deny it.