friends here, even though it hadn’t been long. She wished briefly that she were staying, that she could have spent more time with them. She wished she could put into words how grateful she was for their helping her now.
“We’ve got this,” Jalimo told her.
“Safe journeys,” Silar said. “May you travel with the ease of a heron.”
“And we’ll see you soon!” Algana said. “After the qualifiers are over. Maybe we’ll all race together in the Heart of Becar.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Raia said, and meant it.
Jalimo tugged Silar and Algana out of the stable, and they chattered to one another, elaborating on his lie, expanding it, making it more plausible. . . .
As their voices faded, Raia turned back to the kehok. He hadn’t made a noise or a move since she’d opened the stall door.
“Ready?” she asked him, almost back to the way she’d felt when she’d woken up this morning, as if the sun had risen just to greet her.
He retreated, pressing against the wall.
Raia realized no one had come and explained to him what had happened. She moved closer in slow, unthreatening steps. “You aren’t being punished. We’re going on a boat to the Heart of Becar, to race for the emperor-to-be.”
Behind her, she heard someone enter the stable, but this time her attention was focused on the kehok—she was too close to him to risk losing focus, no matter who had come in.
A soft, sad voice said, “He won’t understand you. He’s a kehok.” It was Augur Yorbel. “Alone for so long . . . without reminders of his past life . . . he cannot be anything but a kehok.”
She wished she could have a moment, just her and the kehok, to do what Trainer Verlas had asked her to do, but she couldn’t ask an augur to leave. She kept her concentration on the kehok. “Come on. We’re going to the boat. You and me. I’ll be with you.”
“He’s never been to the capital, and he can’t know what an emperor is. All memory is lost when one is reborn. Even if he once knew . . . To him, he’s only existed for a few months.”
She couldn’t tell Augur Yorbel to leave, but she could ignore him. Raia stared into the liquid-gold eyes of her kehok and kept talking to him. “The emperor-to-be wants us to race for him, in the Heart of Becar. We’re going to run more races, and we’re going to win. But you need to come with me, if we’re ever going to meet the emperor.” She didn’t expect him to understand every word, but she thought he would grasp the need of it. “Come with me.”
The black lion stepped forward.
Raia slid a chain over his face, muzzling him, and then moved to unlock the shackles from the wall. At some point, chains had been tightened around him, constricting his legs. If she could keep him calm, this wouldn’t be any different than taking him to the starting gates of the racetrack.
He walked beside her out of the stall. Seeing Augur Yorbel in the stable doorway, he stopped and made a noise that was halfway between a growl and a whimper. Raia hadn’t heard him make that noise before. She didn’t know what it meant. “You might want to keep your distance,” she advised the augur.
Augur Yorbel backed away, out of the stable and then out of sight beyond the door. She guided the kehok out and down toward the dock. The kehok came with her easily, as if he were a tame dog, and she wondered if he was beginning to trust her. She didn’t think her focus had improved so much, especially as frayed as it was right now. But he gave her zero trouble as he walked toward the cage on the dock and then inside it without any resistance. He wants to come, she thought. Maybe he does understand?
“Nicely done,” Trainer Verlas said.
Raia wanted to say it wasn’t her doing, but the trainer had moved on to preparing the cage to be loaded onto the ferry. Raia glanced around and saw her parents’ travel cases, but her parents were nowhere in sight. “Were Algana, Jalimo, and Silar here?”
“Yes. You may not be surprised to hear it, but they just went off with your parents.” Trainer Verlas sounded amused. “I’ve let the ferryman know there’s no need to wait.”
Raia grinned. It’s nice to have friends.
When the ferry arrived, they loaded the crate, and Raia, Tamra, and Augur Yorbel