it was too late. She was hiding in the presence of the emperor-to-be. There was no way this could be construed innocently. His guards would immediately think she was a threat. I’ll be arrested. Accused of being a spy or an assassin from Ranir . . . Motionless, she watched through the slats.
The emperor-to-be approached the kehok’s stall. He knelt, which put him eye level with her, and she had a clear view—which meant that if he turned his head, he’d see her too. She didn’t dare move.
He was young, not much older than she was, with a thin face, as if he wasn’t eating enough, and deep circles under his eyes, as if he wasn’t sleeping enough. He wore intricate gold necklaces tight around his neck, and his hair was braided and pinned with diamonds and rubies. But his face looked so ordinary, framed by all that wealth. And so very sad.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” he whispered.
She almost flinched, but he wasn’t talking to her. He hadn’t even glanced her way. All his attention was focused on the black lion.
The lion was still whimpering, but he wasn’t fighting anymore. He was merely looking at the emperor-to-be with his golden eyes, which Raia thought also looked sad.
“Zarin, this can’t be you,” Prince Dar whispered.
Suddenly, Raia felt as if there wasn’t enough air to breathe. What did he call him? She had to have misheard.
“Please, Zarin. Do you remember me? Do you know who you were?”
No, she hadn’t misheard. Zarin. The late emperor.
Even in all her running and hiding, she’d heard people gossip about how his soul’s new vessel hadn’t been found, about how they thought the new emperor-to-be was delaying the augurs because he didn’t want to be coronated, about how they were losing gold every day because there was no new emperor yet, about how they feared an attack by Ranir when they were at their most vulnerable . . . She’d heard them blaming the emperor-to-be and saying the augurs should work faster and look harder.
It didn’t make sense.
And yet it did.
This was why Augur Yorbel had come to their stable, why he had bargained so badly to buy a kehok, why the palace hadn’t seemed ready for them when they arrived.
“You were good,” Prince Dar said. “You were good to me. How could this—You didn’t deserve this. Did you? How could you have hidden such darkness from me? How did I not know? I knew you!”
His voice was barely louder than a breath. He sounded as if he were breaking in two. She knew how it felt to be betrayed by the people who were supposed to love you, to discover they weren’t who you thought they were. She remembered the day she’d been ejected from the temple and how she’d felt when her parents had raged at her failures. This had to hurt even worse. She at least had caught hints of who her parents were before that moment.
It sounded as if he’d had no idea.
“It could be a mistake,” he said. “Yorbel could have read you wrong. You can’t be him.”
Raia wasn’t skilled enough to read a kehok’s aura. She didn’t know what the augur had seen, but surely he wouldn’t go through all this if he wasn’t certain. It was too important for mistakes.
Prince Dar seemed to agree with her unspoken thought. “Of course, Yorbel is never wrong. But how could this have happened? How could the augurs who read you when you were alive not have seen—” He cut himself off as his voice broke.
He curled a fist and bit into the side. She knew the look on his face—he was trying desperately to hold himself together so the men and women outside wouldn’t guess at his emotions. She wished she dared to comfort him. Just one word . . .
But she said nothing.
At last, Prince Dar pushed off his knees to stand. He smoothed the silk beneath his golden necklaces. He stilled his face. Only a second later, the stable door opened. “Your Excellence?” a guard asked. “Is all well?”
“This kehok will make a fine racer,” the emperor-to-be said, in an entirely different voice. He sounded pleased, even jovial, and Raia felt as if she were hearing herself, the voice she’d used when she told the other trainees at the temple that of course she was fine, everything was fine, when everything was falling apart.
She stayed hidden as he left the stable and the door closed behind him.