Talk to her, Raia encouraged herself.
If Trainer Verlas needed a new racer, maybe she needed a new rider.
And if that’s the case, maybe she’ll be desperate enough to pick me.
Studying the trainer, though, Raia didn’t think that was likely to happen. She didn’t look like the kind to make decisions out of desperation.
Well, then maybe I’m desperate enough to make her pick me.
Cursed or not, this woman had trained a rider who’d nearly won the Becaran Races. Her racing style was said to have been unique, and her training style supposedly matched that. Unique enough to train a newbie? All Raia needed to do was win a few races. Not the whole thing. The prize money from just a few wins, even a string of minor races, should be enough . . .
But how to impress Tamra Verlas, when she’d never impressed anyone in her life? Especially not someone as impressive as the trainer.
Raia watched as Trainer Verlas approached the killer kehok with no fear. Her face, which Raia could see in profile, was placid. Her arms hung by her sides, muscles loose. She didn’t look prepared to defend herself or jump out of the way. If the kehok attacked . . . Even from within his cage, he could do some damage.
Raia couldn’t hope to ever look that fearless. She felt full of fear every second of every day, so much fear that sometimes she thought she’d choke on it. She felt fear right now, for Trainer Verlas.
The kehok bared his lion teeth, each tooth the size of Raia’s hand, and she felt prickles walk all over her skin. Why am I even considering this? This is crazy! She didn’t know anything about racing, and she’d never even met anyone who’d ridden one of the monsters. There had to be another way to come up with enough gold to appease her family.
Except there wasn’t. Not quickly. And not with her lack of any kind of useful skills.
She knew what was said: Anyone can become a rider. And what was also said: But only those who don’t fear death dare try.
Raia did fear death, of course.
I just fear other things more.
She heard the trainer say to the kehok, “Your need to kill me is not greater than my need to use you.” It wasn’t said as a threat—Raia knew very well what those sounded like—and it wasn’t a boast either. Trainer Verlas spoke as if she were stating a fact.
And Raia knew what she had to do.
I have to prove my need.
Taking a deep breath, she slunk out of her hiding place. No one noticed her. No one even glanced at her. She crossed the stream of people flowing in both directions past the cages. Her legs shook as if they were made of custard, but she didn’t stop. She walked past the seller and Trainer Verlas. She kept her eyes fixed on the golden eyes of the black lion—the one everyone was calling the killer kehok.
He watched her like a cat watches his prey.
Alert. Amused. Hungry.
She felt her heart thump faster and harder, as if it wanted to burst out of her rib cage. It was beating so hard it nearly hurt. Her palms were sweating, and she knew she must look as terrified as she felt.
But it didn’t matter what she felt. Because she had to do this. It was her best chance at freedom from her family and from a life she didn’t want. And she wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away, no matter how scared she felt, no matter how bad an idea it was. Because it was her only idea.
Raia halted in front of the cage. Behind her, she dimly heard the seller barking at her to get back, it wasn’t safe. She ignored him. She ignored all the buzzing and chatter, the cries and the thumps and the screams from the other cages. She focused only on the kehok.
“You won’t kill me,” she said softly, “because you need me as much as I need you.”
She expected him to try to maul her. She was tense, ready to run—unlike Trainer Verlas—and she couldn’t pretend to be otherwise. If the kehok swiped at her with those massive knife-sharp claws, she’d be a fool not to try to avoid its attack.
The kehok pressed his face closer to the bars, and she felt the sour heat of his breath.
He hasn’t killed me yet. That’s good, isn’t it?
Louder, she said, “You want your freedom as much as I want mine. And the only way they’ll ever let you out of this cage alive is if there’s a chance you’ll win races. And the only way you’ll ever win races is if I’m your rider.” She believed that, because she didn’t think there was anyone else in this whole market, maybe in all of Becar, who needed to win badly enough to risk their life like this.
“You, girl? You want to be his rider?” That was Trainer Verlas, behind her.
If Raia hadn’t been standing just a few inches from a killer, she’d have jumped on the chance to convince the trainer that yes, she was serious, and yes, she would work hard, and yes, she was ready, and yes yes yes—she’d said that speech a dozen times today already.
But this time . . . it wasn’t the trainer she had to convince.
It was the monster.
Win him, and she’d win the trainer.
She understood that instinctively. And she’d learned to trust her instincts, like she did a few weeks ago when she got the very strong sense to climb out her window and down the trellis and hide in the shadows of the topiary garden. . . . Those instincts hadn’t steered her wrong. Her parents had come through her door only minutes later. She’d watched them, lit by the candles they carried, and seen that they’d brought ropes—ropes!—to tie her up, as if she were a disobedient dog.
But she couldn’t think about them now. Only the kehok.
“We’re alike, you and I,” Raia told him, softly this time. She was aware an audience had gathered behind her. She saw them out of the corners of her eyes. “We both hate cages.”
He snorted, almost as if he understood her.
“I have a proposition for you. You don’t kill me, and I won’t let them kill you. They will, you know. Even she won’t stop them, if you don’t accept a rider. Let me be that rider, and I will make sure you live.” Raia took a deep breath and stepped even closer, raising up her hand palm out. Slowly, with every bit of her body screaming at her to flee—and a number of spectators yelling the same thing—she reached in between the bars and laid her hand on the kehok’s cheek. It felt as smooth and cool as beaten metal.
Maybe this would work!
The kehok held still.
For about a second and a half.
Then he lunged forward with a horrific roar, and she felt a strong arm around her waist hauling her back, so fast that she fell to the ground, flat on her back, as the kehok raged against the bars.
“Idiot,” Trainer Verlas snarled at her. “You could have lost your arm. Or your life. What were you thinking? Are you that eager to start your next life?”
On her back, looking up at the furious trainer framed by the blazing noon sun, Raia felt her heart beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings. She felt like screaming, crying, and laughing all at the same time, as four words chased around and around in her head: I could have died!
“But I didn’t.”
“What?”
Meeting Trainer Verlas’s eyes, Raia said with as much fake confidence as she could muster, “I was thinking you’re going to train me. And I’m going to race the sands.”
Chapter 5