Growing up, no one had ever told Tamra she had any worth. In fact, it was always the opposite.
Her one driving force from the second Shalla was born was to make sure that girl knew she was loved. And then the augurs saw her value, too, and took her away from me.
At least she had her back at night. For now, a tiny fear whispered inside her. Tamra pushed the fear back. She wasn’t going to waste a moment bemoaning the fact that Shalla was destined for a higher purpose. Tamra spent enough time in the day drowning in bitterness and regret. Nights were for joy.
Shalla poked at the crust of the bread. She’d been cooking on her own for nearly a year now, and Tamra thought she had a talent for it. “You’re right. Not burnt!” Shalla cheered. “Mama . . .” Her shining face began to frown. “Augur Clari said to tell you that the fee for level nine lessons is thirty pieces higher than for level eights. But you have enough students, don’t you? It won’t be a problem, will it?” She gazed at Tamra with hopeful eyes.
For a moment, Tamra felt as if a desert wraith had stolen her breath. They wanted more gold? She’d been warned training was expensive, but Tamra had said she could handle it. She hadn’t had much choice.
To be chosen to become an augur was considered one of the highest honors in Becar. It was also an honor you couldn’t refuse—if the augurs deemed you worthy, you had to train. Becoming an augur required a pure soul, and those were rare. Becar couldn’t afford to waste a single one.
Augurs possessed the rare ability to read souls. A trained augur could tell what kind of creature you had been in your past life and what kind of creature you would become when you were reborn. By the end of her studies, Shalla would be able to look at a night heron and tell you if it had once been the baker down the street, or the emperor’s pet cat. Her skills would be in high demand and her future determined. She’d be granted a palace on the southern bank and the vast coffers of the temple would be open to her, in exchange for performing an augur’s duties, and she’d be both respected and feared. The augurs were the moral compass of the empire, ensuring its greatness continued as it had for centuries, keeping Becarans on the path to embrace their destinies. In practical terms, they helped solve disputes, soothed grieving families, and guided people’s behavior on a day-to-day basis.
Augurs were the heart and soul of Becar, which was lovely. Just not cheap.
By law, every trainee’s family was offered the “honor” of paying for the cost of training. In return for regular payments, Shalla was allowed to continue to live with her mother.
If her family failed to pay, though, Shalla would be taken away. She would become a ward of the augur temple, required to live there and work for them every minute she wasn’t in lessons. Tamra would not even be allowed to see her. Not until her training was complete, and her childhood was over. Shalla would emerge a stranger, formally “severed” from her.
I won’t let that happen.
“It won’t be a problem,” Tamra lied.
Somehow she’d make it true.
At dawn, Tamra sat alone at the table and ate a slice of onion bread. Last night it had been warm with melted onion. Today it crunched, cold in her mouth. She swallowed it down with her tea. Shalla was gone, back across the river for her daily augur lessons, and the house felt empty and bereft. And the specter of thirty additional pieces of gold hung over Tamra’s head.
She’d have to grovel before the parents of her former students. Beg them to come back. Also, try to drum up more business, which would be hard with Fetran’s and Amira’s parents positioned against her, poisoning her reputation. At least the parts of it that weren’t already poisoned.
And even if a miracle occurred and she won a full class of students, she still wasn’t going to be able to pay Shalla’s increased tuition. She was barely making the payments before. It’s not possible, she thought. The math didn’t work.
She took another swig of her tea. She hadn’t added enough honey, and the bitter taste made her nose wrinkle. So did the thought she’d been trying to ignore all night. Because there was, of course, one obvious way.
Train a rider who could win.
Pair him or her with the fastest racer she could find.
Win a few races, even minor ones, and that’s tuition for months.
There were plenty of races each season, all with prize money: first the qualifiers, which were regional races held on tracks up and down the Aur River, and then the main races in the Heart of Becar, the capital of the empire. Both the minor and major main races offered pots of gold of various sizes for any top-three placement.
Thing was, none of the kehoks that her patron owned this season were fast enough, and the River knew none of her former students were strong enough—yesterday’s fiasco had made that clear.
I have to go to the auction. Today. Before any more time is lost.
She had to find a new rider and a new racer. But first . . . she needed her patron to back her, for both money to purchase the kehok and for the race entrance fees. And this was easier said than done. After last season, she’d been lucky just to be able to teach using Lady Evara’s kehoks. Maybe her attitude will have mellowed. And maybe she won’t have heard about yesterday’s fiasco. Besides, it had been several months since Tamra had last approached her.
And there’s no better option. I have to try.
As much as she despised begging for gold, she’d do it. For Shalla.
It took nearly an hour to cross the city by foot, another half hour of waiting to pay a bronze coin to cross the Aur River by ferry, fifteen minutes on the crowded ferry pressed up against workers who smelled like lye and soot and spent the entire trip complaining about how the emperor-to-be still wasn’t crowned yet, and gossiping about fears of foreign invaders while Becar was emperor-less—no treaties could be signed, no troops could be moved, no laws could be passed until Prince Dar was coronated, and that couldn’t happen until he found the vessel for his predecessor’s soul. By the time the ferry docked on the southern bank, Tamra felt as if her shoulders were up at her ears and every back muscle was a knot of tension. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the emperor-to-be couldn’t be crowned. She had enough of her own problems, thank you very much, without worrying about the world falling apart around her.
After the ferry, it took another half hour to wind through the back streets of the palaces. Men and women from the north bank, “lesser Becarans,” weren’t allowed to use the wide palm-tree-lined streets that connected the palaces. If they needed to get someplace on the southern bank, they had to use the narrow, covered alleys that hid them and their inferior clothes from the eyes of the wealthy.
More than once, Tamra had imagined riding a kehok down one of the thoroughfares, in full sight of the rich. They watch and cheer loudly enough during the races, the same as the poor. Yet we’re somehow unviewable where they live.
Centuries ago, when the first augurs built the first temple, wealth was bestowed on the worthy and pure of soul. Their descendants were fond of believing that was still true—that the wealthy were naturally superior, even though there was no proof of that anymore. By law, all augur readings were private, shielding the nobility from charges of hypocrisy. She could guess who’d made that law: some rich parent who wanted their spoiled, rat-souled kid to inherit their land, gold, and title.