“Training. Publicity telecasts. Then the Races await.”
Mother nods absently. She’s imagining Maxim or Gavriel or Cassiopia sitting down with me to ask interview questions. All the shows she pretends not to watch every morning.
I speak softly, not trusting my voice. “Thank you. I’ll get ready.”
Mother closes the door. She hooks her arm in mine, kisses me on the forehead, and leads me back inside. The room’s almost spinning. Father stands. Coffee’s spilled all over the table behind him, but he ignores it. Only Prosper has a voice.
“Is this serious? Are they serious? This can’t be serious!”
They sit me down on the couch because my legs are starting to shake violently. Mother rushes into my room, pulling clothes out of corners, stuffing whatever’s clean into a travel sack. Uncle Manu stands in the corner, reciting names of racers with Prosper and laughing like he’s a kid again. Father comes back with a glass of water and makes me drink it.
“You’re going to be okay.”
I try to give some sign that I hear him, but everything’s still spinning.
“Imelda,” he says. “You are Imelda Beru. Last night, you proved you’ve got as much fire as any of them. Be respectful, be careful, be yourself. You can do this.”
I nod.
Mother calls, “Where are your socks? Why don’t you have clean socks?”
I don’t answer. The room’s stopped spinning, but my mind’s racing ahead to Furia. I have to beat out the other scholarship kids first. I wonder who they are and what they’ve done to make the final cut. Even if I do manage to get myself chosen, it won’t matter if I’m not ready for the actual Races. Every year there’s a Qualifier, a Dividian rider like me. We always cheer for them to do the unthinkable. They rarely do. Only two have ever won.
I can be the third.
Fear and dread rise up in my chest, threatening to choke me.
“Hey.” Father’s voice cuts through the noise. “You can do this.”
He offers a hand and pulls me to my feet. Prosper nudges up against my side. I push back his hair and smile down. Mother’s there, too, pressing the travel bag into my hands. I kiss them all before shouldering the bag and heading for the door.
“Tell Farian what happened,” I call over one shoulder. “If I’m chosen, the exclusive is his!”
They call out their love and I force myself to turn, to walk, to not look back. Ayala’s up in the saddle, one hand on the reins of the gorgeous horse she’s leading toward me. It’s more finely groomed than most of the phoenixes in Martial’s barns. She hands him off to me and waits until I’m up in the saddle to start trotting back to the road. Ayala wears her hair short for an Ashlord, but she rides a horse the way they always do, like a straight-backed statue.
“Why was I chosen?” I ask.
A few faces sneak glances from behind curtains. The other two Ashlords lead us north, through the last section of village and into the waiting desert.
Ayala turns back to me. “You didn’t see the video?”
I frown at her. “I made the video.”
“Not that video.” Ayala smiles. “That one was impressive, but I meant Pippa’s interview. This year’s favorite. She stood up for you. Accused the Empire Racing Board of favoring men. She said if they let someone in who had less skill than you, it’d prove how sexist the board members are. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but you’re pretty much a lock.”
I’m stunned. Pippa. If there’s a name everyone knows in this year’s Race, it would be hers. The daughter of Prama and Marcos, both former champions in their own right. It has me thinking of all those famous Ashlords and their catchy, singular names. Which echoes into a second thought about all the Dividian with their reduced four-letter surnames, entire histories erased by the very people who are inviting me to their glorious Races.
The newscasters have been treating this year like it’s Pippa’s inheritance, like she’s destined to win. I’m surprised someone of her status has even heard of me.
“Why would she stand up for me?”
“She likes you?” Ayala suggests. “Or she wanted the spotlight off her own scandal?”
The road twists, rising up and around. The sun’s diving down at us out of the clouds. I slip my riding hood overhead and tug at the chin until it fits comfortably. Ayala and the other Ashlords don’t do the same until a few hours later, when they finally feel the heat of the day. We ride hard as we make our way to the city.
Not a racing standard pace, but fast enough to have us tearing across the terrain, passing towns and villages. It doesn’t feel like a normal, twelve-hour day. Time speeds up, slows down. The six hours become six seconds or six eternities, I can’t decide which. The sun sets and mountains loom to our right, cutting through clouds to break the sky into great, smoky sections. Ayala talks freely with me, but the other two Ashlords don’t say a word the entire trip.
I learn that she works for the Empire Racing Board. In fact, she turned down a bunch of other jobs so she could help with the scholarship program. She’s passionate—almost too much—about the Dividian people. When she asks me personal questions, my other escorts glance back their disapproval, but she outranks them and doesn’t seem to care what they think, either.
“There it is,” she says as night falls around us. “Furia.”
A distant brilliance lights the valley. The glow dances between the bordering mountains like a lake of gold. Ayala leads us down and it’s hard not to stare at everything. Even the buildings along the outskirts tower above us. The nearest city to us—Avass—has a few high-rises and temples, but nothing like this.
It’s like the Ashlords are bridging their way to heaven.
We pass the first of several pyramids. Surrounded by glass-and-steel buildings, the temples look more like god-sized fists punched up through the earth. Great tiers of mortared stone slabs, all rising and narrowing to the flat-roofed prayer rooms in the upper temples. Stairs run up each side like rib cages. Each god’s servants flock in the shadowed interiors.
Somehow the world stops moving at an impossible speed. As we dismount, stable boys come forward to collect our horses. We stand before a dark-bricked building. It sits squarely between much larger buildings, but Ayala assures me it’s the finest and most historic hotel in the city. She says this like I might somehow be disappointed by it. And only as we stand there, waiting for a bellhop to answer the door, do I notice the people. We’re on a main drag and it looks like everyone’s gathered for a parade. Except there’s no parade. Just thousands of folks living their lives.