“Did we do it?” Quinn asks. “Did it work?”
You laugh, sitting back and lowering your head onto her shoulder.
“You just had to save her.”
Quinn sneaks an arm around you. The two of you sit and watch the sun rise together. You’re still nervous as the ashes stir beneath the first touch of sunlight. Nervous that you got the calculations wrong somehow, that all of this will be for nothing. But the horse that comes striding out of the storm looks healthy and whole. All three of you breathe a sigh of relief.
You and Etzli exchange a look. An understanding passes. You saved her, but now you’ll go on without her. She’ll survive—you’re sure of that much—but her look confirms what you were hoping for. She wants you to ride on and finish. You nod once before looking back to the waiting course. The hard part comes next. Finishing the Races. Catching the leaders.
It makes you smile.
You were born for what comes next.
After passing Capri’s partner in the morning, we didn’t see a soul on the third day’s ride.
Capri kept quiet, too. Not a word, except to ask me if I’d pull up his hood. Riding with him strapped to my back wasn’t easy. Not on me. Not on the horse. I spent the entire day staring at my bracelet, expecting the gap between us and the leaders to grow as he slowed our pace. But the rankings fluctuated unpredictably. Etzli started with a huge lead, but all her number did was shrink until she vanished from the scoreboard entirely. Your stomach sinks a little. Something horrible must have happened.
Revel stormed out to the lead at first, but Bravos is the steadier rider. I always thought of him as a bruiser without much pacing or technique, but maybe he dated Pippa long enough to learn a thing or two. At one point, I glanced down and the third name had changed. I thought I saw Pippa’s name scrawled there like an inevitability. But a second glance had me blinking. It wasn’t her name. It was mine. I watched the numbers for a while after that, but it must have been a mistake. Pippa’s name never appeared again.
I kept pushing deeper into the course, and the standings fluctuated only slightly:
Bravos: 436 paces
Revel: 247 paces
Adrian
Bravos had an even bigger lead for a while, but his progress stopped right before sunset. It’s not hard to figure out that he caught an early burn. And the whole field is lucky that he did. I’ve never heard of a rider coming back from a lead over five hundred paces. But now?
It’s close enough. Victory is within reach.
I glance over at Capri. He’s lying in the dust and dirt. Looks like hell, but there’s nothing more I can do besides give him food and water. I sit with my back to a rise of cool stone, eyes on the canyon we left behind. The way forward is a departure from the rest of the course. It will run us through the strange desert forests. It’s full of crags and twists and sunstripe trees. The kind of course that demands a lot from a rider and his horse. I was lucky to stay this close to the leaders, but I’m not foolish enough to think it will happen again, not with Capri weighing me down.
He’s as healthy as I can get him. His wounds look fine. Ugly, but not the kind of infections he’ll die from. It’s time to cut the cord. He’s been watching me since we woke up.
“You’re going to leave me,” Capri says aloud. “Aren’t you?”
I glance over at him. “Makes the most sense.”
He nods. The movement is an upgrade from the day before. He might recover.
“You’re just like us,” he says.
“Is that right?”
He nods again, eyes on the fading stars above. “You don’t feel guilty. I might never walk again, but you don’t care. I can see it in your eyes. You’re just doing equations and distances. Not thinking at all about what life will be like for me now. You care more about winning. That’s all my people care about, too. Who wins and who loses. That’s all I was ever taught.”
I weigh his words. I know the Empire’s listening. Officials are sitting in their camps at the start and end of the Races, ready to ride out and arrest me at a moment’s notice. But I also know that Daddy and half the Reach are losing sleep to listen in, each of them hoping I’ll speak with their voice. The Empire is watching. Most of them were born hating people like me.
It gives my voice fire. “I’ve trained my whole life for this.”
“You trained to be like one of us.”
I shake my head, knowing he’s wrong. “I trained to be better than you. Faster than you. Stronger than you. At the end of the day, I trained to be more merciful than you, too.”
“That’s what you call this?” Capri gestures to his legs. “Is this your idea of mercy?”
I stare back at him. Anger’s breathing into my bones, curling hands into fists. The Dread is right. Daddy sent me here not knowing whether I’d live or die. I’m wrestling with that, but it’s still his words that come to mind. I haven’t forgotten why I wanted to come in the first place.
“Nine hundred and seven.”
Capri stares back at me. “What?”
“Nine hundred and seven. That’s how many firstborns the Ashlords killed in the Purge after the Rebellion. Some were infants. Some were elderly. I had nine hundred and seven good reasons to bury you back in that canyon. You’re right. I don’t care what you do after this. I don’t care if you ever walk again. But every breath you take from here on out? Mercy. Every time your parents give you a hug? Mercy. Every time you see the sun rise? Mercy. You’re alive because of me. I gave you everything you have from here on out, and you’ll never forget that.”
I stand as sunlight starts edging through gaps in the scarecrow trees. We’re a little higher up than we were the day before, on a little plateau that precedes the waiting forest. Sunlight cuts a path to my ashes and stirs them, drawing life into my phoenix again. I ignore Capri and start sorting through my gear. It takes time to get my horse settled and saddled.
By the time I turn back, he’s started crying.
“My family won’t take me back,” Capri says. “Not like this.”
I pause to look at him. “Make that another difference between my people and yours.”
Taking up the canteen, I head toward the nearest creek. One feature of the Races is that the officials come in beforehand and treat all the rivers. They figured out a few years back that riders boiling water in pots wasn’t all that entertaining. No one cares about those kind of survival skills. They’d rather watch us fighting to protect our ashes or throwing people off cliffs. I let the clean water run into my canteen until it’s full. I’ll leave the canteen with him. It should be enough to keep him alive until I’ve crossed the finish line.