Ferdi crossed paths with Sagittaria as he and his Glithern left the warm-up area. She said something that made him laugh, and Silver went cold. Were Sagittaria and Ferdi friends?
Silver quickly left the seawall and collected Hiyyan at the docks, adjusting their disguises to cover as much as possible. They paddled slowly to the warm-up area as the second race was off. Then, it was their turn to line up.
The seas churned with water dragons moving to the starting line for their heat. She looked warily all around—no Sagittaria, no guards, no Abruqs. Did they know who Desert Fox was under the mask? With a deep breath, she steered Hiyyan to the flag of Calidia marking the beginning of the course. Her hands tingled under fistfuls of mane. Her eyes trailed down to the camouin that she’d carefully wrapped around Hiyyan’s wings. He pressed against the metal instinctively, but he didn’t complain.
They were in lane two. On their left, closest to the seawall, was a Dwakka. This one was somewhat smaller than Sagittaria Wonder’s, but its two heads seemed just as observant, always swerving side to side. On their right, a familiar face snarled. It was the green-and-white Hop-Slawn from earlier, and it looked like it had never stopped being angry. Even now, the rider held tight to chains that attached in six different places on the water dragon’s faceplate, headpiece, and collar.
Hiyyan could be a touch reluctant about racing, but this dragon obviously hated it. Despite fearing the Hop-Slawn a bit, Silver felt horribly sorry for it.
Ferdi was silent, two dragons away, but his body was hunched over and his knuckles, wrapped around Hoonazoor’s reins, were white. Did Silver have any hope of beating him and his Glithern?
“Desert Fox!” A cry reached Silver from the seawall. She leaned forward to peer between the dragons around her.
What she saw made her body tingle as though festival fireworks had been set off in her belly. A group of people pressed against the wall, each of them wearing a rough facsimile of Silver’s fox mask. The tallest of them, standing in the back, waved a dark-brown flag with a desert-fox face in the center. They all cheered. It was a small group and their flag was unpolished, made up of scraps of fabric cut roughly, but that didn’t matter to Silver.
They were cheering for her. They wanted Hiyyan to win. They were there to support them.
She and Hiyyan had fans.
Silver swallowed an unexpected lump. She realized she was grinning so big her cheeks were beginning to hurt.
Look, Hiyyan. They’re here for us.
Silver forced her face muscles to relax, and lifted her hand in a wave. The group went wild, jumping up and down, whooping and hollering. The Dwakka rider, to her left, moved into her line of vision, blocking the desert-fox fans.
“You must be young if that group of dune beetles excites you,” the Hop-Slawn rider whispered to Silver. “You should quit racing while you’re ahead. My master will pay you your weight in gold to lose.”
Silver shot him a glare. “You couldn’t afford my price.”
“Name your price, then. My master’s made his fortune in silks. He can meet it. That Dwakka rider took my offer.”
Silver glanced at the Dwakka rider again. Her hair was gray, and her face, lined with years. Perhaps she was through with racing and wanted some rest. Silver hadn’t truly begun yet.
She faced the Hop-Slawn rider again. “That cape is very fine silk. But it’ll slow you down. Does your master force you to wear it? If so, he thinks more about his silks than about you.”
“I’m sure it’s the same for your master. Who owns your dragon?”
“No one owns him, and no one owns me.”
“No one, perhaps, but this race will. Forget my offer. I’ll wager your qualifying-race winnings that you don’t make it past the first obstacle.” The Hop-Slawn rider threw back his head and laughed. Even his water dragon snorted a few times.
Hiyyan sent ripples of warmth through his body to reassure Silver, but even he couldn’t dismiss her troubled thoughts. She’d talked so often about the feats Sagittaria Wonder had accomplished. The speed and the whirlpools … but Silver hadn’t let herself think about how she, too, would have to take on those same challenges.
Until now.
Silver pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. The starting bang sounded, and they were off.
FORTY-ONE
Hiyyan lowered his head to a point aimed at the finish line in the far distance. Silver rounded her back, keeping close to him. As the Aquinder bolted forward, Silver was stunned to see that the landscape of the racecourse was shifting before her eyes. Challenges rose from the water, course markers moved, and pieces of the sea seemed to disappear completely into blackness.
It’s changing, Silver thought to Hiyyan. She knew that the racemasters kept the details of the course shrouded in mystery to discourage cheating. Now, it seemed that they had come up with a constantly shifting course to make sure the riders couldn’t anticipate challenges.
Had Silver been less terrified, she would have been impressed. But her fear was making her hands tremble more than when she tried to set tiny jewels into gold.
Hiyyan sent her pulses of warmth, and she clenched her fists until they stilled.
“You’re right. Nowhere to go but forward,” she said.
Her water dragon gave one great roar, and the crowd matched his volume. Blood rushed into Silver’s cheeks.
Hiyyan’s legs worked furiously below the surface while Silver hung on tightly and searched for a glimpse of the first obstacle.
Their heat was well matched. No water dragon shot out in front, and none were left behind. That both comforted and worried Silver. It would be a close race, which meant the racers would fight for any slight advantage. She watched her opponents out of the corners of her eyes, on high alert for any dodgy activity.
Two lanes away, Ferdi skimmed the water, his face determined. Then his eyes went wide, and Silver whipped forward.
From the depths of the sea, oval creatures trailing long, thin tails shot into the sky. They were the size of Jaspatonian flatbreads, and their glossy black fins moved back and forth a few times as they reached their peak height, then they curled toward the riders and zoomed straight for them.
“Watch out,” Silver yelled.
Hiyyan deftly dodged the first attack just before a second creature shot at Silver. She leaned to her right, but the creature skimmed her arm with the sharp edge of its fin, opening a bloody line in her skin. She hissed and clapped her hand over the wound to suppress the bleeding as Hiyyan weaved side to side through the field of flying rays. When they reached the last wave of razor-finned sea creatures, the Aquinder pushed forward with all his might—thrusting them straight into the next obstacle.
Silver and Hiyyan dropped off the face of the earth.
At least, that’s how it felt when they tipped into the swirling hole that had opened across the racecourse. Here, then, was one of the famed whirlpools Sagittaria could ride through with hardly any effort.
Silver, on the other hand, panicked.
“Hiyyan!” she managed to scream before the seawater smacked her in the face and drowned out her words. Her head spun one direction and her body another, until she was too dizzy to see clearly.
Water sloshed up Hiyyan’s sides, the whirlpool emitting a high-pitched whistling sound. Something gripped her cut arm, and Silver screamed again.
“Stop fighting it!” Ferdi was next to her, somehow. “Look at me!”
But the water kept flinging, and Hiyyan kept spinning, and Silver couldn’t breathe. Her hands slipped from Hiyyan’s mane, and her hips slid across his back.