So my plan is simple enough. About a quarter of my Will is flooding my legs; that should be enough to keep me steady, to withstand even the hardest collision that doesn’t completely wreck my chariot. I’ve allowed more for my arm and torso; I won’t be able to steer without it.
The rest is in Aequa’s stone horse. I haven’t left any excess for further protection.
“Ready?” Tertius Decimus has stepped off the sand. His voice booms as he holds his hand aloft, the question rhetorical. The senators in the surrounding stands are transfixed and silent.
A long moment for effect. Iro’s father is smiling. I’m going to wipe the expression from his face in seven laps’ time.
His hand drops, and our chariots burst into jolting, thundering, grinding motion.
XXIX
VEK.
Even braced and with a full four people’s Will flooding my legs, the explosion forward makes me sway, veins standing out on my arm as I grip the iron reins to stop myself from toppling. Rotting gods. This isfast. Wooden wheels clatter and the stone ones grind along the sand with a roaring, chest-shaking thrum. Everything vibrates. The chariot feels like it’s about to fall apart. I barely manage to keep the image of Aequa’s horse in my head; when I recover enough to risk a half glance to my left, I’m relieved to see her chariot hurtling violently forward too. My mental control is working, and the Will I imbued seems roughly equivalent to the others’, at least based on our respective speeds. A good start.
We hit the first corner. Ahead, Marcellus’s red chariot and Felix’s white one weave, almost touching wheels. Iro is out ahead of them. I grapple with the reins, pulling to the left but curving wide, too cautious and too fast as I learn how the chariot responds. Aequa’s behind me but as my mental sense of her stone wheel hits the curve I slow her, feeling it as she cuts inward, far more sharply than I did. There’s an abrupt shiver in my forcing her forward, and I let out a wild laugh at a shout of concern from Indol. Not even a lap in, and she’s ramming him.
I almost turn to check on her success when, abruptly, I realise I don’t have to.
Through the thunder, I focus.
My awareness of the other imbued wheels isn’t as strong as it is for Aequa’s, of course, but it’s definitely there. Those same uneasy pulses in my head, neither light nor sound. I can mentally pinpoint every single chariot on the track without looking.
I quickly assess, muscles bunching as my own chariot leaps forward with renewed vigour to careen out of the corner into the straight. I’m in a small pocket by myself right now: Iro’s blue is ahead with Marcellus and Felix not far behind, and the other four are clumped together behind me. Worryingly close to one another, in fact.
Aequa has broken away from Indol again—he’s survived the clash, clearly—but someone is heading hard toward her, not slowing enough for the corner and charging at her left side as she hits the turn. No doubt what they’re trying to accomplish. No telling whether Aequa even knows they’re there.
I pull hard on her stone horse, slowing her sharply and silently praying the abrupt change of pace doesn’t throw her. The attacker’s too close and flies by through the space where she should have been, sliding wide. I feel Aequa correct slightly to the left. She hasn’t fallen off. I drive her forward again, into the gap left by the attack. She bursts into the straight, distance between her and whoever tried to take her out.
The oppressive grinding of stone fills my ears, chatters my teeth. Sand sprays from beneath the massive wheel as my chariot flies faster and faster. I try not to panic. I do not feel in control. I am not safe. This was a stupid idea. The others will have no clue that I’ve taken such a wild risk; any of the other teams could easily kill me by simply hitting me. Those thundering stone wheels are death to anyone not properly self-imbued.
As I wrestle my chariot into the next corner, though, I adjust to the juddering madness of the ride. My mind catches up to the scenery flashing by. Assesses. Iro is surging ahead; Indol’s strength is showing through on the straight, already widening the gap between his partner and everyone else. It’s probably a planned move on their behalf: Indol focuses on keeping Iro in the lead, while Iro just makes sure Indol stays in the race. Risky—unlike me, Indol won’t be able to see Iro’s competition if they get too far apart, and vice versa—but it’s easier in a lot of ways. Effective in its simplicity.
We emerge from the curve and fly into the straight closest to the watching senators. Adapting though I may be, I don’t have the confidence to spare them a glance. Ahead, Iro’s blue chariot grinds across the invisible line denoted by the seven leaping stone dolphins at the track’s edge. The first tips forward to mark his passing. I follow a couple of seconds after.
One lap down.
I’m gaining on Marcellus and Felix, who are thundering almost side by side just up ahead. Felix’s white is on the outside. He veers slightly in, I think trying to spook Marcellus into moving rather than attempting to ram him. The wheels on their chariots graze one another. Marcellus doesn’t budge. Felix eases off. He doesn’t actually want to collide; serious contact from that position could easily result in both of them crashing out.
Iro hits the corner ahead but almost too hard; his chariot sways as he wrestles with the reins, pulling urgently to the left as he tries to wrest it into a smooth turn. Indol’s got enough control to slow him just slightly, though, and Iro’s panicked pulling eases into a managed steer as he takes a sharp line around the curve. He’s putting distance between himself and everyone else.
“You know what to do, Aequa,” I mutter between clenched teeth. Indol’s last right now—not by a long way, but in a position where he’s not in any danger of being hit. Aequa’s not far behind me, the extra Will I put into her chariot paying off, but Livia was right. Indol’s imbuing is too strong. We need to disrupt him. And I’m the one ahead.
So I ease off my propelling of her chariot. It feels counterintuitive, but we need to do this now; Indol and Iro will pull too far away if allowed to continue with this tactic. Aequa’s smart enough to understand what we need.
I use the breathing room I have right now to focus on my teammate. Feel the beacon of my own imbuing slow, slide back toward the pursuing three duller pulses. For a moment Aequa doesn’t deviate and I wonder whether she’s realised what’s happening, but then she sheers off to the right, away from the pounding stone coming up on her rear. Two of the pulses pass her almost in lockstep: that must be Tiberius and Diana, fighting it out. Indol isn’t far behind them, but though he veers in the opposite direction to Aequa, he doesn’t slow. Iro’s too far ahead to see what’s happening.
I cut into the next corner hard, trusting Aequa’s superior control to let me push at as sharp an angle as possible. There’s a flash of panic as it feels as though my green chariot’s about to tip over from the momentum. My left wheel lifts, then thuds back to the sand; I gasp as it does, terror firing through me. But I’m through. Still balanced, thanks to the excess of Will anchoring my legs.
And as I emerge this time, I’ve gained several feet on the three in front of me.
Indol and Aequa are in the corner behind me. Indol seems to realise what Aequa is doing and is trying to position himself to ram her, but when Aequa swings hard for the inside of the track, I see what she’s doing and slow her sharply. Indol’s going too fast, and I suspect Iro has no idea what’s happening back there. Indol is forced to go wider to make the corner. He emerges from it in front of Aequa.
I fling my teammate out of the bend, pouring speed into her chariot. She arrows toward Indol. She knows what I need her to do. When Aequa is no more than a few feet away, I match her speed to his. Let her sit on his tail, her grinding stone wheel a thundering fear in his ears.
No point in risking a collision. Not yet. All I need is for Indol to have something to think about other than Iro.
Iro’s pace doesn’t falter, but he enters the curve ahead too fast and slews wide, slowing a second later than he would have wanted. It’s not much, but Felix and Marcellus—white and red still close to each other, though Felix has dropped back slightly—take the turn better. Aequa’s control of my chariot’s speed continues to be perfect, and I scream out of the corner not more than ten feet behind Felix.
