Finally, they were nearing the tunnel into the raceway. A dragon a few spots ahead in the procession balked and reared at the last moment, tossing the rider from the saddle. The rider scrambled to his feet immediately, but the dragon had taken off in the direction of the stables. Two people in Silverscale marshal’s shirts jumped into action, one going after the dragon on a little motorized buggy, the other talking sharply into a radio.
Asta steered Carmine around the hubbub and through the main gate.
Horizons Raceway was brilliant and loud and alive.
Encircled by the flat outer track, the terrain of the middle section of the course was fully assembled now. The illusion of the racers of the past two centuries, which Asta had seen earlier, paraded up the jagged mountainside. This time, when the dragon in the magical procession roared, the sound that came through the speakers shook the air. The lower part of the terrain was dressed up in its magic illusions, too, with rushing rivers, dank culverts and raging bonfires.
What Asta had not noticed before, probably because of the brightness of the sky, was that the entire dome over the track was alive with moving images– flying dragons and billowing bursts of flame, talons tearing into the track and riders bent in their saddles. The sight of it took her breath away.
But even more overwhelming than the illusions were the people. The stands stretched away from Asta on either side, bending around as they reached the far point of the track’s oval. The upper tiers were closed off tonight to keep the crowds fuller down below, but it was still more people than Asta had ever seen in one place. The crowds were in constant, chaotic motion, like an active nest of fire ants. Fans were waving team banners, dancing, screaming. Ecstatic music filled the air.
Aside from Gem and maybe Allie Vorajee, Asta was pretty sure no one had noticed her entrance to the track. Felix was right. She was nobody.
For now, anyway. Let her race, and they wouldn’t be able to forget her. Finally, she would get her chance. Asta let the crowd’s cheering push against her chest. She smiled. She had never heard anything like these bewitching voices that seemed to blend into one voice, but she loved it. It was a sound she could ride.
The screens on the Needle showed the dragons and their riders, one pair after another, as they dashed down the straightaway of the outer track. That had been the instruction that Flávia had given them at the end of the dinner. Two at a time. As soon as the track ahead of you is clear. Basma and the drake rider that she had been paired with took off. Asta counted– one, two, three, four– and waited for the signal from the Silverscale marshal standing to the side of the entryway. There it was.
Asta loosened Carmine’s reins and gripped his sides with her legs. Beneath her, she felt his muscles tense and release into the sprint. She had not worn her helmet for this short dash, and the wind whipped tears from her eyes. Her honey-blonde hair streamed back from her forehead and temples. Carmine extended his wings and pumped once, twice, adding a burst of speed to their dash down the track. Dust boiled up in the wind behind them.
They had been told not to let the western dragons use their wings, but Carmine was jittery from the noise, and he had taken Asta by surprise. By the time Carmine folded his wings again, they were running well ahead of Ivan and his drake.
‘Bad boy,’ Asta said, but she didn’t mean it. Every time Carmine spread his wings, even if they never left the ground, it made her heart skip a beat. Unfortunately, they were now four full body lengths ahead of Ivan, and Carmine was a strong sprinter, hard to dissuade once he had taken on speed. According to the instructions, they were supposed to enter the first turn side by side.
Asta had an idea. She eased herself back in the saddle over Carmine’s center of gravity and signaled with two quick tugs to the right on the reins. Carmine instantly responded. Without missing a stride, he snaked his head around to the right, catching the indigo feathers of his own tail in his mouth so that he held the shape of a circle. Like a giant merry-go-round, he spun down the track, two full turns, then righted himself and ran straight again as if nothing had happened.
Asta thought she detected the faintest stir in the crowd– not a cheer, not a jeer, not anything more than a ripple. Not a lot of people had been paying any attention to this end of the procession.
Ivan and his drake were still lagging by a couple of body lengths, so Asta tugged the reins on the left side, and Carmine repeated the trick in reverse. This time, the response from the crowd was a bit more vocal– eddies of delight and confusion in among the rest of the cheering.
Ivan caught up just as they reached the turn in the track. They both slowed their dragons to a jog.
Ivan pounded the dust from his race suit with irritation. ‘That was out of line,’ he barked at Asta.
Basma, trotting along in front of them, turned in her saddle and looked back at Asta and Ivan.
Asta’s high spirits soured. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
Basma looked confused.
‘Apparently,’ Ivan explained, ‘they dotricks.’ The word sounded like a curse. He glared at Asta.
‘I– well, Carmine got excited. We got ahead.’ Carmine had the utter indecency to toss his head proudly. He had warmed up to the cheers quickly and was basking in the attention. Asta couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t prancing a little. ‘I had to slow us down somehow, so I just– we—’
Ivan made a sound of disgust. ‘This isn’t a damned circus. Don’t pull that crap again.’
‘I’m not going to,’ Asta said, defensive. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘My ass.’ Ivan pulled hard on his dragon’s reins, and it jogged away from Asta. ‘Westerns,’ he added, loud enough for Asta to hear. ‘All a bunch of egotistical assholes.’
Basma looked at Asta with an arched eyebrow and turned to face forward again to focus on the procession.
Asta was horrified to see, glancing up at the screens, that one of the cameras was still tracking along with her and Ivan. This entire raceway full of people would have seen that conversation, even if they couldn’t hear it. She could very well imagine the announcers on TV laughing about it, providing their own interpretation of Ivan’s bitter expression, her stammering. She wished with all her heart that she hadn’t done such a boneheaded thing.
She was relieved at first when the feed cut away from her, but, to her horror, it started showing a replay of her little stunt. She could see the other riders in the procession looking up at the screens and exclaiming to each other.
She wondered if Felix had seen. Did he remember?
The spins were something that the two of them used to do when they were teenagers. They called it the Running Corkscrew, and it had taken them months to perfect. Sometimes, they would spin the dragons so many times that all of them got dizzy, and she and Felix had to cling to their saddles as Essie and Carmine stumbled around the field.
