‘We’re here,’ she said in a reverent tone.
He crossed his arms, a proud smile on his face. ‘You got us here.’
Asta climbed off the bed to examine a square door mounted in the wall about eye level between the two beds. She unlatched it and swung it open. Almost before she realized what was happening, Carmine snaked his head through the opening, splaying his neck frill in satisfaction.
Asta grinned. ‘Hey, buddy!’ Carmine began his inspection. ‘Nice, huh?’
‘God, what reeks?’ Gem said.
‘Can’t handle the smell of a stable, city boy?’
‘Do we have to keep that thing open?’
‘Yes,’ Asta said. ‘I’m not leaving Carmy alone over there.’
Carmine snorted loudly at his name, a hint of smoke in the jets of his breath.
‘No fair. Two against one.’ Gem picked up his bag and set it on his bed.
‘It’s us against everyone. Isn’t that right, buddy?’ Asta said, reaching up to tickle the feathery tuft, the color of redcurrant wine, that sprouted under Carmine’s chin. He churred happily. ‘You like this place? All we need to do is win that prize money, and I can build us one of these to live in all the time. How about that?’
The dragon booted her shoulder playfully with his nose.
‘Okay, then you have to be a fast dragon. Can you do that? Are you so fast? Are you?’ She grabbed his curved, gleaming horns and wrestled his head back and forth. He made a show of fighting back, though he could have tossed Asta across the room with a flick of his neck if he wanted to. ‘Yes, you are. Youareso fast.’
‘You could build more than that with the prize money,’ Gem said, half to himself. ‘You could build a freaking empire.’
‘Maybe I will,’ she said. Carmine’s horns had left shiny little flakes on her palms, and she wiped them on her pant legs.
It was an unbelievable amount of money. The little purses that she and Carmine had won at their tournaments this past year had barely been enough to pay for food and lodging. She hadn’t even been able to pay a regular crew. Luckily, Hummer Bruce, the head of a rather infamous racing family and Asta’s unofficial mentor, had seen fit to use Asta’s pit as a training ground for whichever of his surly nieces and nephews needed some whipping into shape. Once they got good at it, they crewed for Natalia, the star Bruce racer and Hummer’s great-niece. Someone like Felix – who considered the Bruces the lowlifes of the racing world – would have taken treatment like that as an insult, but to Asta it felt like generosity.
It certainly wasn’t a posh arrangement, but it worked. Hummer had brought her on as Nat’s training partner– making Asta an employee, not an official Bruce racer. She didn’t wear their crest or get the benefit of any of their invitations to the good tournaments. Even Torque, Asta’s crew boss and the designated wrangler of the apprentices, was on loan from Hummer. If he was needed by the Bruces on any given weekend, Asta couldn’t race, and that was that. Still, Asta never once complained. If it weren’t for Hummer, crass and pigheaded though he was, she wouldn’t have been able to race at all.
Asta liked Torque and he liked her, but she was done allowing him to work for her on Hummer’s dime. After this, she was going to offer him a full-time job. He could name his price. All she had to do was beat every other world-class rider who had come here dead set on beatingher.
Simple.
And it did feel simple to Asta. It felt inevitable, like the prize was already hers, even though no woman had won in the Standard Western category in over fifty years. Even though she was coming in without finishing her training at Pillar, without a sponsor or a racing house to back her. Even though she would be taking the track at the Grand Prix in a race suit her mother had made for her when she was a teenager. Even so, Asta knew she was going to win. She needed to.
It was perhaps the only true advantage she’d ever had over Felix. He had a pit crew the size of a small army. His gear was top of the line. And he was brilliant on the track. He always had been. Everyone expected him to go home with the trophy again this year. It was basically his birthright. The Grand Prix had been won by more Seraphins– going back six generations– than by any other racing family in the history of the tournament.
To the outside observer, it might seem like this was Felix Seraphin’s race. But Asta knew better. Felix Seraphin had every advantage a person could ask for, but he didn’t have what she had. He didn’tneedto win.
‘I like your confidence,’ Gem said with something less than complete enthusiasm. He was unfolding and refolding his clothes as he put them into the dresser. He always got extra fussy whenever he was about to start nagging. ‘Just remember, Asta, all we really need is a sponsor for next season. Make a splash, and you’re set. You don’t need to win the whole thing for this tournament to be a success.’ Gem, in his capacity as her manager, had been trying to convince Asta of this fact ever since they qualified for Silverscale. He wanted to temper her expectations, keep her grounded.
But what Gem didn’t know was that Asta didn’t have the luxury of waiting for next season.
She had spent everything she had and then some getting here. She’d even had to borrow money from Hummer to pay for the entrance fee and the lodging. Gem, who pestered Asta constantly over the state of her finances, had been surprised when she pulled out the wad of cash to cover the fees. He’d questioned her about it, and Asta had snapped at him, making up some lame excuse.
‘It’s old prize money from last year that I forgot to put in the bank. Sue me. You know I suck at money.’ Asta had felt guilty about lying to her cousin, but she wasn’t about to tell him she had borrowed it from the Bruces.
It was better that he didn’t know. He didn’t need another reason to worry. Gem had been happy when Asta told him, a few weeks after leaving Pillar, that she had gotten a job with one of the oldest racing families in the country. But as soon as she mentioned, as casually as possible, her training partner’s name, his face had blanched.
‘NataliaBruce. As in,thoseBruces. The street racers.’ Under Hummer’s father, Old Bruce, the family had only ever been tournament racers. Granted, even on the track they had been famous for bending the rules to the breaking point, but in street racing, there were no rules. Hummer had made a side business out of hosting street races in Port Veracruz on the weeknights between tournaments. Street racing wasn’t a strictly legal pastime, but it was lucrative. Especially once Hummer got the bookies involved.
Asta had tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Yeah,thoseBruces. So what?’
‘Aren’t they dangerous?’
