24 #2
From her first glimpse of a Silverscale race on her father’s old TV, Asta had known that she was meant to ride dragons.
Not just ride them. That wasn’t enough for her.
She couldn’t see herself prancing around a show ring, winning medals for perfect pirouettes.
She was meant to fly, to reach that speed at which there is nothing else but forward motion and the rush of wind. And that meant racing.
Back when it was just her and Felix in the fields, she had no doubts about what she wanted to do with her life.
But as soon as she got to Pillar, it was all status and politics and gossip.
The tournaments were no better – everyone trying to claw their way to recognition, and the organizers happily accepting the entry fees, even knowing that, for most competitors, their dreams would amount to a hill of beans.
Debt and obscurity, if they were lucky. Worse, if they weren’t.
The only people who had ever seemed happy to Asta were the people who raced for the fun of it, without ambition, but she had never been one of those people. It was always Silverscale or nothing. At Silverscale, she told herself, all the nonsense would drop away, and at least she could just ride.
But that hadn’t happened. Silverscale turned out to be the same as all those little tournaments, the same as Pillar, only on a bigger scale.
Petty rivalries became a matter of life and death.
Hummer could terrorize his own family and threaten whoever got in his way because the prize was worth it.
Felix’s whole life had been claimed by the pursuit of that damned Silverscale title.
Making Silverscale her one and only dream, Asta had come to believe the same lie that Felix had – that she was racing, that there was nothing more to her than that.
This place took hold of people, and it ate them alive.
‘Before I ever knew what racing was really like,’ Asta said dreamily, thinking back to her days in the fields in Medley with Felix, running the Double Decker or the Ricochet, ‘I thought it would be this big adventure. But I got here, and it’s—’ She thought of walking into Horizons Raceway for the first time.
‘It’s so much smaller than I thought it was. ’
‘Smaller?’ Allie looked confused.
‘Not literally. It all just feels so . . . limited. If I raced the way I really wanted to?’ Asta laughed at the thought. ‘They wouldn’t know what to do with me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Allie asked, leaning in. ‘How do you want to race?’
But something had clicked in Asta’s brain. She had to find Felix.
‘Allie, I am so sorry, but I have to go.’
Allie was caught off guard. ‘Oh, wow. Okay.’ They started to say something else, but Asta was already out the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ Asta called over her shoulder.
Asta took off at a run for Essie’s stable, weaving between fans, riders, and Silverscale staff on the crowded sidewalk.
Out of the corner of her eye, Asta caught sight of movement on the other side of the housing unit – a flash between buildings moving in the same direction she was.
Someone was following her. She quickened her pace, racing against her unseen pursuer on the other side of the building.
Suddenly, she darted through the gap between Housing Units 3 and 4 and planted her feet.
Karol Bruce nearly knocked her over.
‘Hello, Karol,’ Asta said.
Asta assessed the young man before her. The purple color of his bruise from Nat’s boot to his face had taken on a slightly green hue overnight. He would probably be sorry to see it fade. It gave him an air of toughness that he had always lacked, being something of a sniveler.
‘Why are you following me?’ Asta demanded. The dragons were vocal in their stalls, chuffing and bellowing. The stable hands must be late with breakfast.
‘Hummer doesn’t trust you,’ Karol growled. ‘Thinks you’re going to blab. So I’m watching you.’
Asta’s stomach sickened, but she couldn’t let Karol smell her fear. ‘Or he’s just tired of you hanging around him all the time. And sending you to stalk me is cheaper than a babysitter.’
Karol scowled. ‘You better do your fucking job, or you’ll be the one needing a babysitter.’
Asta narrowed her eyes. ‘Why would I need a babysitter?’
‘You’ll see,’ Karol answered, reveling in his own vague menace.
It struck Asta that no one of the Bruce clan, on their own, scared her as much as the whole gang of them.
Separated from the pack of his cousins, Karol seemed little more than an overgrown boy pretending to be a tough guy.
There was something so pathetic about him that it seemed to shrink him down to the size of a tabletop illusion.
A leer crept into his face. ‘How you gonna do it, Ek? You gonna screw Seraphin into submission?’
‘You’re disgusting.’ Asta turned away. Let him follow her. She wasn’t obligated to talk with him.
‘Hey, you’re the one with your legs in the air. Does he know you’re screwing Nat, too?’
Asta spun and punched him hard, right on his fading bruise.
Karol wheeled and bent over, fingers to his brow. ‘Fuck!’
‘Don’t talk to me like that.’
‘Hummer’s going to be so mad when I tell him you hit me.’
‘He’ll give me a goddamned medal, you butt crust.’
Karol winced and touched the new bruise gingerly. ‘Bitch. You want me to turn you in? Fixing the Grand Prix? Going after Seraphin? Your ass wouldn’t be worth shit.’
Asta went cold. ‘You wouldn’t dare. If I go down, Hummer goes down. You go down.’
A look of disdain crossed Karol’s face. ‘Sounds like you think you’re one of the family, Ek.
Doesn’t work that way. You get caught, we’ll tell ’em we had no part of it.
Maybe you went crazy on your fuckboy out of jealousy.
Saw him with some other chick and tried to take him out.
Not so hard to believe. You done it once already. ’
Karol sneered at Asta. ‘Nat can tell ’em.’ Karol mimicked Nat’s voice, making it girlish and whimpering. ‘“The things she said she’d do to him! It scared me!”’
Asta stiffened. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’
‘Her idea,’ Karol replied. He looked happy to be able to say this, to see the hurt in Asta’s face as she tried not to believe it.