She lets an inch of rein through her fingers, and the Anemoi leap ahead. They’re terrifyingly strong, much stronger than the placid geldings she usually drives under Llyn, and the reins are already cutting into her waist where she stands braced against the pull, but she leans back and only gives them an inch. Just enough, they’re moving up—she steers them wide to pass the Whites, and it takes a whole lap, but when the next gold dolphin tips down, the Reds are in third.

The Blues have settled into the lead, a nose ahead of the Greens, who will pretend for another lap or two to make a fight of it. Diana settles behind them, and the Anemoi hate her for it; they want to run and as they fight for their heads she can feel her hands blistering inside the gauntlets, but it isn’t time yet. “Not yet!” she shouts to them, words whipped away on the wind. Her arms are screaming pain, and she remembers Marcella saying once—scornfully—that Diana is too small to hold four horses.

Fifth lap. The Greens drop back. Diana can see the charioteer leaning on the reins, holding his team in. For a while they run side by side, then the Greens are behind her and only the Blues block the view in front. Derricus is whipping up his bays, sending them easily ahead as the dolphin drops. He takes a moment as he flashes past the Imperial box to flourish his beaded driving whip, and Diana brings the reins down in a crack.

The Anemoi lunge forward so hard her vision slips, slamming her forward against the front of the chariot. Her whip flies out of her hand, gone in a flash, and she clutches the reins as the Reds come lunging out from behind the Blues and into the middle of the track. Three long strides and the straining chestnut noses pull even with the blue-enameled wheels. Derricus looks back and sees her; he gives his whip a casual crack over the heads of his blood bays.

I could win. The thought comes suddenly, and her hands tighten on the reins, blistered and fiery inside her gauntlets. Of course she’d wanted to win the minute she stepped into the chariot, but she hadn’t thought it would be possible. Raw charioteers never win their first race . . . but Derricus still thinks the Reds will pull up at the end. He’s barely stirring his team, and the Greens and the Whites have already given up.

I could win.