The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(14)

Jess was still speaking. “… then there was the auction—” She glanced self-consciously at Arin.

Kestrel did, too. His face was impassive, yet somehow more alert.

“Are you embarrassed to be my friend?” Kestrel asked Jess.

“How can you say that?” Jess looked genuinely hurt, and Kestrel regretted her question. It had been unfair, especially when Jess had just invited her to attend the picnic with her family.

“I’ll try,” Kestrel told her.

Jess was relieved. She did her best to dispel the tension by predicting, in minute detail, which foods would be served at the party and which sweethearts were most likely to behave scandalously. “All the handsome young men will be there.”

“Hmm,” said Kestrel, turning her glass in a full circle where it rested on the table.

“Did I tell you Faris will debut her baby at the picnic?”

“What?” Kestrel’s hand stopped.

“The little boy is six months now, and we should have perfect weather. It’s the ideal opportunity to introduce him to society. Why do you look so surprised?”

Kestrel shrugged. “It’s a bold move.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Because the baby’s father is not Faris’s husband.”

“No,” Jess whispered in mock horror. “How do you know?”

“I don’t, not for certain. But I visited Faris at home recently and saw the baby. He is far too beautiful. He doesn’t resemble Faris’s older children one bit. Actually”—Kestrel tapped her glass—“if it is true, the best way to hide it is to do exactly as Faris plans. No one would believe a society lady would brazenly debut an illegitimate child at the season’s biggest party.”

Jess gaped, then laughed. “Kestrel, the god of lies must love you!”

Kestrel seemed to feel rather than hear the sharp intake of breath from across the room.

“What did you say?” Arin whispered in Valorian. He was staring at Jess.

She glanced between him and Kestrel, uncertain. “The god of lies. The Herrani one. Valorians don’t have gods, you know.”

“Of course you have no gods. You have no souls.”

Kestrel rose to her feet. He had advanced on them. She thought of when the auctioneer had commanded him to sing and the slave’s anger had practically trembled off his skin. “That’s enough,” she ordered.

“My god loves you?” Arin’s gray eyes were narrow. His chest heaved once. Then he screwed his fury down, deep inside him. He held Kestrel’s gaze, and she saw that he was aware he had betrayed exactly how well he knew her language. In a determinedly even voice, Arin asked Jess, “How do you know he loves her?”

Kestrel started to speak, but Arin lifted a hand to stop her. Shocked, Jess said, “Kestrel?”

“Tell me,” Arin demanded.

“Well…” Jess tried to laugh. “He must, mustn’t he? Kestrel sees the truth of things so clearly.”

His mouth went cruel. “I doubt that.”

“Kestrel, he is your property. Aren’t you going to do something?”

These words, instead of making her act, were paralyzing.

“You think you see the truth,” he said to Kestrel in Herrani, “because people let you believe it. If you accuse a Herrani of a lie, do you think he will dare deny it?”

A horrible thought struck her. She felt the blood trickle icily from her face. “Jess. Give me your earrings.”

“What?” Jess was woefully confused.

“Loan them to me. Please. I’ll bring them back.”

Jess unhooked the earrings and set them in Kestrel’s outstretched hand. The golden glass droplets glimmered up at her. Or were they glass? The Herrani jewelry seller in the market had said they were topaz before faltering under Kestrel’s accusation that they were not.

Kestrel had paid more than glass was worth, but not nearly as much as jewels would cost. Maybe they had been topaz, and the seller too afraid to insist on the truth.

Shame shuddered through Kestrel. The room had fallen silent, Jess fidgeting with the lace cuffs on her sleeves, Arin looking maliciously glad that his words to Kestrel had shot home.

“We’re leaving,” she told him.

He gave no further sign of resistance. She knew it wasn’t out of fear that she would punish him. It was because he was now secure in the certainty that she never would.

*

Kestrel burst out of the carriage and strode into the shop of the most reputed Valorian jeweler in the city. Arin followed.

“I want to know if these are real.” Kestrel dropped the earrings with a rolling clatter onto the table in front of the jeweler.

“Topaz?” he asked.

She found it hard to speak. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

The jeweler peered at the droplets through a lens, then said, “Hard to tell. I’d like to compare them with stones I know are true. It might take a while.”

“Take your time.”

“My lady.” Arin spoke in his language, his voice all politeness, as if his outburst in the parlor had never happened. “May I walk around the market?”

She glanced at him. It was an unusual request, and he couldn’t have been very hopeful that it would be granted, especially not after his earlier behavior.