The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(16)

Arin rolled his eyes. He moved to leave.

“Hey,” said Cheat, “what about my weapons?”

“I’m working on it.”

*

Out of the corner of her eye, Kestrel saw Arin walking into the jeweler’s in time to hear the old man say, “I’m sorry, my lady, but these are false. Just pretty bits of glass.”

Kestrel sagged in relief.

“No need to be too disappointed,” the jeweler told her. “You can tell your friends they’re topaz. None will be the wiser.”

Later, in the carriage, she said to Arin, “I want you to tell me the truth.”

His face seemed to pale. “The truth?”

She blinked. Then she understood the miscommunication. She couldn’t help a twinge of offense: Arin believed her the sort of mistress who would pry into a slave’s personal life, to want details about a meeting with a friend. She studied him, and his hand made an odd gesture, lifting toward his temple to brush away something invisible. “I’m not trying to invade your privacy,” she said. “Your secrets are your own.”

“So you want me to inform on other slaves,” he said flatly. “To report their misdeeds to you. To say if someone steals bread from the larder, or an orange from the grove. I won’t do it.”

“That isn’t what I am asking.” Kestrel weighed her words before speaking again. “You were right. People tell me what they think I want to hear. What I hope is that you will feel free to be honest with me, as you were in Jess’s parlor. I’d like to know how you truly see things.”

Slowly, he said, “That would be valuable to you. My honesty.”

“Yes.”

There was a silence. Then he said, “I might feel more free to speak if I were more free to roam.”

Kestrel heard the bargain in his words. “I can arrange that.”

“I want the privileges of a house slave.”

“They are yours.”

“And the right to visit the city on my own. Just once in a while.”

“To see your friend.”

“My sweetheart, actually.”

Kestrel paused. “Very well,” she said.





10


“Oh, no.” Kestrel smiled across the gaming table. She and the other three Bite and Sting players sat on the terrace, in full view of Lady Faris’s guests, who wandered over the grass. “You don’t want to do that,” Kestrel told the young man sitting opposite her.

Lord Irex’s finger paused on the blank-backed tile he had set down, ready to flip and show the engraving on its hidden side. His mouth tightened, then curled into a sneer.

Ronan glanced at Kestrel from his corner of the gaming table. He, too, knew Irex’s ruthless nature, and they both knew that it served Irex well, at least in hand-to-hand combat. He had won the last spring tournament, an event organized every year to display the weapons skills of Valorians not yet enlisted in the military.

“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Ronan said, idly mixing his ivory tiles. Benix, the fourth player, kept his thoughts to himself. Neither of them knew that Irex had approached Kestrel after taking the spring prize. At the celebratory party hosted by the governor, Irex had edged her into an alcove and made an advance. His eyes had looked almost black, oily with arrogance. Kestrel had laughed and slipped away.

“I am sure you’re very pleased to have a pair of foxes,” Kestrel told Irex now, “but you’ll have to do better.”

“I set down my tile,” Irex said coldly. “I cannot take it back.”

“I’ll let you take it back. Just this once.”

“You want me to take it back.”

“Ah. So you agree that I know what tile you mean to play.”

Benix shifted his weight on Lady Faris’s delicate chair. It creaked. “Flip the damn tile, Irex. And you, Kestrel: Quit toying with him.”

“I’m merely offering friendly advice.”

Benix snorted.

Kestrel watched Irex watch her, his anger mounting as he couldn’t decide whether Kestrel’s words were a lie, the well-meant truth, or a truth she hoped he would judge a lie. He flipped the tile: a fox.

“Too bad,” said Kestrel, and turned over one of hers, adding a third bee to her other two matching tiles. She swept the four gold coins of the ante to her side of the table. “See, Irex? I had only your best interests at heart.”

Benix blew out a gusty sigh. He settled back in his protesting chair, shrugged, and seemed the perfect picture of amused resignation. He kept his head bowed while he mixed the Bite and Sting tiles, but Kestrel saw him shoot Irex a wary glance. Benix, too, had seen the rage that turned Irex’s face into stone.

Irex shoved back from the table. He stalked over the flagstone terrace to the grass, which bloomed with the highest members of Valorian society.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Benix told Kestrel.

“It was,” she said. “He’s tiresome. I don’t mind taking his money, but I cannot take his company.”

“You couldn’t spare a thought for me before chasing him away? Maybe I would like a chance to win his gold.”

“Lord Irex can spare it,” Ronan added.

“Well, I don’t like poor losers,” said Kestrel. “That’s why I play with you two.”