The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(20)

“That’s a trap.”

“No, it’s a bet. A bet that you like your independence too much not to fight alongside me.”

“I hope you see the irony in what you have just said.”

He smiled.

Kestrel said, “You will stop trying to persuade me? No more lectures?”

“None.”

“I will play the piano whenever I like. You won’t say a word about it.”

His smile shrank. “Fine.”

“And”—her voice faltered—“if I marry, it will be to whom I choose.”

“Of course. Any Valorian of our society will do.”

This was fair, she decided. “I agree.”

The general patted her cheek with a damp hand. “Good girl.”

*

Kestrel walked down the hall. The night before her father’s return she had lain awake, seeing the three bee tiles behind her closed eyes, and Irex’s knife, and her own. She had thought about how powerful she had felt in one situation, and how helpless in the other. She studied her life like a draw of Bite and Sting pieces. She believed she saw a clear line of play.

But she had forgotten that it was her father who had taught her that game.

Kestrel had the feeling that she had just made a very bad bargain.

She passed by the library, then stopped and returned to its open door. Two house slaves were inside, dusting. They paused at the sound of her feet on the threshold and looked at her—no, peered, as if they could see all her mistakes imprinted on her face.

Lirah, a lovely girl with greenish eyes, said, “My lady—”

“Do you know where Smith is?” Kestrel wasn’t sure what had made her use Arin’s other name. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she hadn’t shared his true one with anybody.

“At the forge,” Lirah said promptly. “But—”

Kestrel turned and walked toward the garden doors.

*

She thought that she had been seeking a light distraction. But when she heard the clang of metal on metal and saw Arin scraping a shaft of steel across the anvil with one set of tools and beating at it with another, Kestrel knew she had come to the wrong place.

“Yes?” he said, keeping his back to her. His workshirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands were sooty. He left the blade of the sword to cool on the anvil and moved to place another, shorter length of metal on the fire, which lined his profile with unsteady light.

She willed her voice to be her own. “I thought we could play a game.”

His dark brows drew together.

“Of Bite and Sting,” Kestrel said. More firmly, she added, “You implied you know how to play.”

He used tongs to stoke the fire. “I did.”

“You implied that you could beat me.”

“I implied that there was no reason a Valorian would want to play with a Herrani.”

“No, you worded things carefully so that what you said could be interpreted that way. But that isn’t what you meant.”

He faced her then, arms folded across his chest. “I have no time for games.” The tips of his fingers had black rings of charcoal dust buried under the nail and into the cuticle. “I have work to do.”

“Not if I say you don’t.”

He turned away. “I like to finish what I start.”

She meant to leave. She meant to leave him to the noise and heat. She meant to say nothing more. Instead, Kestrel found herself issuing a challenge. “You are no match for me anyway.”

He gave her the look she recognized well, the one of measured disdain. But this time, he also laughed. “Where do you propose we play?” He swept a hand around the forge. “Here?”

“My rooms.”

“Your rooms.” Arin shook his head disbelievingly.

“My sitting room,” she said. “Or the parlor,” she added, though it bothered her to think of playing Bite and Sting with him in a place so public to the household.

He leaned against the anvil, considering. “Your sitting room will do. I’ll come when I’ve finished this sword. After all, I have house privileges now. Might as well use them.” Arin started to say something else, then stopped, his gaze roving over her face. She grew uneasy.

He was staring, she realized. He was staring at her.

“You have dirt on your face,” he said shortly.

He returned to his work.

Later, in her bathing room, Kestrel saw it. The moment she tilted the mirror to catch the low, amber light of late afternoon, she saw what he had seen, as had Lirah, who had tried to tell her. A faint smudge traced the slope of her high cheekbone, darkened her cheek, and skimmed the line of her jaw. It was a handprint. It was the shadow left from her father’s gritty hand, from when he had touched her face to seal the bargain between them.





12


Arin had bathed. He was wearing house clothes, and when Kestrel saw him standing in the doorway his shoulders were relaxed. Without being invited, he strode into the room, pulled out the other chair at the small table where Kestrel waited, and sat. He arranged his arms in a position of negligent ease and leaned into the brocaded chair as if he owned it. He seemed, Kestrel thought, at home.

But then, he had also seemed so in the forge. Kestrel looked away from him, stacking the Bite and Sting tiles on the table. It occurred to her that it was a talent for Arin to be comfortable in such different environments. She wondered how she would fare in his world.