The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(23)

Although Kestrel knew most of this, it was as if the story she had known was a rough sculpture, and her father’s words sharp blows with a chisel, chipping details into marble until she could see the true shape hidden inside the stone.

“The Herrani believed they were untouchable,” he said. “They were almost right. They had mastered the sea. Their navy was far more sophisticated than ours, both in ships and training. Even if our navy had been more of a match for theirs, the sea was against us.”

“The green storms,” said Kestrel. Storm season was coming. It would last until spring, with squalls appearing out of nowhere along the sea routes and slamming into the shores, turning the sky an eerie green.

“Invasion by sea was suicide. By land it was impossible. There was no way to bring an army through the mountains. There was one pass, yet it was so narrow that an army would have had to squeeze through it almost in single file, and slowly, making it easy for Herrani forces to whittle away at ours until we were nothing.”

Kestrel knew what her father had done, but she hadn’t realized something until now. “You got all that black powder from the earlier conquest of the tundra.”

“Yes. We used it to pack the mountains and explode our way through that pass, widening it until the army could sweep down to victory. The Herrani weren’t prepared for a land invasion. Their strength was at sea.

“And their folly was in their early surrender. Of course, once I seized the city there was little they could do. Yet they still had their navy: a fleet of almost a hundred swift ships with cannon. I doubt they could have won the city back; the sailors would have had to come on land eventually and their numbers were smaller than ours, not very capable against cavalry. But their ships could have harassed us. Engaged in pirate attacks. They could have brought war to Valorian waters and used that damage to negotiate better terms of surrender. But I had the city and its people—and a reputation.”

Kestrel turned. She tugged a book of Herrani poetry off the shelf and paged through it. Her father was no longer looking at her, but into the past.

“So the Herrani surrendered,” he said. “They chose life as slaves over none at all. They gave us their ships, and with them our navy became the greatest in the known world. Every Valorian soldier can sail well now. I made sure you learned, too.”

Kestrel found the passage she was searching for. It was the beginning of a canto about a journey to magical islands where time had no meaning. It was a call to sailors to steer the ship toward open water. Set keel to the wave-breaks, she read. Set forth on the brine-hearted sea.

“There are many reasons we won,” her father said, “and I will teach them to you. But the most fundamental reason is simple. They were weak. We were not.”

He took her book and closed it.

*

Her meetings with the general were not frequent. He was busy, and Kestrel was grateful. Their conversations tipped her too easily between fascination and revulsion.

More leaves drifted from the trees. Summer warmth drained from the air. Kestrel barely noticed, for she stayed indoors, finding that she was able to forget most of what she had learned from her father while she played the piano. She played almost every free hour, now that she could. Music made her feel as if she were holding a lamp that cast a halo of light around her, and while she knew there were people and responsibilities in the darkness beyond it, she couldn’t see them. The flame of what she felt when she played made her deliciously blind.

Until the day she found something waiting for her in the music room. A small, ivory tile was balanced on the exact middle key of the piano. The Bite and Sting piece had been set facedown. The blank side looked up.

It searched her like a question … or an invitation.





14


“I began to think that you wouldn’t play someone you couldn’t beat,” said Arin.

Kestrel looked up from her piano to see him standing by the doors she had left open, then glanced at the Bite and Sting set lying on a table by the garden windows.

“Not at all,” said Kestrel. “I have been busy.”

His gaze flicked to the piano. “So I’ve heard.”

Kestrel moved to sit at the table and said, “I’m intrigued by your choice of room.”

He hesitated, and she thought he was ready to deny any responsibility of choice, to pretend that a ghost had left that tile on the piano. Then he shut the doors behind him. The room, though large, felt suddenly small. Arin crossed the room to join her at the table. He said, “I didn’t like playing in your suite.”

She decided not to take offense. She had asked him to be honest. Kestrel mixed the tiles, but when she set a box of matches on the table, he said, “Let’s play for something else.”

Kestrel didn’t move her hand from the box’s lid. Again she wondered what he could offer her, what he could gamble, and she could think of nothing.

Arin said, “If I win, I will ask a question, and you will answer.”

She felt a nervous flutter. “I could lie. People lie.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

“If those are your stakes, then I assume my prize would be the same.”

“If you win.”

She still could not quite agree. “Questions and answers are highly irregular stakes in Bite and Sting,” she said irritably.