The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(37)

Kestrel’s foot moved forward. Then another step, and another, and she was ready to run from the sight of spilled gold until a memory sliced through her mindless panic. She saw Irex’s dimpled smile. She felt his hand gripping hers. She saw weapons on walls, him flipping a Bite and Sting tile, his boots crushing Lady Faris’s lawn, heel digging a divot of grass and dirt. She saw his eyes, so dark they were almost black.

Kestrel knew what she had to do.

She went downstairs to the library and wrote two letters. One was to her father, the other to Jess and Ronan. She folded them, stamped the wax seals with her seal ring, and put the writing materials away. She was holding the letters in one hand, the wax firm yet still warm against the skin, when she heard footsteps beating down the marble hall, coming closer.

Arin stepped inside the library and shut the door. “You won’t do it,” he said. “You won’t duel him.”

The sight of Arin shook her. She wouldn’t be able to think straight if he continued to speak like that, to look at her like that. “You do not give me orders,” Kestrel said. She moved to leave.

He blocked her path. “I know about the delivery. He sent you a death-price.”

“First my dress, and now this? Arin, one would think you are monitoring everything I send and receive. It is none of your business.”

He seized her by the shoulders. “You are so small.”

Kestrel knew what he was doing, and hated it, hated him for reminding her of her physical weakness, of the same failure that her father witnessed whenever he watched her fight with Rax. “Let go.”

“Make me let you go.”

She looked at Arin. Whatever he saw in her eyes loosened his hands. “Kestrel,” he said more quietly, “I have been whipped before. Lashes and death are different things.”

“I won’t die.”

“Let Irex set my punishment.”

“You’re not listening to me.” She would have said more, but realized that his hands still rested on her shoulders. A thumb was pressing gently against her collarbone.

Kestrel caught her breath. Arin startled, as if out of sleep, and pulled away.

He had no right, Kestrel thought. He had no right to confuse her. Not now, when she needed a clear mind.

Everything had seemed so simple last night in the close dark of the carriage.

“You are not allowed,” Kestrel said, “to touch me.”

Arin’s smile was bitter. “I suppose that means we are no longer friends.”

She said nothing.

“Good,” he said, “then you can have no reason for fighting Irex.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand your godsforsaken Valorian honor? I don’t understand that your father would probably rather see you gutted than live with a daughter who turned away from a duel?”

“You have very little faith in me, to think that Irex would win.”

He raked a hand through his short hair. “Where is my honor in all this, Kestrel?”

They locked eyes, and she recognized his expression. It was the same one she had seen across the Bite and Sting table. The same one she had seen in the pit, when the auctioneer had told Arin to sing.

Refusal. A determination so cold it could blister the skin like metal in winter.

She knew that he would stop her. Perhaps he would be cunning about it. Maybe he would go to the steward behind her back, tell him of the theft and challenge, and ask to be brought before the judge and Irex. If that plan didn’t suit Arin, he would find another.

He was going to be a problem.

“You’re right,” she told him.

Arin blinked, then narrowed his eyes.

“In fact,” she continued, “if you had let me explain, I would have told you that I had already decided to call off the duel.”

“You have.”

She showed him the two letters. The one addressed to her father was on top. She let the mere edge of the other letter show. “One is for my father, telling him what has happened. The other is for Irex, making my apologies and inviting him to collect his five hundred gold pieces whenever he likes.”

Arin still looked skeptical.

“He’ll also collect you, of course. Knowing him, he’ll have you whipped until you’re unconscious and even after that. I’m sure that when you wake up, you’ll be very glad that I decided to do exactly as you wanted.”

Arin snorted.

“If you doubt me, you’re welcome to walk with me to the barracks to watch as I give my father’s letter to a soldier, with orders for its swift delivery.”

“I think I will.” He opened the library door.

They left the house and crossed the hard ground. Kestrel shivered. She hadn’t stopped to fetch a cloak. She couldn’t risk that Arin would change his mind.

When they entered the barracks, Kestrel looked among the six off-duty guards. She was relieved, since she had counted on finding only four, and not necessarily Rax, whom she trusted most. She approached him, Arin just a step behind her.

“Bring this to the general as swiftly as you can.” She gave Rax the first letter. “Have a messenger deliver this other letter to Jess and Ronan.”

“What?” Arin said. “Wait—”

“And lock this slave up.”