The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(41)

Irex’s arms slackened. He looked slightly ill.

Kestrel pressed her advantage. “You slept with Faris so that she would encourage her husband to help you gain a seat in the Senate. Maybe you did it for other reasons, too, but this is the one we care about. You should care, because if Tiran suspects you, he won’t just withhold his help. He’ll turn the Senate against you.”

She saw the fight drain out of him.

“Even though this duel has broken no rules, it’s not been clean,” she said. “You began a brawl. Society will murmur its disapproval even before Ronan and Jess destroy your reputation.”

“Society will disapprove of me?” Irex sneered. “Your reputation is not so lily white. Slave-lover.”

Kestrel wobbled on her feet. It took her a moment to speak, and when she did, she wasn’t sure that what she said was true. “Whatever people say about me, my father will be your enemy.”

Irex’s face was still sharp with hate, but he said, “Very well. You can live.” His voice became hesitant. “Did you tell the general about Faris?”

Kestrel thought of her letter to her father. It had been simple. I have challenged Lord Irex to a duel, it had said. It will take place on his grounds today, two hours before sunset. Please come. “No. That would have defeated my purpose.”

Irex gave Kestrel a look, one that she had seen before on the faces of her opponents in Bite and Sting. “Purpose?” he said warily.

Kestrel felt triumph surge through her, stronger even than the pain in her knee. “I want my father to believe that I’ve legitimately won this duel. You are about to lose. You’ll throw the match, and give me a clear victory.” She smiled. “I want first blood, Irex. My father is watching. Make this look good.”





22


After the duel, the general had to help Kestrel onto her horse, which only went a few steps before she swayed in the saddle. Her right knee throbbed. It felt as if some knot inside had slipped and was unraveling, pressing hot coils against the inner wall of her skin.

Her father halted Javelin. “We can borrow a carriage.”

“No.” What point was there in having defeated Irex if she couldn’t keep her seat on a horse? Kestrel hadn’t realized she had such pride. Maybe she didn’t want her father’s military life, but it seemed she wanted his approval as much as she had as a girl.

The general looked as if he might argue, then said only, “That was a decisive win.” He mounted his horse and set the pace.

It was slow, yet Kestrel grimaced with every jolt of the stallion’s hooves. She was glad when night dyed the sky. She felt her face thinning with pain, but reminded herself that not even her father could see through the dark. He couldn’t see her dread.

She kept expecting his question: why had she challenged Irex to a duel?

But he didn’t ask, and soon it became impossible for her to think of anything other than staying on her horse. She bit her lip. By the time they reached home, her mouth tasted of blood.

She wasn’t aware of passing through the gate. The house simply appeared, bright and sort of trembling at the edges. She vaguely heard her father say something to someone else, and then his hands were at her waist, lifting her off Javelin as if she were a child.

He set Kestrel on her feet. Her knee buckled. She felt a sound choke her throat, and blacked out.

*

When Kestrel opened her eyes, she was lying in her bed. Someone had built a fire, which sent ripples of orange light over the ceiling. An oil lamp burned on the night table, casting her father’s face into extremes of shadow and bone. He had drawn a chair close and perhaps had been sleeping in it, but his eyes were alert.

“Your knee needs to be tapped,” he said.

She looked at it. Someone—her father?—had cut away the right legging at her thigh, and below the sheared black cloth her knee was swollen to twice its normal size. It felt tight and hot.

“I don’t know what that means,” Kestrel said, “but it doesn’t sound very nice.”

“Irex dislocated your kneecap. It slipped back into place, but the blow must have torn your muscle. Your knee’s filling with blood. That’s what’s causing you so much pain: the swelling.” He hesitated. “I have some experience with this kind of wound, on the battlefield. I can drain it. You’ll feel better. But I would have to use a knife.”

Kestrel remembered him cutting her mother’s arm, blood weaving through his fingers as he tried to close the wound. He looked at her now, and she thought that he was seeing the same thing, or seeing Kestrel remember it, and that they were mirroring each other’s nightmare.

His gaze fell to his scarred hands. “I’ve sent for a doctor. You can wait until she comes, if you prefer.” His voice was flat, yet there was a small, sad note that probably only she would have heard. “I wouldn’t suggest this if I didn’t feel myself capable and if I didn’t think it would be better to do it now. But it’s your choice.”

His eyes met hers. Something in them made her think that he would never have let Irex kill her, that he would have pushed into the ring and planted a blade in Irex’s back if he had thought his daughter might die, that he would have thrown away his honor with hers.

Of course, Kestrel couldn’t be sure. Yet she nodded. He sent a slave for clean rags, which he eased under her knee. Then he went to the fire and held a small knife in the flames to sterilize it.