The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(45)

“Kestrel.” His voice was quelling. “I’ve already expressed my reservations to the emperor. But he gave me orders. It’s my duty to follow them.”

Kestrel studied her fingers, the way they wove together. She didn’t say Come back safely, and he didn’t say I always have. She said what a Valorian should. “Fight well.”

“I will.”

He was halfway to the door when he glanced back and said, “I’m trusting you to do what’s right while I’m gone.”

Which meant that he didn’t trust her—not quite.

*

Later that day, Lirah brought Kestrel’s lunch. The slave wouldn’t look at her. She set the tray down on a low table near the divan where Kestrel rested, and her movements were hurried, shaky. She spilled some tea.

“There’s no need to rush,” Kestrel said.

The girl’s hands quieted, but her breath became uneven and harsh. A tear slipped down her cheek.

Kestrel suddenly understood why Lirah was rushing: because it was unbearable to stay any longer than necessary in the same room as her mistress.

Her mistress, who everyone thought had taken the lover Lirah wished were hers.

Kestrel should have felt pity. An urge to explain that what Lirah believed—what the whole city must believe—wasn’t true. Instead, Kestrel couldn’t help gazing at the girl’s beauty, at the way tears made her green eyes greener. She wondered what Arin’s sweetheart must be like, if Lirah couldn’t change his choice.

As Kestrel tried to imagine the girl in the market—Arin’s girl—a slow thought came to her.

Was this why Arin avoided her? Because the scandal had reached his sweetheart’s ears?

A surge of anger pushed up Kestrel’s throat.

She hated her. She hated that faceless, nameless woman.

“Fetch me a parasol,” Kestrel told Lirah. “And get out.”

*

The parasol wasn’t a very good cane. Its tip dug into the hard, grassless earth, and the folded frame creaked as Kestrel limped across the grounds. But it brought her where she needed to go.

She found Arin walking through the bare orange grove, horse tack draped over his shoulder. It jangled when he stopped and stared at her. He stood, shoulders stiff. As Kestrel came close she saw that his jaw was clenched, and that there was no trace of what her guards had done to him. No bruises. Nor would there be, not for something that had happened nearly a month ago.

“Did I shame you?” Kestrel said.

Something strange crossed his face. “Shame me,” Arin repeated. He looked up into the empty branches as if he expected to see fruit there, as if it weren’t almost winter.

“The book. The inscription I read. The duel. The way I tricked you. The order I gave to have you imprisoned. Did I shame you?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head, his gaze never wavering from the trees. “No. The god of debts knows what I owe.”

“Then what is it?” Kestrel was trying so hard not to ask about the rumors or the woman in the market that she said something worse. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“I shouldn’t even be speaking with you,” he muttered.

It dawned on her why it had never made sense that Rax had been the one to release Arin. “My father,” she said. “Arin, you don’t have to worry about him. He’ll be leaving the morning of the Firstwinter ball. The entire regiment has been ordered east to fight the barbarians.”

“What?” He glanced at her, eyes sharp.

“Things can be as they were.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But … you are my friend.” His expression changed, though not in a way Kestrel could read. “Just tell me what’s wrong, Arin. Tell me the truth.”

When he spoke, his voice was raw. “You own me. How can you believe I’ll tell you the truth? Why would I?”

The parasol trembled in Kestrel’s grip. She opened her mouth to speak, yet realized that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to control what she said.

“I will tell you something you can trust is true.” Arin’s eyes held hers. “We are not friends.”

Kestrel swallowed. “You’re right,” she whispered. “We’re not.”

*

Arin nearly got his throat cut.

“The god of life preserve you,” Cheat gasped. He staggered back, his knife glinting in the shadows of his small bedroom. “What the hell are you doing here? Breaking into my home like a thief in the night. Climbing through the window. You’re lucky I saw your face in time.”

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Start with why you couldn’t come by the auction house at a decent hour. I thought you had a free pass. What about the girl’s seal ring?”

“Unavailable.”

Cheat squinted up at Arin, tapping the flat of the short blade against his thigh. In the dim light of a streetlamp, a slow grin spread across his face. “Had a falling-out with your lady, did you? A lovers’ quarrel?”

Arin felt his face go dark and tight.

“Easy, lad. Just tell me: are the rumors true?”

“No.”

“All right.” Cheat held up his hands as if in surrender, the knife held loosely. “If you say they’re not, they’re not.”