The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(54)

“I’ll take care of it. They won’t leave the harbor.”

“Some might already have. The sailors on board will have heard the explosions.”

“All the more reason for them to wait until their shipmates on shore return.”

Cheat acknowledged this with a grimace of guarded optimism. “Go. I’ll mop up what’s left at the governor’s house.”

Kestrel thought of her friends. She stared at the blood on the floor. She wasn’t watching or listening as Arin strode toward her. Then the auctioneer said, “Her hands.”

She glanced up. Arin’s gaze flicked toward her fists. “Of course,” he said to the auctioneer, and Kestrel understood that they had just discussed the best way to threaten her.

Her arm went limp when Arin gripped it. She remembered the auctioneer in the pit, in the full heat of summer. This lad can sing, he had said. She remembered the man’s boot on her hand. The fact that the whole city knew her weakness for music. As Arin pulled her from the room, Kestrel thought about how this might be what hurt the most.

That they had used something she loved against her.

*

She had sworn to herself not to speak to Arin, but then he said, “You’re coming with me to the harbor.”

This surprised her into saying, “To do what? Why not lock me up in the barracks? It would be a perfect prison for your prize.”

He continued to walk her down the halls of her home. “Unless Cheat changes his mind about you.”

Kestrel imagined the auctioneer unlocking her cell door. “I suppose I’m no good to you dead.”

“I would never let that happen.”

“What a touching concern for Valorian life. As if you hadn’t let your leader kill that woman. As if you’re not responsible for the death of my friends.”

They stopped before the door to Kestrel’s suite. Arin faced her. “I will let every single Valorian in this city die if it means that you don’t.”

“Like Jess?” Her eyes swam with sudden, unshed tears. “Ronan?”

Arin looked away. The skin above his eye was beginning to blacken from where she had kicked him. “I spent ten years as a slave. I couldn’t be one anymore. What did you imagine, tonight, in the carriage? That it would be fine for me to always be afraid to touch you?”

“That has nothing to do with anything. I am not a fool. You sold yourself to me with the intention of betrayal.”

“But I didn’t know you. I didn’t know how you—”

“You’re right. You don’t know me. You’re a stranger.”

He flattened a palm against the door.

“What about the Valorian children?” she demanded. “What have you done with them? Have they been poisoned, too?”

“No. Kestrel, no, of course not. They will be cared for. In comfort. By their nurses. This was always part of the plan. Do you think we’re monsters?”

“I think you are.”

Arin’s fingers curled against the door. He shoved it open.

He led her to the dressing room, opened the wardrobe, and riffled through her clothes. He pulled out a black tunic, leggings, and jacket and thrust them at Kestrel.

Coolly she said, “This is a ceremonial fighting uniform. Do you expect me to fight a duel on the docks?”

“You’re too noticeable.” There was something strange about his voice. “In the dark. You … you look like an open flame.” He found another black tunic and tore it between his hands. “Here. Wrap this around your hair.”

Kestrel stood still, the black cloth limp in her arms as she remembered the last time she had worn such clothes.

“Get dressed,” said Arin.

“Get out.”

He shook his head. “I won’t look.”

“That’s right. You won’t, because you are going to get out.”

“I can’t leave you alone.”

“Don’t be absurd. What am I going to do, take back the city single-handedly from the comfort of my dressing room?”

Arin dragged a hand through his hair. “You might kill yourself.”

Bitterly, she said, “I should think it was clear from the way I let you and your friend push me around that I want to stay alive.”

“You might change your mind.”

“And do what, exactly?”

“You could hang yourself with your dagger belt.”

“So take it away.”

“You’ll use clothes. The leggings.”

“Hanging is an undignified way to die.”

“You’ll break the mirror to your dressing table and cut yourself.” Again Arin’s voice seemed foreign. “Kestrel, I won’t look.”

She realized why his words sounded rough. She had switched, at some point, to speaking in Valorian, and he had followed her. It was his accent that she heard.

“I promise,” he said.

“Your promises are worth nothing.” Kestrel turned and began to undress.





28


He took her horse.

Kestrel saw the logic. Her carriage had been abandoned on the road and the stables were largely empty, since many horses had gone with her father. Javelin was the best of those that remained. In war, property goes to those who can seize and keep it, so the stallion was Arin’s. But it hurt.