The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(56)

She would not cry. Not again. “What of Captain Wensan?”

Arin frowned. “No more questions. You’re strategizing now. You’re no longer asking after friends, but stalling me or seeking an advantage I can’t see. He was no one to you.”

Kestrel opened her mouth, then closed it. She had her answer—and no desire to correct him or show anything more of herself.

“I don’t have time to give you a list of the living and the dead, even if I had one,” said Arin. He cast a quick glance at the armed Herrani, then flicked his hand in an order for them to follow. Those who hadn’t already dismounted their horses did so now and moved toward the small building near the centermost docks, the one that housed the harbormaster. As they drew closer, Kestrel saw a new group of Herrani dressed in the clothes of dock slaves. They encircled the building. The only Valorians in sight lay dead on the ground.

“The harbormaster?” Arin asked a man who seemed to be this new group’s leader.

“Inside,” the Herrani said, “under guard.” His gaze fell on Kestrel. “Tell me that’s not who I think it is.”

“She doesn’t matter. She’s under my authority, just as you are.” Arin shoved open the door, but not before Kestrel caught the defensive set to his mouth and the distaste on the other man’s face. And while Kestrel had already known that the rumors about her and Arin must have been as disturbing to his people as to hers, only now did that knowledge take a shape that felt like a weapon.

Let the Herrani think she was Arin’s lover. It would only make them doubt the intentions and loyalty of the man Cheat had called his second-in-command.

Kestrel followed Arin into the harbormaster’s house on the pier.

It smelled of pitch and hemp, since the harbormaster sold goods as well as working as a kind of clerk, noting in his ledger which ships came and went, and were docked at each pier. The house was stocked with barrels of tar and coils of rope, and the shipyard smell was stronger than even that of the urine that stained the harbormaster’s pants.

The Valorian was afraid. Although the last several hours had already shaken Kestrel’s sense of what she had believed, this man’s fear shook her yet again, for he was in his prime, he had trained as a soldier, his role on the docks was similar to that of a city guard. If he was afraid, what could that mean to the rule that a true Valorian never was?

How could the Valorians have been so easily surprised, so easily taken?

As she had been.

It was Arin. Arin, who had been a spy in the general’s household. Arin, whose sharp mind had been whittling away at a secret plan, carving it with weapons made on the sly, with information she had let slip. Who had dismissed her concerns about the captain of the city guard’s suicide, which could not have been a suicide but a murderous step toward revolution. Arin had waved away the oddity of Senator Andrax selling black powder to the eastern barbarians, and of course Arin had, for he had known that it had not been sold, but stolen by Herrani slaves.

Arin, who had set hooks into her heart and drawn her to him so that she wouldn’t see anything but his eyes.

Arin was her enemy.

Any enemy should be watched. Always identify your opponent’s assets and weaknesses, her father had said. Kestrel decided to be grateful for this moment, crammed into the harbormaster’s house with twenty-some Herrani, and fifty more waiting outside. This was a chance to see whether Arin was as good a leader as a spy and a player at Bite and Sting.

And perhaps Kestrel could seize an opportunity to tip the odds in her favor.

“I want names,” Arin told the harbormaster, “of all sailors ashore at the moment, and their ships.”

The harbormaster gave them, voice trembling. Kestrel saw Arin rub his cheek, considering the man, surely thinking, as she thought, that any plan of Arin’s to take or burn the ships would require as many people as possible. No one should be left on shore to guard the harbormaster, who was now useless.

Killing him was the obvious and quickest next step.

Arin hit the man’s head with the side of his fist. It was a precise strike, aimed at the temple. The man slumped over his desk. His breath stirred the pages of his ledger.

“We have two choices,” Arin told his people. “We’ve done well up to this point. We’ve taken the city. Its leadership has been removed or is under our power. Now we need time, as much as possible before the empire learns what’s happened. We have people guarding the mountain pass. The only other way to bring news to the empire is by sea. We take the ships, or we burn them. We must decide now.

“Either way, our approach is the same. Storm clouds are blowing in from the south. When they cover the moon, we’ll row small launches in the darkness, hugging the bay’s curve until we can come around the boats and approach their sterns. Each prow is pointed toward the city and its light. We’ll be on the dark side of the open sea while the sailors gather at the bow, watching the city’s fire. If we hope to seize all the ships, we split into two teams. One will start with the biggest and deadliest: Captain Wensan’s. The other waits at the nearest largest ship. We take Wensan’s ship, then turn its cannons on the second one, which will be overrun by the second group. With those two ships, we can force the surrender of the next nearest and largest and continue to shrink the possibility for the merchants to fight back. The fishermen have no cannons, so they’ll be ours after the sea battle. We’ll sink any ship that tries to flee the bay. Then we will not only buy the time we need, we will also have the ships as our weapons against the empire, as well as any goods they have on board.”