The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(65)

A Herrani glanced up, registered Kestrel’s presence, and began asking Arin questions, but Kestrel didn’t hear. She left his side. She stumbled in her haste, searching among the pallets, looking for wide brown eyes, a snub nose, a small mouth.

Kestrel almost didn’t recognize her. Jess’s lips were violet, her eyelids swollen shut. She was still wearing her ball gown, an airy green confection that looked horribly wrong on her now.

“Jess,” Kestrel said. “Jess.”

The girl’s breath hitched, then changed to a wheeze. It was the only sign she gave of consciousness.

Kestrel sought Arin. He was standing against the far wall. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

She strode to him. Grabbed him. Pulled him toward her friend.

“What is this?” she demanded. “What poison did you use?”

“I didn’t—”

“It was something you’d have easy access to, in the countryside, maybe. A plant?”

“Kestrel—”

“You could have harvested it months ago, let it dry, then powdered it. It had to be colorless, to mix with the iced wine.” Kestrel raced through memories of everything Enai had ever told her about local plants. “Simberry? No, it couldn’t have worked so quickly—”

“It was nightlock.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“A spring root, sun-dried, then ground.”

“So there’s an antidote,” Kestrel insisted, though Arin had indicated nothing of the kind.

He took some time to answer. “No.”

“Yes, there is! The Herrani were the best doctors in the world. You would never have let a poison exist without finding a cure for it.”

“There’s no antidote … only something that might help.”

“Then you should be giving it to them!”

He turned her shoulders so that she couldn’t see the rows of pallets. “We don’t have it. No one planned for survivors. The herb we’d need should have been gathered in the fall. It’s winter. There will be none left.”

“Yes, there will. There’s been no snow yet. No frost. Most plants don’t die until the first frost. Enai said so.”

“True, but—”

“You will find it.”

Arin was silent.

“Help her.” Kestrel’s voice broke. “Please.”

“It’s a delicate plant. They might have all died in the cold, and I’m not sure I’ll be able—”

“Promise me you’ll look,” Kestrel said, as if she had not sworn that his promises were worth nothing.

“I will,” he said. “I promise.”

*

He insisted on taking her to his house first.

“I can go with you into the mountains,” she said. “I can search, too.”

His smile was dry. “You’re not the one who spent hours as a child poring over botany books, wondering why one species of tree had four-fingered leaves, and another, six.”

The swaying of the carriage made Kestrel drowsy. Hours of lost sleep weighted her eyelids. She struggled to keep them open. Outside the window, dusk had given in to the night.

“You have less than three days,” she murmured.

“What?”

“Before the reinforcements arrive.”

When he said nothing, Kestrel voiced what he must be thinking. “I suppose it’s not the time for you to be hunting in the mountains for a plant.”

“I promised I would go. So I will.”

Kestrel’s eyes slipped shut. She faded in and out of sleep. When Arin spoke again, she wasn’t sure whether he expected her to hear him.

“I remember sitting with my mother in a carriage.” There was a long pause. Then Arin’s voice came again in that slow, fluid way that showed the singer in him. “In my memory, I am small and sleepy, and she is doing something strange. Every time the carriage turns into the sun, she raises her hand as if reaching for something. The light lines her fingers with fire. Then the carriage passes through shadows, and her hand falls. Again sunlight beams through the window, and again her hand lifts. It becomes an eclipse.”

Kestrel listened, and it was as if the story itself was an eclipse, drawing its darkness over her.

“Just before I fell asleep,” he said, “I realized that she was shading my eyes from the sun.”

She heard Arin shift, felt him look at her.

“Kestrel.” She imagined how he would sit, lean forward. How he would look in the glow of the carriage lantern. “Survival isn’t wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. You can pour a glass of wine like it’s meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge.” Perhaps his head tilted slightly at this. “You probably plot even in your sleep.”

There was a silence as long as a smile.

“Plot away, Kestrel. Survive. If I hadn’t lived, no one would remember my mother, not like I do.”

Kestrel could no longer deny sleep. It pulled her under.

“And I would never have met you.”

*

Kestrel was dimly aware of being lifted. She wound her arms around someone’s neck, buried her head against his shoulder. She heard a sigh, and wasn’t sure if it was hers or his.