The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(73)

She folded the one-word letter and set it aside.

*

Arin was leaving the general’s villa, which had become the army’s headquarters, when one of the new officers saluted him. Thrynne, a middle-aged man, was examining a batch of Valorian horses captured from the battle. “These will do well for our march on the Metrea estate,” he said.

Arin frowned. “What?”

“Cheat’s sending us to capture the Metrea estate.”

Arin lost his patience. “That’s idiotic. Metrea grows olives. Do you want to live on olives during a siege?”

“Er … no.”

“Then go to Ethyra, where they will have stores of grain, plus livestock.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Should I ask Cheat first?”

“No.” Arin rubbed his brow, deeply tired of treading so cautiously around Cheat. “Just go.”

Thrynne took his troops.

When Arin saw Cheat the next day, no mention was made of the commander’s order or how it had been overturned. Arin’s friend was cheerful and suggested Arin visit his “Valorian cattle,” by which he meant the prisoners from the battle. “See if conditions are the way you’d like them,” Cheat said. “Why don’t you go there tomorrow afternoon?”

It had been a while since Cheat had asked him to do anything. Arin took the request as a good sign.

*

He brought Sarsine with him. She had a gift for organization, and had already shaped the governor’s palace into something that began to look like a proper hospital. Arin thought she might know what to do about potential overcrowding in the prison.

Except that overcrowding turned out not to be a problem.

Blood slicked the prison floor. Bodies lay crumpled in cells. All the Valorian soldiers had been killed—shot through the prison bars or speared in their sleep.

Arin’s stomach clenched. He heard Sarsine gasp. His boots stood in a dark puddle of blood.

Not all the prisoners were dead; those who had been captured the night the revolution began were still alive, staring at Arin with horror. They were silent … afraid, perhaps, that they would be next. But one of them stepped close to the bars of his cell, his body lean, face handsome, movements elegant in that way that Arin had hated. Envied.

Ronan didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His scathing expression was worse than words. It blamed Arin. It called him an animal, rooting in blood.

Arin turned away. He strode down the long hall, trying not to feel as if he was fleeing, and confronted a guard. “What happened?” he demanded, though he knew the answer.

“Orders,” the guard said.

“Cheat’s?”

“Of course.” She shrugged. “Should’ve been done long ago, he said.”

“And you didn’t think that there was anything wrong with this? With killing hundreds of people?”

“But we had orders,” another guard spoke. “They’re Valorians.”

“You’ve turned this prison into a slaughterhouse!”

One of the Herrani hawked and spat. “Cheat said that you’d be like this.”

Sarsine grabbed Arin’s elbow and dragged him out of the prison before he did something stupid.

Arin blinked at the iron sky. He took huge, clean breaths of air.

“Cheat is a problem,” Sarsine said.

Breathe, Arin commanded himself.

Sarsine twisted her fingers. Then, quickly, she said, “There’s something I should have told you earlier.”

He looked at her.

“Cheat hates Kestrel,” she said.

“Of course he does. She’s the general’s daughter.”

“No, it’s more than that. It’s the hatred of someone who is not getting what he wants.”

Sarsine explained exactly what she thought Cheat wanted.

It scalded Arin. The knowledge bubbled up within him: a brew of anger and disgust. He had not seen. He had not understood. Why was it only now that he learned that Cheat had sought to be alone with Kestrel, and in such a way?

Arin lifted a hand to stop Sarsine’s words, because on the heels of his last thought came another, even worse: What if Cheat had meant the murders in the prison to be more than a show of power over Arin?

What if they were a distraction?

*

Kestrel rested her forehead against a window in her sitting room and gazed out at the empty courtyard. She willed the cold glass to freeze her brain, because she didn’t think she could bear her own thoughts for much longer—or her own ineptitude. How was it that she was a prisoner still?

She was cursing herself when a hand stole up the nape of her neck.

Her body knew how to react before her mind did. Kestrel stamped her heel down on the man’s instep, punched an elbow into the spot below the ribs, slipped under a thick arm— —and was caught by the hair. Cheat dragged her to him. He used his whole body to push her away from the windows and up against a wall.

His hand pressed down on her mouth. She twisted her head to the side. Cheat’s thumb dug in under her chin and jerked her face to meet his.

The other hand found her fingers and squeezed hard.

“Don’t struggle,” he said. “Soft things don’t break.”





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