The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1)(80)

“I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing,” Sarsine said.

“He’s giving officers under his command the chance to prove their worth,” Kestrel said. “He’s showing his trust in them and letting them build their confidence. It’s sound military strategy.”

Sarsine gave her a hard look.

“He’s delegating,” Kestrel said.

“He’s shirking. And for what, I’m sure you know.”

This struck a bright match of pleasure within Kestrel.

Like a match, it burned out quickly. She recalled her promise to Jess to make the Herrani pay.

But she did not want to think about that.

It occurred to her that she had never thanked Arin for bringing her piano here. She found him in the library and meant to say what she had come to say, yet when she saw him studying a map near the fire, lit by an upward shower of sparks as one log fell on another, she remembered her promise precisely because of how she longed to forget it.

She blurted something that had nothing to do with anything. “Do you know how to make honeyed half-moons?”

“Do I…?” He lowered the map. “Kestrel, I hate to disappoint you, but I was never a cook.”

“You know how to make tea.”

He laughed. “You do realize that boiling water is within the capabilities of anybody?”

“Oh.” Kestrel moved to leave, feeling foolish. What had possessed her to ask such a ridiculous question anyway?

“I mean, yes,” Arin said. “Yes, I know how to make half-moons.”

“Really?”

“Ah … no. But we can try.”

They went into the kitchens. A glance from Arin cleared the room, and then it was only the two of them, dumping flour onto the wooden worktable, Arin palming a jar of honey out of a cabinet.

Kestrel cracked an egg into a bowl and knew why she had asked for this.

So that she could pretend that there had been no war, there were no sides, and that this was her life.

The half-moons came out as hard as rocks.

“Hmm.” Arin inspected one. “I could use these as weapons.”

She laughed before she could tell herself it wasn’t funny.

“Actually, they’re about the size of your weapon of choice,” he said. “Which reminds me that you’ve never said how you dueled at Needles against the city’s finest fighter and won.”

It would be a mistake to tell him. It would defy the simplest rule of warfare: to hide one’s strengths and weaknesses for as long as possible. Yet Kestrel told Arin the story of how she had beaten Irex.

Arin covered his face with one floured hand and peeked at her between his fingers. “You are terrifying. Gods help me if I cross you, Kestrel.”

“You already have,” she pointed out.

“But am I your enemy?” Arin crossed the space between them. Softly, he repeated, “Am I?”

She didn’t answer. She concentrated on the feel of the table’s edge pressing into the small of her back. The table was simple and real, joined wood and nails and right corners. No wobble. No give.

“You’re not mine,” Arin said.

And kissed her.

Kestrel’s lips parted. This was real, yet not simple at all. He smelled of woodsmoke and sugar. Sweet beneath the burn. He tasted like the honey he’d licked off his fingers minutes before. Her heartbeat skidded, and it was she who leaned greedily into the kiss, she who slid one knee between his legs. Then his breath went ragged and the kiss grew dark and deep. He lifted her up onto the table so that her face was level with his, and as they kissed it seemed that words were hiding in the air around them, that they were invisible creatures that feathered against her and Arin, then nudged, and buzzed, and tugged.

Speak, they said.

Speak, the kiss answered.

Love was on the tip of Kestrel’s tongue. But she couldn’t say that. How could she ever say that, after everything between them, after fifty keystones paid into the auctioneer’s hand, after hours of Kestrel secretly wondering what it would sound like if Arin sang while she played, after wrists bound together and the crack of her knee under a boot and Arin confessing in the carriage on Firstwinter night.

It had felt like a confession. But it wasn’t. He had said nothing of the plot. Even if he had, it still would have been too late, with everything to his advantage.

Kestrel remembered again her promise to Jess.

If she didn’t leave this house now, she would betray herself. She would give herself to someone whose Firstwinter kiss had led her to believe she was all that he wanted, when he had hoped to flip the world so that he was at its top and she was at its bottom.

Kestrel pulled away.

Arin was apologizing. He was asking what he had done wrong. His face was flushed, mouth swollen. He was saying something about how maybe it was too soon, but that they could have a life here. Together.

“My soul is yours,” he said. “You know that it is.”

She lifted a hand, as much to block his face from her sight as to stop those words.

She walked out of the kitchen.

It took all of her pride not to run.

*

She went to her rooms, yanked on her black dueling clothes and boots, and reeled in her makeshift knife out of the ivy. She bound the strip of cloth that held it around her waist. She went into the garden and waited for nightfall.