The Winner's Curse

11

When the general returned home and heard the news about Senator Andrax, he didn’t wait even to wash off the dirt of the previous days. He climbed back on his horse and spurred it in the direction of the prison.

It was afternoon when he strode back into the villa, and Kestrel, who had heard his horse coming from where she sat in one of her rooms, came down the stairs and saw him crouching by the pool in the entryway. He splashed water on his face and palmed it over his hair, which was spiky with sweat.

“What will happen to the senator?” asked Kestrel.

“The emperor doesn’t like to punish by death, but in this case I think he will make an exception.”

“Perhaps the kegs of black powder were stolen, as Andrax claims.”

“He was the only one besides myself with a key to that particular armory, and there was no sign of forced entry. I had my key with me and have been away for three days.”

“The kegs could still be in the city. I assume that someone has ordered the ships to be kept at port and searched?”

Her father winced. “Trust you to think of what the governor should have done two days ago.” He paused, then said, “Kestrel—”

“I know what you’re going to say.” This was why she had come to her father and broached the subject of the senator’s betrayal: she hadn’t wanted to wait for the general to turn it into a tool to use on her. “The empire needs people like me.”

His brows rose. “So you’ll do it? You’ll enlist?”

“No. I have a suggestion. You claim that I have a mind for war.”

Slowly, he said, “You have a way of getting what you want.”

“Yet for years now my military training has focused on the physical, and all it has done is shape me into a barely competent fighter.” Kestrel had an image of Irex standing before her, the dagger held so naturally that it seemed to have grown out of his hand. “It’s not enough. You should be teaching me history. We should be inventing battle scenarios, discussing the benefits and drawbacks of battalion order. Meanwhile, I will keep an open mind about fighting for the empire.”

His light brown eyes were crinkling at the corners, but he made his mouth stern. “Hmph.”

“You don’t like my suggestion?”

“I am wondering what it will cost me.”

Kestrel readied herself. This was the hard part. “My sessions with Rax stop. He knows as well as I do that I have come as far as I can. We are wasting his time.”

The general shook his head. “Kestrel—”

“And you will stop pressuring me to enlist. Whether I become a soldier is my choice.”

The general rubbed his wet palms together, his hands still dirty. The water that dripped from them was brown. “Here is my counteroffer. You will study strategy with me as my schedule allows. Your sessions with Rax will continue, but only on a weekly basis. And you will make your decision by spring.”

“I don’t have to decide until I am twenty.”

“It’s better for us both, Kestrel, if we know soon on what ground we stand.”

She was ready to agree, but he lifted one finger. “If you don’t choose my life,” he said, “you will marry in the spring.”

“That’s a trap.”

“No, it’s a bet. A bet that you like your independence too much not to fight alongside me.”

“I hope you see the irony in what you have just said.”

He smiled.

Kestrel said, “You will stop trying to persuade me? No more lectures?”

“None.”

“I will play the piano whenever I like. You won’t say a word about it.”

His smile shrank. “Fine.”

“And”—her voice faltered—“if I marry, it will be to whom I choose.”

“Of course. Any Valorian of our society will do.”

This was fair, she decided. “I agree.”

The general patted her cheek with a damp hand. “Good girl.”

Kestrel walked down the hall. The night before her father’s return she had lain awake, seeing the three bee tiles behind her closed eyes, and Irex’s knife, and her own. She had thought about how powerful she had felt in one situation, and how helpless in the other. She studied her life like a draw of Bite and Sting pieces. She believed she saw a clear line of play.

But she had forgotten that it was her father who had taught her that game.

Kestrel had the feeling that she had just made a very bad bargain.

She passed by the library, then stopped and returned to its open door. Two house slaves were inside, dusting. They paused at the sound of her feet on the threshold and looked at her—no, peered, as if they could see all her mistakes imprinted on her face.

Lirah, a lovely girl with greenish eyes, said, “My lady—”

“Do you know where Smith is?” Kestrel wasn’t sure what had made her use Arin’s other name. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she hadn’t shared his true one with anybody.

“At the forge,” Lirah said promptly. “But—”

Kestrel turned and walked toward the garden doors.

She thought that she had been seeking a light distraction. But when she heard the clang of metal on metal and saw Arin scraping a shaft of steel across the anvil with one set of tools and beating at it with another, Kestrel knew she had come to the wrong place.

“Yes?” he said, keeping his back to her. His workshirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands were sooty. He left the blade of the sword to cool on the anvil and moved to place another, shorter length of metal on the fire, which lined his profile with unsteady light.

She willed her voice to be her own. “I thought we could play a game.”

His dark brows drew together.

“Of Bite and Sting,” Kestrel said. More firmly, she added, “You implied you know how to play.”

He used tongs to stoke the fire. “I did.”

“You implied that you could beat me.”

“I implied that there was no reason a Valorian would want to play with a Herrani.”

“No, you worded things carefully so that what you said could be interpreted that way. But that isn’t what you meant.”

He faced her then, arms folded across his chest. “I have no time for games.” The tips of his fingers had black rings of charcoal dust buried under the nail and into the cuticle. “I have work to do.”

“Not if I say you don’t.”

He turned away. “I like to finish what I start.”

She meant to leave. She meant to leave him to the noise and heat. She meant to say nothing more. Instead, Kestrel found herself issuing a challenge. “You are no match for me anyway.”

He gave her the look she recognized well, the one of measured disdain. But this time, he also laughed. “Where do you propose we play?” He swept a hand around the forge. “Here?”

“My rooms.”

“Your rooms.” Arin shook his head disbelievingly.

“My sitting room,” she said. “Or the parlor,” she added, though it bothered her to think of playing Bite and Sting with him in a place so public to the household.

He leaned against the anvil, considering. “Your sitting room will do. I’ll come when I’ve finished this sword. After all, I have house privileges now. Might as well use them.” Arin started to say something else, then stopped, his gaze roving over her face. She grew uneasy.

He was staring, she realized. He was staring at her.

“You have dirt on your face,” he said shortly.

He returned to his work.

Later, in her bathing room, Kestrel saw it. The moment she tilted the mirror to catch the low, amber light of late afternoon, she saw what he had seen, as had Lirah, who had tried to tell her. A faint smudge traced the slope of her high cheekbone, darkened her cheek, and skimmed the line of her jaw. It was a handprint. It was the shadow left from her father’s gritty hand, from when he had touched her face to seal the bargain between them.