The Winner's Curse

23

Letters came. During the first days after the duel, Kestrel ripped into them, eager for anything to distract her from being confined to her bed, desperate to learn what society thought of her now. Surely she had gained some respect by beating the city’s finest fighter?

But the letters were mostly from Jess and Ronan and filled with false cheer. And then came the note.

Small, folded into a thick square. Stamped with a blank seal. Written in a woman’s hand. Unsigned.

Do you think you are the first? it read. The only Valorian to take a slave to her bed? Poor fool!

Let me tell you the rules.

Do not be so obvious. Why do you think society allows a senator to call a pretty housegirl to his rooms at a late hour? Or for the general’s daughter to take long carriage rides with such an exquisite “escort”?

It is not because secret liaisons are impossible. It is because pretending they are impossible lets everyone turn a blind eye to the fact that we can use our slaves exactly as we please.

Kestrel felt her face burn. Then it crumpled, just like the paper in her fist.

She would throw the letter in the fire. She would forget it, forget everything.

But when she shifted her right leg out from underneath the blankets, her knee screamed in protest. She sat at the edge of the bed, looking at the fire, then at her bare feet flat against the floor. She trembled, and told herself it was because of the ache in her bandaged knee. Because her legs couldn’t bear her own weight. Because she couldn’t do something so simple as get out of bed and walk across the room.

She tore the letter into a snowfall of paper.

That first night after the duel, Kestrel had woken to find her father gone. A slave was sleeping in the chair drawn close to the bed. Kestrel had seen the lines under the woman’s eyes, the awkward crook of her neck, and how her head bobbed back and forth in the way of someone who needed sleep. But Kestrel shook her.

“You have to do something,” Kestrel had said.

The woman blinked, bleary-eyed.

“Go tell the guards to let Smith out. He’s imprisoned in the barracks. He—”

“I know,” the woman had said. “He’s been released.”

“He has? By whom?”

The slave looked away. “It was Rax’s decision. He said you could complain to him if you didn’t like it.”

Those last words sounded like a lie. They didn’t even make sense. But the woman patted her hand and said, “I saw Smith myself, in the slaves’ quarters. He’s not too worse for wear. Don’t worry, my lady.” The face of the woman, whose name Kestrel had forgotten, filled with such sympathy that she had told her to leave.

Kestrel remembered the woman’s expression. She looked at the shredded letter and saw again its written words—so snide, so understanding.

They didn’t understand. No one did. They were wrong.

Kestrel slipped back under the blankets.

Some hours later, she called for a slave and asked her to open a window. Cold air poured in, and Kestrel shivered until she heard a distant ringing, the sound of hammer against anvil. Arin must know that she couldn’t come to him. Why didn’t he come to her?

She could make him. If she sent an order, he would obey.

But she didn’t want his obedience. She wanted him to want to see her.

Kestrel flinched at this thought and the pain it brought with it.

She knew that even if everyone believed the wrong thing of her, they were also too close to being right.

“You should have let me visit earlier,” Jess said, her cheeks radiant from the brisk air outside. “It’s been a week since the duel.”

Kestrel sank back against the pillows. She had known the sight of Jess would hurt, would remind her that there was a life outside this bedroom. “Ronan isn’t allowed.”

“I should say not! I’m not letting him see you until you’re better. You look awful. No one wants to kiss an invalid.”

“Thank you, Jess. I’m so happy you’ve come.”

Jess rolled her eyes. She started to speak, then her gaze fell on the nightstand. “Kestrel. You haven’t been opening your letters.”

They had collected in a pile, like a nest of coiled snakes.

“What would the letters tell me?” Kestrel said. “That my reputation is as ruined as ever?”

“It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Kestrel guessed what Jess might say: that she should go with Ronan to the Firstwinter ball. Ronan would be willing. He would be glad. It would stop some of the gossip and start a different kind.

It was a solution of sorts.

Kestrel smiled a little. She shook her head. “You’re so loyal.”

“And clever. I have an idea. The ball is not long from now and—”

“I’m bored, sitting in bed all these hours. Why don’t you distract me, Jess? Better yet, why don’t I do something for you? I owe you.”

Jess smoothed the hair off Kestrel’s forehead. “No, you don’t.”

“You have stood by me. I’ll make it up to you. Once I’m well, I’ll wear whatever you like.”

Jess jokingly pressed a palm to Kestrel’s brow. “You must be feverish.”

“I’ll teach you to play Bite and Sting so that no one will beat you.”

Jess laughed. “Don’t bother. I don’t like games.”

“I know.” Kestrel felt her smile leave. “It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

Jess’s expression turned quizzical.

“You never hide who you are,” Kestrel said.

“Do you think that you do? Do you think I don’t realize that even though you have asked me to distract you, you are trying to distract me?”

Kestrel winced.

“You’d be better at it,” Jess said, “if you weren’t bedridden. And miserable.”

Kestrel reached for her hand and gripped it. “I meant what I said.”

“Then stop playing games. There is an obvious answer to your problems.”

She realized that Jess had more on her mind than the ball. Kestrel’s hand slipped away.

Jess sighed. “Fine. We won’t talk about Ronan. We won’t talk about marriage. We won’t talk about the fact that as much as you like to win, you’re acting as if you’re determined to lose.”

Arin stoked the forge’s fire. Not for warmth but for color. He craved it in the cold months. He had been a sickly child, and this time of year reminded him most of his home, of feeling cooped up inside, not knowing that one day he would dream of those painted walls, the curtains in a sweep of indigo, the blue of his mother’s dress.

Cold without, color within. This was how it had been.

Arin watched the fire flare crimson. Then he went outside and surveyed the grounds, saw through leafless trees that no one was near. He could steal a few minutes.

When he stepped back inside the forge, he leaned against the anvil. With one hand he pulled a book from its hiding place behind the kindling box, and in the other he held a hammer so that, if in danger of being caught, he could more quickly pretend to have been working.

He began to read. It was a book he had seen in Kestrel’s possession, one on the history of the Valorian empire. He had taken it from the library after she had returned it, weeks ago.

What would she say, if she saw him reading a book about his enemy, in his enemy’s tongue? What would she do?

Arin knew this: her gaze would measure him, and he would sense a shift of perception within her. Her opinion of him would change as daylight changed, growing or losing shadow. Subtle. Almost indiscernible. She would see him differently, though he wouldn’t know in what way. He wouldn’t know what it meant. This had happened, again and again, since he had come here.

Sometimes he wished he had never come here.

Well. Kestrel couldn’t see him in the forge, or know what he read, because she couldn’t leave her rooms. She couldn’t even walk.

Arin shut the book, gripped it between rigid fingers. He nearly threw it into the fire.

I will have you torn limb from limb, the general had said.

That wasn’t why Arin stayed away from her. Not really.

He forced his thoughts from his head. He hid the book where it had been. He busied himself with quiet work, heating iron and charcoal in a crucible to produce steel.

It took some time before Arin realized he was humming a dark tune. For once, he didn’t stop himself. The pressure of song was too strong, the need for distraction too great. Then he found that the music caged behind his closed teeth was the melody Kestrel had played for him months ago. He felt the sensation of it, low and alive, on his mouth.

For a moment, he imagined it wasn’t the melody that touched his lips, but Kestrel.

The thought stopped his breath, and the music, too.