The Winner's Curse

32

When Kestrel awoke in the bed, she didn’t want to think about how she had gotten there.

Then the day was swallowed whole. Cold crept into the house, the dusk seemed to weigh on Kestrel’s shoulders, and her mind filled with Arin, and Jess.

She heard a key turn in a lock. Kestrel sprang to her feet, realizing only then that she had been sitting and staring at nothing. She wound through the rooms of the suite until she was before the last door, and it opened.

Sarsine. “Where is Arin?” she said.

Better to reveal nothing. “I don’t know.”

“That’s a problem.”

Silence.

“It’s a problem for you,” Sarsine clarified, “because Cheat’s here, demanding to see Arin, and since my feckless cousin is nowhere to be found, Cheat wants to speak with you instead.”

Kestrel’s pulse slowed, the way it used to when Rax was readying some kind of swift assault, or when her father asked a question and she didn’t know the answer. “Tell him no.”

Sarsine laughed.

“This is your family home,” Kestrel said. “He is your guest. Who is he to command you?”

Sarsine shook her head, though the rueful set of her mouth said that she didn’t blame Kestrel for trying. When she spoke, her words weren’t meant as a threat, but Kestrel heard the echo of one—whatever Cheat had originally said. “If you don’t come with me to see him, he will come here to see you.”

Kestrel glanced at the walls, thinking of the suite’s pattern of rooms, how they turned inward like a snail shell, giving the impression that one was secreted away from the world, tucked into an intimate, lovely space.

Or trapped.

“I’ll go,” she said.

Sarsine brought her to the atrium, where Cheat sat on a marble bench before the fountain. Torchlight cast itself around the room, and the fountain’s water tumbled with red and orange streaks.

“I want to speak with her alone,” Cheat told Sarsine.

She said, “Arin—”

“—is not the leader of the Herrani. I am.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” said Kestrel, then bit her lip. He saw her do it, and they both knew what it meant.

A mistake.

“It’s fine,” Kestrel told Sarsine. “Go ahead. Go.”

Sarsine gave her a dubious look, then left.

Cheat propped his elbows on his knees and gazed up at Kestrel. He scrutinized her: the long, loosely clasped hands, the folds of her dress. Kestrel’s clothes had mysteriously appeared in the suite’s wardrobe, probably while she had slept, and she was glad. The dueling ensemble had served well enough, but wearing a dress fit for society made Kestrel feel ready for different kinds of battle.

“Where is Arin?” Cheat said.

“In the mountains.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know. I imagine that, since the Valorian reinforcements will come through the mountain pass, he is analyzing its values and drawbacks as a battleground.”

Cheat gave her a gleeful smirk. “Does it bother you, being a traitor?”

“I don’t see how I am.”

“You just confirmed that the reinforcements will come through the pass. Thank you.”

“It’s hardly worth thanking me,” she said. “Almost every useful ship in the empire has been sent east, which means there is no other way into the city. Anyone with brains could figure that out, which is why Arin is in the mountains, and you are here.”

A flush began to build under Cheat’s skin. He said, “My feet are dusty.”

Kestrel had no idea how to respond to that.

“Wash them,” he said.

“What?”

He took off his boots, stretched out his legs, and leaned back against the bench.

Kestrel, who had been quite still, became stone.

“It’s Herrani custom for the lady of the house to wash the feet of special guests,” said Cheat.

“Even if such a custom existed, it died ten years ago. And I’m not the lady of the house.”

“No, you’re a slave. You’ll do as I command.”

Kestrel remembered Arin saying that she could sell herself in small ways. But had he meant this?

“Use the fountain,” Cheat said.

Anger spread through Kestrel, but she knew better than to show it. She sat at the edge of the fountain, dunked his feet in, and washed briskly, the way she had seen slaves work at the laundry. If she had been a slave, she might have been able to pretend that she was washing something else, but she had never washed anything other than herself, so there was no denying that she held skin and flesh and bone.

She hated it.

She lifted the feet out of the fountain and set them on the tiles.

Cheat’s eyes were half-lowered, the blacks of them very bright. “Dry them.”

Kestrel stood.

“You’re not leaving,” he said.

“I must fetch a towel.” She was grateful for the excuse to get away, to go anywhere, and not come back.

“Your skirt will do.”

It was harder, now, to keep her face from flickering with what she felt inside. She stooped, using the hem of her skirt, and wiped his feet.

“Now oil them.”

“I have no oil.”

“You’ll find some underneath a tile decorated with the god of hospitality.” Cheat pointed at the floor. “Press its edge. It will spring open.”

And there were the vials, covered with ten years’ worth of dust.

“They’re in every Herrani house,” Cheat said. “Your villa, too. Or rather, mine. You know, there’s no need for you to stay here against your will. You could come home.”

Kestrel splattered oil onto Cheat’s feet and smeared it into the rough skin. “No. There’s nothing there I want.”

She felt his gaze on her bowed head, on her hands moving over his feet. “Do you do this for Arin?”

“No.”

“What do you do for him?”

Kestrel straightened. Her palms were greasy. She rubbed them into her skirts, not caring that disgust was at least one of the things Cheat wanted to see.

Why, why would he want that?

She turned to leave.

“We’re not done,” he said.

“We are,” said Kestrel, “unless you’d like to see how much my father taught me about unarmed combat. I’ll drown you in that fountain. If I can’t, I’ll scream loud enough to bring every Herrani in this house running, and make them wonder what kind of man their leader is, that a Valorian girl so easily snapped his self-control.”

She walked away, and he didn’t follow, though she felt his eyes on her until she turned a corner. She found the kitchens, the most populated place in the house, and stood by a fire, listening to the metal clatter of kettles. She ignored the strange looks.

Then she was shaking, as much with fury as anything else.

Tell Arin.

Kestrel waved that thought away. What good would telling Arin do?

Arin was a black box hidden below a smooth tile. A trap door opening beneath her. He wasn’t what she’d thought he was.

Maybe Arin had known that this would happen, or something like it.

Maybe he wouldn’t even mind.