The Winner's Curse

6

The slave pulled a strip of red-hot metal from the fire and laid it on the anvil’s face. Still gripping the metal with tongs, he used a hammer to beat it flat and even. Quickly, before it could cool, he set the strip against the horn of the anvil and rang at it until half of it curved. He reminded himself that he needed to bend, too. He needed to take the shape that was expected of him here at the general’s house or he would never achieve what he wanted.

When he was finished, he packed the shoes into a wooden crate. He considered the last one, running a finger along the line of holes where nails would be driven into a horse’s hoof. The horseshoe was, in its own way, perfect. Resilient.

And once nailed to the horse, rarely seen.

He brought the shoes to the stables. The girl was there.

She was fussing over one of the war horses. She had returned with the carriage but looked as if she intended to ride on the grounds; she was wearing boots. The slave kept his distance, stacking the horseshoes among the rest of the tack. Yet she approached, leading the horse.

She hesitated, though he could see no reason why. “I’m worried Javelin is throwing a shoe,” she said in Herrani. “Please check him.”

Her tone was polite, but the “please” grated. It was a lie, a pretense that her words were not an order. It was a slick coat of paint on a prison.

And he didn’t like to hear her voice, for she spoke his language too well. She sounded mother-taught. It unnerved him. He focused on the one Valorian word. “Javelin,” he said, rolling the horse’s name around in his mouth.

“It’s a weapon,” she said. “Like a spear.”

“I know,” he said, then regretted it. No one—especially her or the general—should discover he understood anything of the Valorian language.

But she hadn’t noticed. She was too busy rubbing the horse’s neck.

After all, why would she notice anything a slave had said?

The horse leaned against her like an overgrown kitten. “I named him when I was young,” she murmured.

He glanced at her. “You are young.”

“Young enough to want to impress my father.” There was a wistfulness in her face.

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. He replied in a way that showed no awareness that she had shared something that sounded like a secret. “The name suits him,” he said, even though the big beast was far too affectionate with her for that to be entirely true.

She looked away from the horse and straight at him. “Yours doesn’t suit you. Smith.”

Perhaps it was the surprise. Or the trick of her flawless accent. Later, he would tell himself that it was because he was sure her next step would be to rename him, as Valorians sometimes did with their slaves, and if that happened he would surely do or say something stupid, and then all his plans would be in ruin.

But to be honest, he didn’t know why he said it. “Smith is what my first slaver called me,” he told her. “It’s not my name. It’s Arin.”