The Winner's Curse(49)

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.