The Winner's Curse(55)

“Thank you,” said Kestrel.

Neril’s smile was stiff. Her gaze didn’t leave Arin’s face. “Lady Kestrel, could I beg a favor? You see, half of my slaves fell ill tonight.”

“So many?”

“They’re faking, of course. But beating the lies out of them won’t make me any less shorthanded tonight. A whipped slave could hardly serve my guests, at least not with the necessary poise and posture.”

Kestrel didn’t like where this was going. “Lady Neril—”

“May I borrow your slave tonight?”

Kestrel sensed the tension in Arin as clearly as if he stood next to her, shoulder brushing hers, instead of behind her, barely out of sight. “I might need him.”

“Need him?” Neril dropped her voice: “Kestrel, I am doing you a favor. Send him to the kitchens now, before the ball has truly begun and more people notice. I doubt he’ll mind.”

Kestrel watched Arin as she went through the charade of translating Neril’s Valorian for him. She thought that, yes, he would mind. Yet when he spoke, his voice was humble. His words were in Valorian, as if he no longer cared who knew how well he spoke the empire’s language. “My lady,” he said to Neril. “I don’t know the way to your kitchens, and it would be easy to get lost in such a grand house. One of your slaves could guide me, but I see they are all busy…”

“Yes, fine.” Neril waved an impatient hand. “I’ll send a slave to find you. Soon,” she added, that last word directed at Kestrel. Then she turned her attention to the guests next in line.

The governor’s home was Valorian-built, after the conquest, so the reception hall led to a shield chamber, where embossed shields studded the walls and flared in the torchlight as guests chatted and drank.

A house slave placed a glass of wine in Kestrel’s hand. She lifted it to her lips.

It was knocked away. It smashed at her feet, wine splashing near her shoes. People broke off their conversations and stared.

“I’m sorry,” Arin muttered. “I tripped.”

Kestrel felt the heat in the way everyone looked at her. At him. At her, standing next to him. She saw Neril, still visible at the threshold between the reception hall and the shield chamber, turn and take in the scene. The woman rolled her eyes. She grabbed a slave by the elbow and pushed him toward Kestrel and Arin.

“Kestrel, don’t drink any wine tonight,” Arin said.

“What? Why not?”

Neril’s slave came closer.

“You should keep your head clear,” Arin told her.

“My head is perfectly clear,” she hissed at him, out of earshot of the murmuring crowd. “What is wrong with you, Arin? You ask to accompany me to an event you don’t think I should attend. You’re silent in the carriage the entire way here, and now—”

“Just promise me that you won’t drink.”

“Very well, I won’t, if it’s important to you.” Did this moment, like others at Irex’s dinner party, hide some past trauma of Arin’s that she couldn’t see? “But what—”

“Arin.” It was Neril’s slave. The man seemed surprised to see Arin, yet also pleased. “You’re supposed to follow me.”



When Arin entered the kitchens, the Herrani fell silent. He saw their expressions change, and it made him feel as if something sticky had been wiped on his skin, the way they looked at him.

As if he were a hero.

He ignored them, pushing past footmen and serving girls until he reached the cook, roasting a pig on a spit over the fire. Arin grabbed him. “Which wine?” he demanded. Once the poison was served, destruction would fall on every Valorian in this house.

“Arin.” The cook grinned. “I thought you were supposed to be at the general’s estate tonight.”

“Which wine?”

The cook blinked, finally absorbing the urgency in Arin’s voice. “It’s in an iced apple wine, very sweet, sweet enough to mask the poison.”

“When?”

“When’s it going to be served? Why, right after the third round of dancing.”





26



Beyond its entryway, the ballroom rang with laughter and loud talk. Heat seethed over the threshold and into the hall where Kestrel stood.

She wove her fingers into a tight lattice. She was nervous.

She looked nervous.

No one must know how she felt.

Kestrel pulled her hands apart and stepped inside the ballroom.

There was a sudden valley of silence. If the windows had been open and air had rushed through them, Kestrel would have heard the chandeliers tinkle, it was so quiet.

Faces chilled. One by one, they turned away.