The Winner's Curse(82)

“I’m too old for the schoolroom,” Cheat said, and left Arin with his hand outstretched.



Kestrel began to hate her rooms. She wondered what kind of family Irex had had, that a lock workable only from the outside had been added to a suite so sumptuous that it must have belonged to his mother. The lock was Valorian brass, intricate and solid. Kestrel knew it intimately by now, since she’d spent enough time testing it to see if it could be picked or forced.

If she had to choose which aspect of the suite she despised most, it would have been a hard call between the lock and the garden, though these days she nursed a particular grudge against the curtains.

She hid behind them to watch Arin leave the house, and return—very often on her horse. Despite the way he had looked after the battle, his injuries weren’t serious. His limp lessened, the bandage on his neck disappeared, and the raging bruises muted into ugly greens and violets.

Several days passed without any words between him and her, and that set Kestrel on edge.

It was hard to rub out the memory of his smile—exhausted, sweet.

And then that waterfall of relief.

Kestrel sent him a letter. Jess was likely to recover, she wrote. She asked to visit Ronan, who was being held in the city prison.

Arin’s reply was a curt note: No.

She decided not to press the issue. Her request had been due to a sense of obligation. She dreaded seeing Ronan—even if he agreed to speak with her. Even if he did not loathe her now. Kestrel knew that to look upon Ronan would be to come face-to-face with her failure. She had done everything wrong … including not being able to love him.

She folded the one-word letter and set it aside.



Arin was leaving the general’s villa, which had become the army’s headquarters, when one of the new officers saluted him. Thrynne, a middle-aged man, was examining a batch of Valorian horses captured from the battle. “These will do well for our march on the Metrea estate,” he said.

Arin frowned. “What?”

“Cheat’s sending us to capture the Metrea estate.”

Arin lost his patience. “That’s idiotic. Metrea grows olives. Do you want to live on olives during a siege?”

“Er … no.”

“Then go to Ethyra, where they will have stores of grain, plus livestock.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Should I ask Cheat first?”

“No.” Arin rubbed his brow, deeply tired of treading so cautiously around Cheat. “Just go.”

Thrynne took his troops.

When Arin saw Cheat the next day, no mention was made of the commander’s order or how it had been overturned. Arin’s friend was cheerful and suggested Arin visit his “Valorian cattle,” by which he meant the prisoners from the battle. “See if conditions are the way you’d like them,” Cheat said. “Why don’t you go there tomorrow afternoon?”

It had been a while since Cheat had asked him to do anything. Arin took the request as a good sign.



He brought Sarsine with him. She had a gift for organization, and had already shaped the governor’s palace into something that began to look like a proper hospital. Arin thought she might know what to do about potential overcrowding in the prison.

Except that overcrowding turned out not to be a problem.

Blood slicked the prison floor. Bodies lay crumpled in cells. All the Valorian soldiers had been killed—shot through the prison bars or speared in their sleep.

Arin’s stomach clenched. He heard Sarsine gasp. His boots stood in a dark puddle of blood.

Not all the prisoners were dead; those who had been captured the night the revolution began were still alive, staring at Arin with horror. They were silent … afraid, perhaps, that they would be next. But one of them stepped close to the bars of his cell, his body lean, face handsome, movements elegant in that way that Arin had hated. Envied.

Ronan didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His scathing expression was worse than words. It blamed Arin. It called him an animal, rooting in blood.

Arin turned away. He strode down the long hall, trying not to feel as if he was fleeing, and confronted a guard. “What happened?” he demanded, though he knew the answer.

“Orders,” the guard said.

“Cheat’s?”

“Of course.” She shrugged. “Should’ve been done long ago, he said.”

“And you didn’t think that there was anything wrong with this? With killing hundreds of people?”

“But we had orders,” another guard spoke. “They’re Valorians.”

“You’ve turned this prison into a slaughterhouse!”

One of the Herrani hawked and spat. “Cheat said that you’d be like this.”