Page 116 of The Winner's Curse
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Herrani poured boiling water and tar down onto the Rangers. They screamed. They fell. But General Trajan had heard, as well as Arin, the sound of his success. He brought his troops, which Arin now realized had been positioned for this moment, around the city. Soon they would bring the brunt of their power to bear against the weakened wall. They’d ram through chunks of stone. They’d punch at the crumbling façade until a hole appeared and widened. They’d drag the hole open with grappling hooks cranked by siege engines. They would enter the city.
It would be a massacre.
Arin had taken position on the mountainside wall. He didn’t see a ship enter the harbor.
But he saw a hawk—a small one, a kestrel—swoop over the city and dive toward the general.
The man pulled a tube from its leg and opened it. He went still.
He disappeared into the ranks of soldiers.
The Valorian army stopped its assault.
Then Arin’s feet were moving along the wall, racing to face the sea, and although he couldn’t have said that he knew what had happened, he knew that something had changed, and in his mind there was only one person who could change his world.
Another hawk was perched on the seaside battlements. It eyed him—head cocked, beak sharp, talons tight on stone. Snow laced its feathers.
The message it bore was short.
Arin,
Let me in.
Kestrel
42
Kestrel watched the gate heave open. Arin stepped through, and it slammed behind him so that the closed wall was to his back as the sea was to hers. He started toward her. Then his eyes flashed, as her father’s had when she’d met him moments before, to her forehead. Arin’s face whitened.
Across her brows was a glittering line of gold dust and myrrh oil. It was the Valorian sign of an engaged woman.
She forced herself to smile. “You don’t trust me enough to let me inside the city, Arin? Well, I understand.”
“What did you do?”
The brokenness of his voice broke Kestrel. Yet she held the pieces of herself together.
“But Ronan…” Arin trailed off. “How, Kestrel? Who?”
“Congratulate me. I am to marry the heir to the empire.”
She saw him believe it. She saw betrayal wash across his features, then understanding. She saw his thoughts.
Hadn’t she pulled away from his embrace, escaped across his roof, and nearly drawn a weapon on him?
Who was he, to her?
And Kestrel liked to win. Wasn’t the someday role of empress a tempting stake? Power might persuade where Ronan hadn’t.
Arin’s belief was cruel. Yet she said nothing to change it. If he knew the true conditions of the emperor’s offer, he would never accept it.
“As pleasant as it would be to discuss the details of my upcoming wedding,” she said, “more important matters are at hand. The emperor has a message for you.”
Arin’s eyes had darkened. His tone was biting. “Message?”
“Freedom, for you and your people. He appoints you governor. You are, of course, to swear loyalty to the emperor, receive his emissaries, and answer to him. But unless a matter doesn’t directly concern the empire, you may govern your people as you see fit.” Kestrel handed him a sheet of paper. “A list of Herran’s expected taxes and tributes, to be paid for the honor of being part of the empire.”
