Page 62 of The Winner's Curse
“I don’t understand you,” she said, frustrated. “I don’t understand what you say, how you change, how you act one way and then come here and act another.”
“I don’t always understand myself either. But I know I want to go with you tonight.”
Kestrel let the words echo in her mind. There had been a supple strength to his voice. An unconscious melody. Kestrel wondered if Arin knew how he exposed himself as a singer with every simple, ordinary word. She wondered if he meant to hold her in thrall.
“If you think it’s stupid for me to go to the Firstwinter ball,” she said, “you can be certain that it is far worse for me to take you along.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Or it could send a bold message of what we both know to be true: that you have nothing to hide.”
* * *
The governor’s wife, Neril, faltered for only the briefest of moments when she saw Kestrel in the receiving line for the ball. But the governor thought highly of General Trajan and, more important, relied upon him. This made the men allies—which, in turn, meant that Neril had to be careful around the general’s daughter, as Kestrel knew very well.
“My dear!” said Neril. “You look stunning.” Her eyes, however, didn’t rest on Kestrel. They darted behind her to where Arin stood.
“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—”
