Page 78 of The Winner's Curse
Kestrel was taken down the reception hall of Irex’s home—no, Arin’s. Valorian weapons winked at her from their mounts on the walls, asking why she didn’t knock her nearest guard off balance and seize the hilt of a blade. Even with hands bound, she could do damage.
Arin had been the first into the house. He strode ahead of her, back turned. He moved so eagerly that his emotion was obvious. He would be easy to surprise. A dagger between the shoulder blades.
Yet Kestrel made no move.
She had a plan, she told herself, one that didn’t include her death, which was the logical course of events should she kill Arin.
The Herrani pushed her down the hall.
A dark-haired young woman was waiting in the atrium by the fountain. When she saw Arin, her face filled with light and tears. He almost ran across the short space between them to gather her in his arms.
“Sister or lover?” Kestrel said.
The woman looked up from their embrace. Her expression hardened. She stepped away from Arin. “What?”
“Are you his sister or lover?”
She walked up to Kestrel and slapped her across the face.
“Sarsine!” Arin hauled her back.
“His sister is dead,” Sarsine said, “and I hope you suffer as much as she did.”
Kestrel’s fingers went to her cheek to press against the sting—and cover a smile with the heels of her tied hands. She remembered the bruises on Arin when she had bought him. His surly defiance. She had always wondered why slaves brought punishment upon themselves. But it had been sweet to feel a tipping of power, however slight, when that hand had cracked across her face. To know, despite the pain, that for a moment Kestrel had been the one in control.
“Sarsine is my cousin,” Arin said. “I haven’t seen her in years. After the war, she was sold as a house slave. I was a laborer, so—”
“I don’t care,” Kestrel said.
His shadowed eyes met hers. They were the color of the winter sea—the water far below Kestrel’s feet when she had looked down and imagined what it would be like to drown.
He broke the gaze between them. To his cousin he said, “I need you to be her keeper. Escort her to the east wing, let her have the run of the suite—”
“Arin! Have you lost your mind?”
“Remove anything that could be a weapon. Keep the outermost door locked at all times. See that she wants for nothing, but remember that she is a prisoner.”
“In the east wing.” Sarsine’s voice was thick with disgust.
“She’s the general’s daughter.”
“Oh, I know.”
“A political prisoner,” Arin said. “We must be better than the Valorians. We are more than savages.”
“Do you truly think that keeping your clipped bird in a luxurious cage will change how the Valorians see us?”
“It will change how we see ourselves.”
“No, Arin. It will change how everyone sees you.”
He shook his head. “She’s mine to do with as I see fit.”
There was an uneasy rustle among the Herrani. Kestrel’s heart sickened. She kept trying to forget this: the question of what it meant to belong to Arin. He reached for her, pulling her firmly toward him as her boots dragged and squeaked against the tiles. With the flick of a knife, he cut the bonds at her wrists, and the sound of leather hitting the floor was loud in the atrium’s acoustics—almost as loud as Sarsine’s choked protest.
Arin let Kestrel go. “Please, Sarsine. Take her.”
His cousin stared at him. Eventually, she nodded, but her expression made clear that she thought he was indulging in something disastrous. “Follow me,” she told Kestrel, and led the way from the atrium.
