Page 80 of The Winner's Curse
“So?”
“I told Anireh to shut up when she made fun of your nose. Do you remember? She pushed me down.”
“Your sister was too beautiful for her own good. But all this was long ago. What’s your point?”
Arin held both her hands now. “We share something, and probably not for very long. The Valorians will come. There will be a siege.” He groped for what to say. “By the gods, just listen.”
“Oh, Arin. Haven’t you learned? The gods won’t hear you.” She sighed. “But I will.”
He told her about the day he had been sold to Kestrel, and every day since. He held nothing back.
When he finished, Sarsine’s expression had changed. “You’re still a fool,” she said, but gently.
“I am,” he whispered.
“What do you plan to do with her?”
Arin tilted his head helplessly against the carved back of his father’s chair. “I don’t know.”
“She demanded to see a sick friend. Said you made her a promise.”
“Yes, but I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Kestrel hates me, but she still speaks to me. Once she sees Jess … she’ll never do that again.”
* * *
Kestrel sat in the sunroom. It was warm, filled with potted plants and their mineral, almost milky fragrance. The sun was already high above the skylight. It had burned through the ripples of rain left on the glass from the night’s storm, which had drummed out the fire in the city. From the southernmost window, Kestrel had watched the flames fade.
It had been a long night, a long morning. But Kestrel didn’t want to sleep.
Her eyes fell on a plant. The Herrani word for it was damselthorn. It was large and thick-stemmed, at least as old as the war. It had leaves that looked like flowers, because their green became a brilliant red in the sun.
Despite herself, Kestrel thought of Arin’s kiss. How it had flared a light inside her, and transformed her from plain leaf into fire.
Kestrel opened the sunroom door and stepped into a high-walled rooftop garden. She breathed the chilled air. Everything was dead here. Fans of brown leaves. Stems that would snap as soon as touched. Stones lay strewn in artful patterns on the ground, in gray, blue, and white, the shape of birds’ eggs.
She passed her hands over the cold walls. There were no rough edges, nothing that might give her fingers or toes purchase. She couldn’t climb. There was a door set into the far wall, but where it led Kestrel would probably never know. It was locked.
Kestrel stood, considering. She bit her lips hard. Then she walked back into the sunroom and brought out the damselthorn.
She smashed the pot on the stones.
* * *
The day aged. Kestrel watched the light outside yellow. Sarsine came and saw the wreckage of plants in the garden. She gathered the ceramic shards, then had a group of Herrani search the suite for more.
Kestrel had made certain to hide some wicked-looking shards in places where they would be found. But the best—one that could cut a throat as easily as a knife—she had hung outside from the window. She had tied it with a strip of cloth, dangled it into the thick evergreen ivy that climbed the walls outside the bathing room, and closed the window on the strip’s edge, securing it between the frame and the sill.
It wasn’t discovered, and Kestrel was left alone again.
Her eyes itched and her bones turned to lead, yet she refused to sleep.
Finally she did something she had been dreading. She tried to unbraid her hair. She yanked at the plaits, swore as they snarled into knots. The pain kept her awake.
So did the shame. She remembered Arin’s hands sinking into her hair, the brush of a fingertip against the hollow behind her ear.
