Page 85 of The Winner's Curse
“So there’s an antidote,” Kestrel insisted, though Arin had indicated nothing of the kind.
He took some time to answer. “No.”
“Yes, there is! The Herrani were the best doctors in the world. You would never have let a poison exist without finding a cure for it.”
“There’s no antidote … only something that might help.”
“Then you should be giving it to them!”
He turned her shoulders so that she couldn’t see the rows of pallets. “We don’t have it. No one planned for survivors. The herb we’d need should have been gathered in the fall. It’s winter. There will be none left.”
“Yes, there will. There’s been no snow yet. No frost. Most plants don’t die until the first frost. Enai said so.”
“True, but—”
“You will find it.”
Arin was silent.
“Help her.” Kestrel’s voice broke. “Please.”
“It’s a delicate plant. They might have all died in the cold, and I’m not sure I’ll be able—”
“Promise me you’ll look,” Kestrel said, as if she had not sworn that his promises were worth nothing.
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
* * *
He insisted on taking her to his house first.
“I can go with you into the mountains,” she said. “I can search, too.”
His smile was dry. “You’re not the one who spent hours as a child poring over botany books, wondering why one species of tree had four-fingered leaves, and another, six.”
The swaying of the carriage made Kestrel drowsy. Hours of lost sleep weighted her eyelids. She struggled to keep them open. Outside the window, dusk had given in to the night.
“You have less than three days,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Before the reinforcements arrive.”
When he said nothing, Kestrel voiced what he must be thinking. “I suppose it’s not the time for you to be hunting in the mountains for a plant.”
“I promised I would go. So I will.”
Kestrel’s eyes slipped shut. She faded in and out of sleep. When Arin spoke again, she wasn’t sure whether he expected her to hear him.
“I remember sitting with my mother in a carriage.” There was a long pause. Then Arin’s voice came again in that slow, fluid way that showed the singer in him. “In my memory, I am small and sleepy, and she is doing something strange. Every time the carriage turns into the sun, she raises her hand as if reaching for something. The light lines her fingers with fire. Then the carriage passes through shadows, and her hand falls. Again sunlight beams through the window, and again her hand lifts. It becomes an eclipse.”
Kestrel listened, and it was as if the story itself was an eclipse, drawing its darkness over her.
“Just before I fell asleep,” he said, “I realized that she was shading my eyes from the sun.”
She heard Arin shift, felt him look at her.
“Kestrel.” She imagined how he would sit, lean forward. How he would look in the glow of the carriage lantern. “Survival isn’t wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. You can pour a glass of wine like it’s meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge.” Perhaps his head tilted slightly at this. “You probably plot even in your sleep.”
