The Winner's Curse Read Free Page B

door. One of her father’s guards peered through its window and swung the door open.
    Kestrel said nothing to him or the other guards, and they said nothing to her. She led the way across the grounds. The auctioneer and slave followed.
    She was home. But the footfalls behind her on the flagstone path reminded Kestrel that this had not always been her home. This estate, and the entire Garden District, had been made by the Herrani, who had called it by another name when it had been theirs.
    She stepped onto the lawn. So did the men, their footsteps now hushed by grass.
    A yellow bird trilled and swooped through the trees. Kestrel listened until the song dwindled. She continued toward the villa.
    The sound of her sandals on the marble floor of the entryway echoed gently against walls painted with leaping creatures, flowers, and gods she didn’t know. Her footfalls blurred into the whisper of water bubbling up from a shallow pool set into the floor.
    “A beautiful home,” said the auctioneer.
    She glanced at him sharply, though she heard nothing bitter in his voice. She searched him for some sign that he recognized the house, that he had visited it—as an honored guest, friend, or even family member—before the Herran War. But that was a foolish notion. The villas in the Garden District had belonged to aristocratic Herrani, and if the auctioneer had been one of those, he wouldn’t have ended up in his line of work. He would have become a house slave, perhaps a tutor for Valorian children. If the auctioneer did know her house, it was because he had delivered slaves here for her father.
    She hesitated to look at Smith. When she did, he refused to look back.
    The housekeeper came toward her down the long hall that stretched beyond the fountain. Kestrel sent her away again with the order to fetch the steward and ask him to return with twenty-six keystones. When the steward arrived, his blond brows were drawn together and the hands holding a small coffer were tight. Harman’s hands became tighter still when he noticed the auctioneer and slave.
    Kestrel opened the coffer and counted money into the auctioneer’s outstretched hand. He pocketed the silver, then emptied her purse, which he had carried with him. With a slight bow, he returned the flat bag to her. “Such a pleasure to have your business.” He turned to go.
    She said, “There had better not be a fresh mark on him.”
    The auctioneer’s eyes flicked to the slave and traced his rags, his dirty, scarred arms. “You’re welcome to inspect, my lady,” the auctioneer drawled.
    Kestrel frowned, unsettled by the idea of inspecting any person, let alone this person. But before she could form a response, the auctioneer had left.
    “How much?” Harman demanded. “How much, total, did this cost?”
    She told him.
    He drew in a long breath. “Your father—”
    “I will tell my father.”
    “Well, what am I supposed to do with him ?”
    Kestrel looked at the slave. He hadn’t moved, but remained standing on the same black tile as if still on the auction block. He had ignored the entire conversation, tuning out the Valorian he probably didn’t fully understand. His eyes were raised, resting on a painted nightingale that graced a far wall. “This is Smith,” Kestrel told the steward.
    Harman’s anxiety eased somewhat. “A blacksmith?” Slaves were sometimes named by masters for their work. “We could use that. I’ll send him to the forge.”
    “Wait. I’m not sure that’s where I want him.” She spoke to Smith in Herrani: “Do you sing?”
    He looked at her then, and Kestrel saw the same expression she had seen earlier in the waiting room. His gray eyes were icy. “No.”
    Smith had answered in her language, and his accent was light.
    He turned away. Dark hair fell forward. It curtained his profile.
    Kestrel’s nails bit into her palms. “See to it that he has a bath,” she told Harman in a voice she hoped was brisk rather than frustrated. “Give him