Free The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski

down the stairs and saw him crouching by the pool in the entryway. He splashed water on his face and palmed it over his hair, which was spiky with sweat.
    “What will happen to the senator?” asked Kestrel.
    “The emperor doesn’t like to punish by death, but in this case I think he will make an exception.”
    “Perhaps the kegs of black powder were stolen , as Andrax claims.”
    “He was the only one besides myself with a key to that particular armory, and there was no sign of forced entry. I had my key with me and have been away for three days.”
    “The kegs could still be in the city. I assume that someone has ordered the ships to be kept at port and searched?”
    Her father winced. “Trust you to think of what the governor should have done two days ago.” He paused, then said, “Kestrel—”
    “I know what you’re going to say.” This was why she had come to her father and broached the subject of the senator’s betrayal: she hadn’t wanted to wait for the general to turn it into a tool to use on her. “The empire needs people like me.”
    His brows rose. “So you’ll do it? You’ll enlist?”
    “No. I have a suggestion. You claim that I have a mind for war.”
    Slowly, he said, “You have a way of getting what you want.”
    “Yet for years now my military training has focused on the physical, and all it has done is shape me into a barely competent fighter.” Kestrel had an image of Irex standing before her, the dagger held so naturally that it seemed to have grown out of his hand. “It’s not enough. You should be teaching me history. We should be inventing battle scenarios, discussing the benefits and drawbacks of battalion order. Meanwhile, I will keep an open mind about fighting for the empire.”
    His light brown eyes were crinkling at the corners, but he made his mouth stern. “Hmph.”
    “You don’t like my suggestion?”
    “I am wondering what it will cost me.”
    Kestrel readied herself. This was the hard part. “My sessions with Rax stop. He knows as well as I do that I have come as far as I can. We are wasting his time.”
    The general shook his head. “Kestrel—”
    “ And you will stop pressuring me to enlist. Whether I become a soldier is my choice.”
    The general rubbed his wet palms together, his hands still dirty. The water that dripped from them was brown. “Here is my counteroffer. You will study strategy with me as my schedule allows. Your sessions with Rax will continue, but only on a weekly basis. And you will make your decision by spring.”
    “I don’t have to decide until I am twenty.”
    “It’s better for us both, Kestrel, if we know soon on what ground we stand.”
    She was ready to agree, but he lifted one finger. “If you don’t choose my life,” he said, “you will marry in the spring.”
    “That’s a trap.”
    “No, it’s a bet. A bet that you like your independence too much not to fight alongside me.”
    “I hope you see the irony in what you have just said.”
    He smiled.
    Kestrel said, “You will stop trying to persuade me? No more lectures?”
    “None.”
    “I will play the piano whenever I like. You won’t say a word about it.”
    His smile shrank. “Fine.”
    “And”—her voice faltered—“if I marry, it will be to whom I choose.”
    “Of course. Any Valorian of our society will do.”
    This was fair, she decided. “I agree.”
    The general patted her cheek with a damp hand. “Good girl.”
    *   *   *
    Kestrel walked down the hall. The night before her father’s return she had lain awake, seeing the three bee tiles behind her closed eyes, and Irex’s knife, and her own. She had thought about how powerful she had felt in one situation, and how helpless in the other. She studied her life like a draw of Bite and Sting pieces. She believed she saw a clear line of play.
    But she had forgotten that it was her father who had taught her that game.
    Kestrel had the feeling that she had just made a very bad bargain.
    She