The Winner's Crime(16)

Kestrel hadn’t seen Ronan since the night of the Firstwinter Rebellion. She’d written letters, then burned them. She’d sent an invitation to the court. It was ignored. He was in the city now, Jess had said. He’d fallen in with a wild crowd. Then Jess had gone tight-lipped and wouldn’t say any more—and Kestrel, who had loved Ronan as much as she could, and missed him, didn’t dare ask.

Slowly, Kestrel said to Jess, “I’ve told you before. The emperor made the offer of marriage to his son. I couldn’t refuse.”

“Could you not? Everyone knows the story of how you brought the wrath of the imperial army to Herran. You could have asked the emperor for anything.”

Kestrel was silent.

“It’s because you do not want to refuse,” Jess said. “You never do anything you don’t want to do.”

“It’s a political marriage. For the good of the empire.”

“What makes you think that you are the best thing for it?”

Kestrel had never seen such resentment in Jess’s eyes. Quietly Kestrel said, “Ronan wants nothing to do with me now anyway.”

“True.” Jess seemed to regret her hard words, then to regret her regret. Her voice stayed stony. “I am glad that he won’t be here tonight. How could the emperor invite Herrani to the ball?”

“Just one. One Herrani.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“They’re not slaves anymore, Jess. They’re independent members of the empire.”

“So we reward murder with freedom? Those rebels killed Valorians. They killed our friends. I hate the emperor for his edict.”

Dangerous words. “Jess—”

“He doesn’t know. He didn’t see the slaves’ savagery. I did. You did. That so-called governor kept you as some kind of toy—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

Jess scowled at the floor. Her voice came low: “You never do.”

*

Kestrel stood next to Verex outside the closed ballroom doors, listening to the swell of the emperor’s voice. Kestrel couldn’t distinguish the words, but heard the sure rhythm. The emperor was a skilled public speaker.

Verex’s head was lowered, hands stuffed in his pockets. He was dressed in formal military style: all black, with gold piping that echoed the glittering horizontal line drawn above Kestrel’s brows. His belted, jeweled dagger matched hers. The emperor had finally given Kestrel the dagger he’d promised, and it was indeed fine—set with diamonds and exquisitely sharp. It was too heavy. It dragged at her hip.

She wished the emperor would stop talking. Her stomach dipped and rose with the sound of his voice. Her nails curled into her palms.

Verex scuffed his boot.

She ignored him. She touched a glass petal on her necklace. It felt frail.

The emperor’s voice stopped. The doors flung open.

It was like a hallucination: the crowd in a splash of colors, the heat, the applause, the fanfare.

Then the crash of sound faded, because the emperor was speaking again, and then he must have stopped speaking, because Kestrel heard the breathless silence that came just before Verex kissed her.

His lips were dry. Polite.

She had known it was coming, it was all planned, and she had done her best to be as far away from herself as possible when it happened. But her mind couldn’t stay asleep forever. It told her to stay put, don’t shrivel away, this is not so bad, the kiss is a thing, an empty thing, a scrap of blank paper. Yet Kestrel was awake, and she knew the taste of her own lies.

“I’m sorry,” Verex said quietly when he pulled away. And then they were dancing before everybody.

The kiss had numbed her. Verex’s words didn’t register at first. When they did, they seemed like her own words, like she’d been saying them to her old self, the one who had given up Arin. I’m sorry, she told herself. Forgive me, she’d said. Kestrel had thought she’d known what her choices had cost her, but when the prince had kissed her she sharply understood that she was going to pay for this for the rest of her life.

“Kestrel?”

“Sorry,” Kestrel repeated as they spun across the ballroom floor. The prince’s feet had no natural talent, but he was grimly capable, the way someone might be if his dancing master came to lessons armed with a switch.

“I’ve been unforgivable,” Verex said. “Is that why you look so miserable?”

Kestrel studied the piping on his jacket.

Verex said, “Maybe there’s one final reason you are determined to marry me.”

The violinists’ bows sank down across the strings.

“My father is holding something over you,” Verex said.

Kestrel glanced up, then away again. Verex drew their clasped hands to his chest. The crowd murmured and sighed.

He shrugged. “It’s how my father is. But what does he—?”

“Verex, am I so bad a choice for a wife?”

He smiled a little. The dance was ending. “Not so bad.”

“Let’s agree, then, to make the best of things,” Kestrel said.

Verex bowed, and before Kestrel could decide whether this was his yes or simply meant to mark the dance’s end, he passed her hand to a senator’s. Then there was another dance, and another senator, and she was whirled into the exchequer’s arms.