The Winner's Crime(21)

Slaves had never liked that question. She’d seen teeth clenched at its asking. If an emotion could have a sound, Kestrel thought that the one produced by that question might sound like the glass petals had, ground beneath the heavy vase.

But Tensen only smiled. “I was an actor.”

“I suppose that’s good experience for a spymaster.”

Tensen wasn’t at all put out by having that title pinned on him. He seemed positively delighted by this conversation. “I hope I’m not so obvious to everyone.”

“‘Hope’ is the operative word here, since your governor gave all signs that he wouldn’t be here tonight, and if he sent someone to the capital in his stead it must have been a person of political value to him, someone he trusts, someone intelligent and observant. You’ve taken some pains to appear weaker than you are, but you’re no old man ready to doze off.”

“Well, I am old. That much is true.”

Kestrel made an impatient noise. “Are you even really the minister of agriculture?”

“I like to think that I’m able to play many roles.”

“And you are very optimistic indeed if you believe that the emperor won’t notice, especially when he knows full well that Herran has spies in the palace.”

Tensen lost his smile. “What do you know, my lady?”

“That this conversation will end now unless you make me a promise.”

He raised his brows.

“Promise that Arin will never learn that you and I spoke,” she said. “I can offer information. You can give it to your governor. But it can’t be linked to me.”

Tensen considered her. He passed a gnarled hand over the carved back of a chair and pursed his lips as if there was something wanting in the chair’s design. “I know that your presence in Arin’s house after the Firstwinter Rebellion was … complicated.”

“I didn’t want to be there.”

“Maybe not at first.”

Slowly, Kestrel said, “I never could have stayed.”

“My lady, it’s not for me to know what you wanted or what you could or could not do. But your condition surprises me. If you’re sympathetic enough toward my governor—or his cause—to share something with me, why can’t Arin know? I swore by the god of loyalty to serve him. You would make me break my oath.”

“Do you know how I escaped from your city’s harbor?”

“No.”

“Arin let me go,” she said, “even though letting me go was the same thing as inviting the Valorian army to break down his city’s walls. So promise me, because it is in your interest that Arin can’t know. You can’t trust that he’ll always choose the safety of his country—or even of himself.”

Tensen was silent.

“Do you see?” Kestrel pressed. “Do you see that the very reason you stopped me from entering the ballroom is why you can’t tell Arin that your information comes from me? Let’s not pretend that you don’t know how I came to look like I did, and why I can’t look that way when I return to the ballroom.” Kestrel’s gaze dropped to her hands. She wished she had something to do with them. She imagined that she held one of those roses on the mantel. She could almost feel the bloom’s texture, its curled velvet as sinkingly soft as the balcony’s curtain.

“Arin and I are impossible,” she said quietly. “Dangerous. It’s best that we keep our distance from each other.”

“Yes,” said Tensen. “I see.”

“Do you promise?”

“Would you trust me to keep that promise?”

“I trust my ability to ruin you if you don’t.”

He laughed. It wasn’t quite a disbelieving laugh, only the kind that the aged sometimes have for the young. “Then speak, my lady. You have my word.”

Kestrel told him about Thrynne and what the tortured man had said.

The minister pressed a palm to his mouth, thumb rumpling the wrinkles near one eye. As he heard more, his hand shifted into a fist, still covering his mouth. He had the look of someone trying not to be sick.

His hand fell away. “You think that Thrynne had something important to tell Arin. What did Thrynne overhear during the emperor’s meeting with the Senate leader?”

“I don’t know.”

“You could find out.”

But Kestrel was already walking toward the door. “No.”

Tensen spread his hands. “Where’s the harm?”


She shook her head at the obvious absurdity of such a question.

“Are you afraid of the risk of finding out more?” said Tensen. “I hear that you love a gamble.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“Yet you’ve played it well so far. You’re playing it now.”

Kestrel set her hand on the cane blocking the door. “This kind of conversation won’t happen again. I am not one of your people. I have my own country and code … and no reason to become your spy.”

“Then why tell me anything at all?”

Kestrel shrugged. “Valorians see little point in the sacred, but we honor the last request of the dying. I’ve told you what I know for Thrynne’s sake.”

“Only for him?”