The Winner's Crime(31)

She tried not to hear him. She looked at the princess standing alone.

Kestrel would go to her. She would leave Tensen and the indigo moth and cut a path through the courtiers, passing between the soapstone sculptures plundered from the northern tundra, because if Kestrel didn’t go to Risha now, she was sure that she would become just like the statues: smooth, cold, hard.

Before she could move, someone else appeared at the princess’s side.

It was Arin. He spoke softly to Risha. Kestrel had no real way of telling that his voice was soft, not from so far away, not with the din of courtiers talking. But Kestrel knew. She knew, she could see compassion in his eyes, in the tender curve of his mouth. Arin would say nothing but soft words to this young woman. He leaned toward her. Risha answered him, and he touched three fingers to the back of her hand.

And why wouldn’t Arin grieve with Risha? He had lost his family. He had lost everything to the Valorians. Of course that drew him to her loss. Their shared sorrow created a shelter around them that Kestrel could never enter.

What would she have said to Risha anyway?

It was my fault.

Or: It could have been worse.

That was as stupid as telling Arin the truth. Kestrel would have to swallow her words, and be silent, and swallow again until her belly was heavy with everything she couldn’t say.

She wondered if Arin would lift his gaze and see her watching them. But his eyes remained on Risha.

It seemed to Kestrel that her life had taken the shape of a folded knife, her heart a blade inside a body of wood.

“You’d better go,” Tensen said suddenly. She had forgotten that he stood next to her, that they were surrounded by the court, and that she had meant her conversation with Tensen to be as brief as possible. She had meant to avoid the notice of the emperor.

Who was staring across the gallery at them.

His fury boiled. The courtiers nearest to him sensed it. They edged away.

“Wait,” she told Tensen, though the emperor was bearing through the crowd toward them.

“I don’t think so.”

“Wait. Why did my father poison the eastern horses?”

“Why do you Valorians do anything? To win, obviously. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Was it his idea? The emperor’s? Or—what do people say?” How widely known was her role in seizing the plains?

“The court doesn’t care how or why General Trajan did it. They rejoice in the result.”

“Thank you,” Kestrel said, but Tensen had already gone.

The emperor closed in on her. She tried not to reach for her new diamond dagger, or wish for the one her father had given her and the emperor had taken. The crowd gave them a wide berth.

“I told you to stay away from the Herrani,” the emperor hissed.

“No, you didn’t.” Her voice was a miracle. Calm. Steady. It couldn’t possibly be her own. “I don’t remember those exact words.”

“I was perfectly clear.” The emperor’s hand came down on her arm. To the rest of the court, the gesture might have looked affectionate. They didn’t see how he worked his thumb into her inner elbow and pinched the flesh there.

At first, the pain was small. Mean-spirited, almost childish. It didn’t seem serious, which gave Kestrel the courage to lie. “That’s what I told Minister Tensen. That I’m no longer the imperial ambassador to Herran. Isn’t that what you wanted? I thought it only polite to tell the minister in person.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t tell the governor.”

“I don’t want to talk to the governor.”

“No? You haven’t spoken with Arin?” The emperor’s nails were sharp.

Kestrel almost saw her error, but another part of her insisted that there could be no error, not with him. Her mind filled with lead. It said deny. And although the knowledge of what she had done wrong suddenly fizzed through her, fear corroded her thoughts, and lied to her, and told her to lie hard enough to make the lie true. “No,” she told the emperor. “Of course not.”

“That,” whispered the emperor, “isn’t what my librarians say.”

He pinched harder. The pain deepened. It drove into her fear. It pinned her feet to the floor.

“You disobeyed me, Kestrel. You disobeyed me twice.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

The emperor released her, his thumbnail bloody. “No, you’re not,” he said. “But you will be.”





13

Yet the emperor did nothing.

Kestrel’s dread grew. There was a half-moon scab and a stormy bruise on her inside elbow. That couldn’t be her only punishment.

Kestrel’s letters to Jess, filled with false cheer, went unanswered. It occurred to Kestrel that the emperor had intercepted the letters. But this, though it hurt, wouldn’t be enough for the emperor’s revenge. Something worse must come.

She’d seen the way he was with others. A soldier had recently been found guilty of desertion, and his high-society parents had pled for leniency. Desertion was a form of treason. The punishment for treason was death. Courtiers gossiped that maybe, just this once, the soldier would “go north”—meaning, to the tundra’s work camp. But the parents clearly hoped for even better than that. Their gold made its way to certain pockets. They regularly petitioned the emperor to release their son. The emperor had smiled and said he would see. It amused him to wait, and watch people twist on the knife of his waiting.