The Winner's Crime(43)

“What happened to you?” she whispered.

He covered the wound. But Kestrel had seen its length. The livid skin straining at black stitches. The way it had changed him. The way he hid it.

“Arin, tell me.”

He stayed silent.

“Please,” she said.

Arin crouched down, and Kestrel didn’t understand the movement until he had pulled a dagger from his boot.

Her dagger. Her beloved dagger, with its perfect weight and her seal carved into the hilt’s ruby. Her dagger, which the emperor had taken weeks ago.

“This,” Arin said, and gave it to Kestrel.

I’m sorry, she had told the emperor.

No, you’re not. But you will be.

She dropped the dagger to the ground.

Arin retrieved it. “Take care. You’ll damage the blade. I happen to know that it keeps a nice, sharp edge. I made sure that the palace guard I took it from knew it, too. You’d think that a Valorian would have more courage than to hire someone to attack me in a dark corner.”

“Arin, it wasn’t me.”

“I didn’t say it was.” But he was angry and rough.

“I could never.”

Arin must have sensed that she was ready to weep, that the dagger in his hands was warping in her blurred vision. He spoke more gently. “I don’t think that you did.”

“Why?” Her voice wavered and broke. “I could have arranged for it. That’s my dagger. That’s my seal. Why do you believe what I say? Why would you believe in me at all?”

He moved to lean forward on the railing, forearms folded with the blade dangling down over the river, his face in profile. Finally, he said, “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I know,” he muttered.

She heard the strain in his voice. His eyes cut to her, and she saw that he knew she had heard it. His body shifted into a position of determined nonchalance. “Logically speaking,” he said lightly, “the idea that you hired someone to attack me doesn’t make much sense. I’m not sure what your motive would be.”

“I could have wanted to put an end to the rumors.”

“That would be a shame. I like the rumors.”

“Don’t joke. You should blame me. You must.”

He shook his head. “It’s not like you to send someone else to do your dirty work.”

“I could have changed.”

“Kestrel, why are you trying to convince me of your guilt?”

Because this is my fault, she wanted to say.

“A moment ago, you insisted that you had nothing to do with this,” Arin said, “and that’s what makes sense. Do you want to tell me why the emperor took your dagger? Whom did he want to punish with it? Just me … or you, too?”

Kestrel couldn’t speak.

“I might even be flattered,” Arin said, “if the emperor’s form of flattery didn’t hurt so much.” He straightened, and offered her the dagger again.

“No,” she said sharply.

“It’s not the blade’s fault.”

She choked on her anguish. On her guilt, her fault, and his trust. “If you give that dagger to me, I will throw it in the river.”

Arin shrugged. He tucked the dagger back into his boot, then he faced her. The slash curved slightly in his cheek like half a smile, but his mouth was flat as he watched her take him in. “I’m sure that my new appearance is fascinating in all sorts of ways, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’d rather talk about this.” He pointed at Kestrel’s work scarf and dragged his finger down through the air to her black boots. “Kestrel, what are you doing?”

She had forgotten what she wore. “Nothing.”

He lifted his dark brows.

“It was a dare,” she said. “A senator’s daughter dared me to sneak out of the palace without an escort.”

“Try harder, Kestrel.”

She muttered, “I was tired of being closed up inside the palace.”


“That I believe. But I doubt it’s the whole truth.”

Arin’s eyes were narrow, inspecting her. His hand slid along the railing as he came close. He reached for the collar of the sailor’s coat. He drew it away from her neck.

The world went luscious, and slow, and still.

He bowed his head. Stitches scratched against her cheek. Arin buried his face in the hollow between her neck and the coat collar and breathed in. Warmth flooded her.

Kestrel imagined: his mouth parting against her skin. The teeth of his smile. And she imagined more, she saw what she would do, how she would forget herself, how everything would slip and unloop, like rich ribbon off its spool. The dream of this held her. She couldn’t move.

She felt him feel how she didn’t move. Arin hesitated. He lifted his head and looked down at her. The blacks of his eyes were huge.

He released her. “You smell like a man.” He put some distance between them. “Where’d you get that coat?”

Kestrel’s voice wasn’t quite as shaky as the rest of her. “I won it.”

“Who was your victim this time?”

“A sailor. At cards. I was cold.”

“Flustered, Kestrel?”

“Not at all.” She firmed up her voice. “To tell the truth, he gave it to me.”