The Winner's Crime(51)

“My shoes, I think. I stepped in something.” Tensen glanced up and saw the closed trunk with its tightened straps waiting by the door. “Arin, are you leaving me?”

“I’m no good here.”

“Do you think you will do more good in Herran? I hate to be rude, but surely you understand by now that being a governor means little more than giving the emperor whatever he wants. Your cousin’s been able to manage that just fine in your absence.”

“I’m not going to Herran. I’m going to the east.”

Tensen blinked, then frowned. He passed a palm over the trunk. He fiddled with the straps. “What could you hope to find there?”

“Allies.”

“The east doesn’t make allies. The east is the east. They don’t like outsiders.”

“I’m not asking for your advice.”

“Apparently not. Because if you were, I would remind you that people who go to that country rarely return, and those who do aren’t the same.”

“I could use a change.”

Tensen studied him. “You were out all night. I wonder what has inspired this decision of yours.”

“Tensen, we’re already at war. We need to face facts. Herran will have to fight free of the empire, and we’re no match for it. The east might be.”

“It’s illegal for a foreigner to enter Dacra.”

“I’m no ordinary foreigner.”

Tensen cupped his hands and opened them wide as if scattering seeds to the floor. It was the Herrani gesture of skepticism.

“Don’t doubt me,” Arin said.

“It’s not you I doubt, but the idea. It’s not safe.”

“Nothing’s safe. Staying here isn’t safe. And going home is useless. You asked me when we first came here what I would choose, myself or my country.”

“That’s true,” Tensen said slowly. “I did.”

“This is my choice.”

“A choice like that is easy when you don’t really know what it will cost.”

“Whether it’s easy or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s mine.”

Tensen pursed his lips. The loose flesh of his neck sank gently beneath his lowered chin. Abruptly, he leveled his gaze and met Arin’s. Tensen pulled the gold ring from his finger. “Take this.”

“I can’t take that.”

“I want you to.”

“It was your grandson’s.”

“That’s why I want you to take it.”

“Tensen. No.”


“Am I not allowed to worry for you?” Tensen didn’t look at the ring in his outstretched hand. He kept his eyes on Arin. “You’ll go east no matter what I say. If you won’t take my advice, the least you can do is honor an old man’s gift by accepting it.”

Still reluctant, Arin took the ring. It fit on his smallest finger.

“Off you go, then.” Tensen patted the strapped trunk with deliberate lightness, in a way that avoided the emotion of the moment and yet also didn’t, because the avoidance was evidence of Tensen’s difficulty. He no longer looked at Arin directly. It made Arin wish he hadn’t accepted the ring. It made him remember his mother’s emerald. It made him wonder which pain was greater: to give up something precious, or to see it taken away. In a flash that he would have resisted if he could, Arin remembered Kestrel in the tavern, her lips bitten white as he’d accused her. She had looked cornered. She had looked trapped.

No, caught. That’s how the guilty look.

“Stop in Herran on your way east,” Tensen said, and Arin was glad to be torn away from his thoughts. “I have a job for you.” The minister told Arin about the hearthnut harvest.

“Where’d you get this information?” Arin asked.

Tensen smiled.

“You met with the Moth,” Arin said. “Outside the palace. That’s why your shoes smell like fish.”

“I should have cleaned them,” Tensen said mournfully.

Arin tried to imagine Risha talking with Tensen on the wharf, or maybe in the Butcher’s Row, but failed. “When was this meeting? It’s almost noon. You weren’t in the state room this morning.” Neither had been Kestrel.

Arin was suddenly furious with himself. He knew exactly which way his thoughts were going. He couldn’t believe it. Even now, even when he knew what Kestrel had done, even when he’d heard her admit it, heard it from her very lips, Arin’s mind kept playing its favorite sick game. It noted that Risha certainly hadn’t smelled like fish. Not like Tensen. How conveniently Arin’s imagination ignored the possibility that Risha might have spoken with Tensen and then changed her shoes before going to the state room. No, Arin’s unruly mind didn’t care for that logical explanation. Instead it presented Arin with the image of Kestrel in her maid’s dress. Meeting with Tensen. Telling him secrets.

“Stop,” Arin snapped. Tensen closed his mouth, his expression puzzled. “Just stop.” Arin pressed his fingers to his temples. He rubbed hard. “You don’t have to tell me where you were or when. I don’t need to know.”

“Arin, have I made you angry?”

“No.”

“Why are you angry?”