The Winner's Crime(61)

Later, Arin would realize how lucky he’d been. But for now he thought nothing at all. The dagger was in his hands, he was flipping it by its hilt. That exquisitely sharp edge sliced through the ropes at his wrists.

The Dacran gasped on the ground, clutching his gut. Arin loomed over him and couldn’t quite remember when or how he’d gotten to his feet. When had he yanked the ropes that had bound his chest up over his head? Ropes lay in a heap on the pier. Arin stared at them. He stared at the man, who stared back.

No, not really.

The Dacran wasn’t really looking at Arin. His gaze was going over Arin’s shoulder.

Arin turned. For the first time, he truly saw where he was: on a large island in the middle of the river. The pier was grand, edged with low, scalloped walls of translucent stone. A path traveled from it up onto the island, to a castle with steeply pitched roofs and walls that gleamed like glass.

But the pier didn’t matter, or the path, or the castle.

What mattered were the ranks of white-clad guards who had trained their small crossbows, wound and notched, at Arin.

“Good,” said the skull-faced man. He stood, and held out his hand for Kestrel’s dagger.

Arin hated that he always hated to let it go.

The man took it. “Good.”

Defeated, Arin muttered, “You said that already.”

It began to rain. The Dacran looked at him through the bright gray of it. “No. It was what I said earlier, when you got to your feet and walked.”

*

The castle had looked like glass because it had been made from that odd, translucent stone. Through the rain, Arin could see dark shapes of people moving behind its outer walls. But other figures seemed to stand inside the stone.

Arin wiped water from his eyes. “Does it always rain so much here?”

“Wait till summer,” said the Dacran. “It gets so hot that some of the city canals dry up and we walk in them like deep roads. Then you’ll wish for rain.”

“I won’t be here in summer.”

The other man said nothing.

As they passed through the castle gate, Arin tried to peer into the wall. “Are those … statues inside?”

“They are the dead.” When Arin shot him a startled look, the man said. “Our ancestors. Yes, I know that some people from other countries set the people they loved on fire or dump them in a hole in a ground. But Dacra is a civilized nation.”

They entered the castle. Arin was so wet it felt as if the rain was still drumming down on him. His boots squelched. Inside the castle, some walls were built from solid white marble, and others from that glassy rock. It had a dizzying effect. Arin found it hard to judge the space and shape of things.

“Well?” said the Dacran. “Where do you keep your family dead?”

“I don’t know where they are,” Arin said shortly. The other man went silent, and that made Arin uncomfortable, resentful. He wondered when he would stop sharing things he shouldn’t. It was a bad habit.

It had begun with her. He could swear that she was the start of it all.

“The ground,” Arin said, though he had not in fact seen what had been done with the bodies of his parents and sister. “We bury our dead, as I’m sure you know if you lived in my country long enough to learn its language.” The Dacran didn’t admit to it, or that he might have been needling Arin with questions whose answers he knew. This made Arin angrier. “You’re no more civilized than I am.”

“You asked to walk. Here you are, walking. You asked to speak with my queen. You will. You’ve broken our laws three times—”

“Three?”

The man ticked them off, starting with his smallest finger. “You entered our country. You bore the weapon of our enemy. And you struck a member of the royal family.”

Arin stared at him. The man gave a slow smile. “But we have been polite,” he said.

“Who are you?”

The man led the way down a hall lined with palm-size paintings.

“Wait.” Arin caught the man’s arm.

The Dacran glanced down at Arin’s hand on him, then gave a look that made Arin let go. “You are also not supposed to touch a member of the royal family. It’s not so grave an offense as striking me, but still. I don’t know what my sister is going to do with you. The queen can hardly sentence you to death more than once.”

“Your sister?”

“That last offense bears a lesser punishment, though I don’t think you’ll like that one either.”

Arin had stopped, only vaguely aware that they had entered a high-vaulted chamber. “But if you’re the queen’s brother, that means you’re Risha’s brother, too.”

The Dacran stopped as well. “Risha?”

There was a silent energy in this new room that kept Arin from saying anything else.

It was wariness. It was the watchful eyes of guards.

It was the hard expression of the young queen, who looked at Arin as if she had already pronounced his death.





28

“Don’t say that name again,” muttered the skull-faced man to Arin.

The queen asked a sharp question. Her brother’s answer was slow, complicated. It was marked by pauses. Each pause gave life to a new tone of voice.

The rain must have stopped. The peaked ceiling, made from that sheer stone, glowed with sudden sun. Prismatic light lit the room. Arin watched the queen’s changing face as her brother spoke. Her black eyes, lined with elaborate patterns of color, narrowed. She stopped him.