The Winner's Crime(67)

Another firework went off. It seemed to thud inside Kestrel’s chest. The emperor was looking at her in the same way he had looked at his son: as if he didn’t like what he saw.

Kestrel said, “I thought that maybe I could convince her to return to the east with my father.”

A firework lit the emperor’s face with exploded light. “That is my decision.”

“It was just an idea. In the end, I said nothing about it to her.”

“She tells me, however, that your conversation was nonetheless interesting.”

The smell of sulfur was strong. The smoke burned Kestrel’s lungs. And she knew, from the threat in the emperor’s voice, that she had been prodding at a secret about the water engineer.

She looked at her father. He was staring straight ahead, watching as a drunk gentleman stood in one of the boats, teetered, and fell into the water. The crowd laughed.

Kestrel held her breath. The fireworks cracked and burst inside her. She waited for the emperor to speak again. She worried that her father would say that he had told Kestrel not to go to the engineer’s house.

“Perhaps the capital isn’t entertaining enough for you,” the emperor said to Kestrel. “I hear that you long for Herran.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” General Trajan said curtly. “She grew up there.”

The sky rained green and red. The two men looked at each other. Kestrel knew that expression on her father’s face.

Her fear slowed. She breathed again. Though the spring night was chilly, she felt suddenly warm. She felt the cloak of her father’s protection. She pulled it tightly around her.

“Of course,” the emperor said silkily, and turned to watch as another fuse was lit.





31

When the general’s wound finally closed, the emperor gave him a gold watch.

Kestrel stood with her father and the emperor on the pale green lawn of the Spring Garden. Archery targets had been set up, and courtiers took their turns. The sky was heaped with whipped-cream clouds. The wind blew soft and warm. Kestrel’s maids had packed away her winter clothes and brought out dresses of lace and toile.

She thought of Arin in his twinned rooftop garden in Herran. She wondered what bloomed for him there now.

The watch struck the hour.

General Trajan raised his brows. “It chimes.”

The emperor looked pleased, and Kestrel supposed that it might have been easy to mistake her father’s expression for wonder. But she saw the uncomfortable line of his mouth.

“Don’t be jealous, Kestrel,” said the emperor. “I haven’t forgotten that your birthday is coming up.”

She would turn eighteen. Her birthday was near spring’s end: right before the wedding. “It’s more than two months from now.”

“Yes, not so far away. Trajan, I insist that you stay in the capital right through until the wedding.”

The general shut the watch. “We just seized the eastern plains. If you want to hold them—”

“Your lieutenants can manage. You’re barely healed. You can’t expect to lead a regiment in battle, and quite frankly, you’re no good to me dead. You’ll stay here. We’ll celebrate Kestrel’s birthday together.” With the air of someone presenting the best idea in the world, he added, “I thought that she could perform for the court.”

There was the soft, faraway thump of an arrow hitting canvas.

The general said nothing. Kestrel watched his mouth harden.

“She has such a gift for music,” said the emperor, “like your wife did.”

The general’s hatred of Kestrel’s music had always been clear. It embarrassed him: her love for an instrument that one bought slaves to play. Sometimes, though, Kestrel thought that it wasn’t just that. The piano was his rival. He had wanted her to enlist in the military. She wouldn’t. He wanted her to stop playing. She wouldn’t. The piano became her way of refusing him … or at least this was how she had thought he saw it. Only now did it occur to her that he hated to hear her play because it hurt.

“I confess,” the emperor said, “that I want to show Kestrel off. I want everyone to see what talent my future daughter has.” With a smile, he excused himself to speak with the Senate leader.

General Trajan’s hand closed around the watch.

What a silly gift to give a man who led nighttime assaults where stealth could mean the difference between life and death. “Give it to me,” Kestrel said. “I will find a nice convenient rock to drop it on.”

The general smiled a little. “When the emperor gives you a gift, it’s best to wear it.” He glanced at the new dagger at Kestrel’s hip. “Sometimes what he gives is actually a way of saying what’s his.”

I’m not his, she wanted to say, but her father was already gone, walking slowly across the lawn to greet an off-duty naval officer.

Someone must have struck a target’s center. She heard a smattering of applause.

“Are you going to shoot?”

It was Verex. He had approached without her noticing.

“Not today.” The wind was tricky and her father was here. She didn’t want to miss.

Verex offered her his arm. “Let’s see who wins.”

As they walked together, Kestrel said, “You seem to know a good deal about medicine.”