The Winner's Crime(91)

But dilution had nothing to do with shaking. The grownup Kestrel frowned, and as she did, she remembered that shaking had been the imperial physician’s word to describe the sign that someone had taken his medication for too long … long enough for it to become deadly.

Understanding seeped into her. It spread, red drops in still water, and she forgot that her father was listening and watching and judging behind the screen. She forgot even that Arin’s shoulders were hunched in worry and doubt. She saw only the meaning of those six imagined Bite and Sting tiles she had mixed over and over in her mind: the emperor, the water engineer, the physician, a favor, Herran, and Valoria.

She knew how they all played out. The pattern stared her in the face.

The emperor had decided the Herrani were more trouble than they were worth. He decided to have them slowly poisoned through the water supply. A neat solution to a troublesome, rebellious people. He had eked as much out of them as he could. Once they were dead he’d claim the land again. He’d show the empire Herran’s ultimate reward for rebellion.

It was more important than ever that she speak with Arin frankly … and that she not do so here. She looked at the door. She wasn’t entirely sure her father wouldn’t walk through it—maybe even with the palace guard.

But how could she get Arin to leave? How could she follow him, and not have it be blatantly obvious to her father why? He’d heard the rumors. He had seen her fight a duel on Arin’s behalf in Herran. If all that wasn’t enough, he must have surely heard the intimacy in Arin’s voice. You are not so cold. When we were together in the city tavern …

Arin dropped his elbows to the piano’s frame and leaned to press his face into his palms. “I shouldn’t have left Sarsine. I shouldn’t have come.”


Kestrel wanted to touch him. He looked so miserable. Could her father see the longing in her face? It felt like a burning lamp. If she could, she would have touched three fingers to the back of Arin’s hand: the Herrani gesture of thanks and regret. I’m sorry, she’d say. Thank you, she’d say, because somehow he still believed in her and had guessed what she’d tried so hard to hide. I love you, she’d say. She almost heard the words. She almost saw her hand reach out. She craved it.

Slowly, Kestrel said, “You wanted to talk about the treaty.”

He lifted his head. His face reflected in the piano lid’s varnish.

The decision fell on Kestrel like a white sheet. She would lie one last time, for her father. She would be composed. Convincing. Later she would set things right with Arin, and tell him everything.

She could do this. She must.

“You think that I somehow arranged it. Isn’t that what you implied? That I swayed the emperor.” Kestrel sank one finger down on a high key, but slowly, so that it made no sound. “Does the emperor seem easily influenced?”

“No.”

“Yet I managed it?”

“Yes.”

She played a merry trill.

“Please don’t do that.”

She stopped. “Arin, why would I persuade the emperor to offer that treaty? We do agree that it was I who told the empire of your rebellion, don’t we? It’s common knowledge. I sent war to your doorstep.”

“Yes.”

She said, “We were friends in Herran, weren’t we, for a time?”

Arin’s reply was hoarse. “Yes.”

“Was what I did the act of a friend?”

“No,” he whispered.

“Yet I did that, and then supposedly arranged this salvific treaty. It doesn’t make much sense, Arin.”

“It makes sense,” he said, “if you changed your mind.”

She raised one brow. “That’s a dramatic change indeed.”

He was silent.

Kestrel’s fear, which she had briefly managed to squeeze shut, opened again. It spread.

She was afraid of failing in this lie. She was afraid of succeeding. And she was, she realized with a horrible clench of the heart, very afraid of her father.

Arin faced Kestrel fully: unblinking, eyes gray as a wind-torn sky, the scar livid against his drawn cheek. “It was a dramatic change,” he said, “but you made it. I know you did.”

Kestrel closed the lid over the keys. Something was coming that she couldn’t control. The game was changing, and her best option now was to leave. She rose.

Arin stopped her. “I’m not nothing to you. I heard what you were playing.”

She tried to laugh. “I don’t even remember what I was playing.” Arin’s hand was on her arm. She stepped away from his touch. What must her father think? She glanced at the screen. She stared at the door. It didn’t open.

“Why are you doing this?” Arin demanded. “Stop lying. I heard your music. And I know. You bargained with the emperor for the treaty.”

She heard a faint, scratching sound. Had she imagined it? It was the sound of a sword drawn from its sheath in a hidden room. “I didn’t.”

Arin blocked her path.

“Let me go.” Her voice sounded like it was falling apart.

“This is what I think: that there is no change more dramatic than you agreeing to marry when you have never—never—wanted to marry anyone.”

“We’ve already discussed the many incentives to my marrying the prince.”