The Winner's Crime (97 page)

for him to see.

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She stopped wondering whether he had been in the

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hidden room for some— all?—of her conversation with

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Arin. She knew. She saw it in his face. Her father had heard

more than enough.

A crisis of words rose within her. She wanted to say so

many things— to ask what he believed, to plead her inno-

MARIE RUTK

cence, to confess her guilt, to ask if he had reported Arin’s

presence to the imperial guard, and if yes, what would hap-

pen, and if no, please don’t, Father, don’t. She wanted to

say, Love me anyway, even with what I’ve done, even with

my mistakes, will you, would you, please?

And what she wanted most was to be small again, to be

allowed to call him papa, to reach only his knee, because

she remembered, in a fl ash like light from a curtain yanked

open wide, how she used to run and topple against his legs

when she was that young, and hug him, and she could

swear that he would laugh.

Kestrel slowly crossed the room to him. She knelt be-

side his chair. She rested her brow against his knee and

closed her eyes. Heart in mouth, she whispered, “Do you

trust me?”

There was no answer. Then she felt his heavy hand on

her hair. “Yes,” he said.

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46

ARIN HID IN THE COAL ROOM NEAR THE

furnaces that boiled water to be forced through palace

pipes. He had asked a Herrani servant to fi nd Tensen and

bring him there, and thought that in the meanwhile he’d

dirty himself beyond recognition, but after his fi rst few

minutes alone in the room, lit by a lamp set cautiously high

on the wall on the far side of the coal pile, Arin realized

that simply pacing and breathing was enough to deposit

charcoal on him. He rubbed at his scar. His fi ngers came

away grimy. Burnt-

tasting dust coated his throat. He

coughed, then choked, and somehow that choking turned

into a black laugh.

The door unlocked and opened, and Tensen stepped

inside. His face was furious. “The god of fools wants you

for his own, Arin. What were you thinking, coming to the

capital?”

Arin felt unreal, unstrung, bewilderingly light, like a

work horse stripped of his gear and let to wander. He drew

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“Don’t bother explaining,” Tensen said. “I know what

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you’ve been up to.”

Arin frowned. “How?”

“The servants told me. Arin, you
are
an idiot.”

“I am.” There was that dusty laugh again. “I really am.”

MARIE RUTK

“You’re lucky that the whole palace doesn’t know you’re

here—

and blessedly lucky that the servants are keeping

quiet. So far.
Everything
in the palace is too quiet. It’s eerie. I

don’t like it, I don’t like you here, and you are going to take

my news and leave straight for Herran and never return.”

Tensen gripped his shoulder. “Swear it. Swear by the gods.”

Arin did. It felt good to make that promise.

Tensen let go. “The treaty was a lie. Every minute we’ve

spent here has been part of the emperor’s charade, a dis-

traction to make us believe that our in de pen dence was a

serious thing, serious enough to demand attendance at

court. The emperor wants Herran back. He wants it emp-

tied of Herrani.”

Arin listened as Tensen told him about the poison that

had been seeping into Herran’s water supply. Arin felt blood

leach from his face. Coal dust caked his lungs. Air rattled in

his chest. It was hard to breathe.

“You’ll have to shut off the city’s water,” Tensen said.

“Evacuate everyone to the countryside if you have to. Just

go. It’s nightfall. You might make it to the harbor with no

one noticing.”

“Come with me.”

Tensen shook his head.

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“If Sarsine’s sick— if
everyone’s
sick . . . Tensen, I need

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you.”

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“You need me here.”

“It’s too dangerous. You must be under scrutiny. Deliah

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can get word to us, your Moth could use the knotted code.”

’S

Tensen’s face changed. “Deliah and the Moth can’t

help us anymore. They’ve done as much as they can.”

“Then so have
you
.”

THE WINNER

“There might be one last thing to learn. What if I’ve

missed something?” Tensen’s expression softened. “Don’t

you remember when I asked whether you’d choose to help

Herran, or yourself ? You said you’d put our country fi rst.

Haven’t I respected that choice? Can’t you respect mine?”

Tensen lifted a hand to Arin’s face and ran a thumb across

his cheek. The old man’s thumb came away black. “My

boy. You’ve been a little lost, haven’t you?”

Arin wanted to protest that he hadn’t been, then to

admit that he had, then to prove that he wasn’t anymore. “I

didn’t fail you.”

“I never said you did.”

“I secured the eastern alliance. I
made
something,

Tensen, a new thing, something that might check the

imperial army. The emperor isn’t as secure as he thinks.

He—”

“Better not tell me any more.”

Arin went cold. Those had been the words of someone

who feared torture. “Come with me.”

“No. I need to know what happens next.”

“This isn’t a story!”

“Isn’t it?” Tensen asked. “Isn’t this the one about the boy

who becomes a man and saves his people? I like that story.

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I acted the role once, de cades ago, in a per for mance for

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Herran’s royal family. It ended happily.” Tensen touched

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his chest, right above his heart. Arin thought he heard a

faint, papery sound. There was a fl ash of indecisiveness on

Tensen’s face. Then it was gone. Tensen’s hand fell, and

Arin forgot what he’d heard with the minister’s next words,

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and when he later remembered that look of indecisiveness,

Arin hated himself, because he believed that the choice

Tensen had been debating inside him had been about stay-

ing or leaving, and that if Arin had only found the right

words, he could have persuaded Tensen to come with him.

“I need for you to leave without me,” Tensen said. “My

grandson looked so much like you, Arin. Don’t make me

grieve him twice.”

Tensen took the gold ring from his fi nger and off ered

it. “This time, keep it, will you?” He smiled.

Arin caught the man’s hand. He kissed the dry palm.

He took the ring. Then he said goodbye.

Kestrel’s father had left her. He wouldn’t stay for dinner,

though Kestrel had said they could have it brought to her

suite. He didn’t claim he was tired, or that his freshly healed

wound might trouble him, but his step was slow as he let

himself out, and Kestrel thought for a moment that he would

put a hand to where he’d been gutted.

After he’d gone, she felt shame in a solid rush. She real-

ized that she had been
hoping
he was tired, hoping his wound

was sore . . . it would explain why even though he’d said

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that he trusted her, he didn’t want to stay.

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Dinner came. Kestrel couldn’t eat it.

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She opened a window. The almost- summer air was soft

and sweet. There was a high wind. It smelled like the moun-

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tains, which meant it was blowing out to sea.

’S

Kestrel’s maids came. They asked if she wanted to be

changed for bed. She fi dgeted with the wrist fastening that

kept the moth inside her blue silk sleeve. She told the maids

THE WINNER

no. She wanted to send them away, then dreaded being

alone. The maids stayed and gossiped quietly in their cor-

ners. It grew late. She sat, and worried. Had Tensen given

Arin the letter? Was Arin still in the palace?

Later, Kestrel saw all of her mistakes, strung in such a

crowded, ugly line that it was diffi

cult to tell which one

had come fi rst.

But she knew the last. That was when she left her suite

and went back to Tensen’s rooms to fi nd out whether he’d

seen Arin and delivered her letter.

The halls were hushed. Even quieter than before. Though

the sweat that trickled between her shoulder blades proved

that it was almost summer, Kestrel had the sensation that it

was snowing. Her ears rang with a white, mirroring silence.

Anxiety pricked her skin in icy fl akes. The stone heap of

the palace held its cold breath.

Tensen’s door was almost fl ush with its jamb, but it

hadn’t been closed completely. Kestrel thought for a mo-

ment that he’d been waiting for her, but a part of her knew

better. That self had already guessed what the slightly open

door might mean. Yet Kestrel refused to believe it . . . and

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so that other, wiser self turned away from her, disowned her,

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and refused to help any further someone who had wrought

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her own doom.

Kestrel lifted her hand to knock. Her knuckles stut-

tered against the wood.

The emperor opened the door. The captain of the

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guard reached around him and dragged Kestrel inside.

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47

AT FIRST, KESTREL COULDN’T QUITE SEE. SHE

was straining against the captain’s grasp, her breath com-

ing in terrifi ed gulps, and he and the emperor were tall. It

seemed that she saw nothing but the rich cloth of their

shoulders, their chests. Then she heard her father’s voice:

“Please.”

The captain let go.

Kestrel saw her father now. He stood in the far corner

of the room, on the other side of a dark spill of blood.

Tensen lay on the fl oor. His green eyes were child’s mar-

bles. The body was already rigid. On the general’s sleeve

was a short line of blood from where he must have wiped

his dagger before sheathing it.

Kestrel met her father’s eyes. They were as cold as the

dead man’s. She opened her frostbitten mouth, and she was

numb, too numb to speak, so she screamed.

The captain covered her mouth. Her father looked

away. She froze.

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“We’re trying to keep this as quiet as possible,” the

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emperor told her. “No one but us will know what you’ve

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done. It can’t be public. I won’t let your father be so dis-

honored.” The emperor took Kestrel’s dagger from its sheath.

“This is mine. And
that
”— he held out the unfolded page of

sheet music—“is yours.”

MARIE RUTK

Her letter. “No,” she tried to say against the captain’s

salty palm, but he gripped her jaw, and the emperor lightly

touched the captain’s hand so that it turned Kestrel’s face

to meet him.

“No?” said the emperor. “Kestrel, if there were a trial,

your letter is confession enough.” His voice was fi lled with

regret, but it wasn’t for her. “I could kill you now. What a

serpent you are. What a poor reward for a man like your

father. He came to me.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. They trickled over the

captain’s knuckles.

“He came, and told me the truth, no matter what it

cost him. He set no terms. No pleas for mercy or mitiga-

tion. He simply gave me the truth of your treason. Of all

the lessons you could have learned as empress, the most

important would have been this: loyalty is the best love.”

Kestrel tried to look at her father, but the captain held

her face fi rmly. She struggled. She tried to break free. The

captain caged her in.

The emperor spoke again. “That kind of love tends to

tarnish after the execution of one’s child. So I can’t repay