The Winner's Crime (45 page)

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Sometimes he managed to think of other things than

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Kestrel. He’d shudder at the memory of his cousin. He’d

stopped in Herran to see Sarsine and resupply his ship. A

Dacran fl eet had sailed with him, as part of the alliance,

and were stationed now in his city’s harbor to protect it.

MARIE RUTK

Arin had been shocked by the change in Sarsine. She

seemed so weak. Everyone did. He hated to leave her . . .

yet he had, so possessed he was by the need to speak with

Kestrel.

He needed to
know
. On the ship, his heart and brain

galloped over what he knew and thought he knew, or

hoped he knew, and then his thoughts would run right

back over where they’d already been until they dug deep

ruts inside him.

But when he dropped his boots to the capital’s rocky

wharf, he became nothing but careful.

He didn’t wash the sea from him. He was too recogniz-

able; the scar especially was a problem. His dirty hair hung

just long enough to curtain his brow, but the scar cut clear

from his left eye into his cheek. Arin kept his head down as

he headed through the Narrows. He hoped he looked dis-

reputable enough that no one would take him for the gov-

ernor of an imperial territory.

He prowled the city. He didn’t rest. The morning rip-

ened into noon. Then it grew late.

Finally, Arin glimpsed a Herrani man about his size

dressed in the blue livery of the imperial palace. The basket

strapped to the servant’s back weighed low on his shoulders—

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heavy, probably fi lled with foodstuff s for the imperial

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kitchens. Arin dogged him. He crossed skinny streets. His

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stride quickened, but he wouldn’t let himself do anything

so noticeable as to run.

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It was at the edge of the canal, where the opened locks

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let the full spring waters gush loud, that Arin caught up with

him. Arin hailed him, quietly. He called to him by the gods.

He invoked their names in a way that made ignoring him a

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mortal sin. And then, for good mea sure, he spoke plainly.

“Please,” he said. “Help me.”

In the palace kitchens, dressed in the servant’s clothes, Arin

asked for help again. Yet again, it was a risk. He could be

reported. The moment his presence became known in the

palace, what he wanted would quickly become impossible:

namely, the opportunity to speak with Kestrel alone.

“The music room,” suggested a maid. “Her recital’s to-

morrow. She’s there practicing more often than not.”

“What do you want with
her
?” A footman’s mouth

curled in contempt.

Arin almost gave a violent answer. He was anxious, he

wasn’t being smart, and for years now there’d been some-

thing hard and glittery— and stupid— in him that liked

making enemies. He felt like making one right now. But he

checked himself. Arin gave the footman a sweet smile. The

kitchens became uncomfortably silent.

The cook decided matters. “It’s none of our business.”

To Arin she said, “You want to get from here to there with-

out being noticed, do you? Well, then. Someone had better

fetch Lady Maris’s maid.”

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The Herrani maid arrived soon, a cosmetics kit in

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hand. She unscrewed a small pot with thick, tinted cream.

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She mixed it darker. As Arin sat at the scored and pitted

worktable, the maid dabbed the cream on his scar.

MARIE RUTK

Kestrel closed the music room door. The piano waited. Be-

fore that day in the slave market— before Arin— this had

been enough for her: that row of keys like a straight border

between one world and the next.

Kestrel’s fi ngers trickled out a few high notes, then

stopped. She glanced at the screen. She hadn’t heard her

father’s watch chime. Then again, it wasn’t the hour.

She set the sheet music on its rack. She shuffl

ed the

pages. She studied the fi rst few lines of the sonata the em-

peror had chosen, and made herself slowly read the notes

she had already memorized.

A breeze from an open window stroked Kestrel’s shoul-

der. The air was soft, velvety, lushly scented with fl owering

trees. She remembered playing for Arin. It had just been

the one time, though it felt like many more.

The breath of wind stirred the sheet music, then gusted

the pages to the fl oor. Kestrel went to collect them. When

she straightened, she glanced involuntarily at the door in a

fl ash of unreasonable certainty that Arin was there.

But of course he wasn’t. A needle of ice pierced her

heart. What a foolish thing to have thought: him,
here
.

Her breath caught at the pain of it.

Kestrel made herself sit again at the piano. She pushed

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that icy needle in deeper. It grew frosted crystals. Kestrel

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imagined the ice spreading until it lacquered her in a clear,

cold shell. Kestrel lifted her hands from her lap and played

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the emperor’s sonata.

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The cook insisted that servants should accompany Arin.

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The maid’s cream had softened the appearance of his scar,

but it would fool no one who looked closely. “Walk the halls

with a few of us,” said the cook. A curious courtier could

be distracted. The servants could fl ank Arin so that his

features were obscured.

He refused.

“At least partway,” urged a Herrani.

“No,” Arin said. “Think of what the emperor would do

if he discovered that you were helping me walk through his

palace unnoticed.”

The Herrani gave Arin two keys and let him go alone.

When Arin mounted the steps up to the other world of the

palace, the one with fresh air, he made sure to walk close

alongside the walls, the left side of his face turned to them.

A bucket of hot, soapy water swung from his hand. The

steam curled damply over his wrist. He walked as quickly as

he could.

Arin remembered little- used hallways, and had the ad-

vice of the servants, who knew which areas of the palace

attracted the least attention at this hour. He followed their

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instructions. His pulse stuttered when he stumbled upon a

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couple of courtiers emerging, disheveled and giggling,

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from an alcove cloaked by a tapestry. But they were glad to

ignore him.

The heavy keys in his pocket knocked hard against his

thigh. He might not fi nd Kestrel, or fi nd her alone. It was

MARIE RUTK

astounding: the risk of what he was doing. Yet he picked

up his pace. He dismissed that sinuous voice whispering

inside him, calling him a fool.

But the treaty. Kestrel had off ered it to him outside his

city’s gate. The treaty had saved him. Why had it taken

Arin so long to wonder whether it had been
she
who had

saved him?

Fool,
the voice said again.

Arin reached the imperial wing. He took a key from his

pocket and let himself in.

Somewhere in the midst of the sonata, Kestrel’s hands

paused. She hadn’t been reading the sheet music, so when

her memory failed her and she lost her place in the progres-

sion of phrases, she lost it completely. This was unlike her.

The music throbbed away.

Her old self would have been annoyed, but the frozen

needle in her heart gave the orders now, and it said that she

should simply make a note of the mistake and move on.

She found a pen and did just that, underscoring the forgot-

ten passage. She set the pen on the rack that held the sheet

music and prepared to play again.

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Then it came: her father’s silvery chime.

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The corner of her mouth lifted.

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All at once, she knew what she wanted to play for him.

The general wouldn’t recognize one half of a duet, and if

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he did, he couldn’t guess whose voice was meant to sing

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with what she played. Kestrel thought again about how

much she wanted to tell her father, and how little she could

say.

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But she could say this music. He would hear it, and

even if he didn’t understand what he heard, she would feel

what it would be like to tell him.

Arin heard the music long before he reached the room. It

came down the hall in an overwhelming tide. It called him

like a question his throat ached to answer. He could feel

the parts where he was meant to sing. The song tried to

batter its way outside him.

He thought he might have dropped the bucket. He

didn’t know where it was. He was standing before the music

room door. It seemed to have materialized in front of him.

He set a palm to it. The door felt alive. The music pulsed in

its grain.

Arin used the second key to open the door. The room

was empty save for her. Kestrel saw him, and the music

stopped.

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43

FOR A HEARTBEAT, KESTREL THOUGHT THAT

she’d imagined him. Then she realized that he was real.

It shattered her. The icy shell around her shivered into a

thousand stinging pieces.

He shut the door. He kept his palm fl at against it, his

fi ngers fanned wide. He looked at her.

Later, Kestrel understood what the shock had cost her.

She’d been too slow. It wasn’t until he met her eyes that she

dropped deep into the knowledge that they were both in

danger.

It took every ounce of will not to glance at the screen

that hid her father. Her father, who would hear anything

that they said, who could see Kestrel now. She saw herself

as he must see her. She’d risen to her feet. She must be

deathly pale. One hand gripped the music rack. She was

staring toward the door, which was just out of her father’s

line of sight.

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Kestrel raised her hand.
Stop,
she begged Arin.
Stay.

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Don’t move.

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But the gesture set something in him on fi re. His palm

slid from the door. And she saw the determination in his

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face, the wild
suspicion
, the way it was already shaped into

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a question. With sudden horror, she realized what he was

going to ask.

He strode toward her.

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“No,” she told him. “Get out.”

It was too late. He was already at the piano. Her father

could see.

“You will not shut me out,” Arin said.

Kestrel sank back down onto the piano bench. Her

stomach lurched: this was a disaster. She had imagined,

again and again, Arin looking at her in this way, saying

what he’d just said. Suspecting what he must suspect. She

had even—tentatively, feeling like a trespasser— prayed to

his gods for the chance to see him again. But not like this.

Not with her father watching.

Her options dwindled.

She shuffl

ed her sheet music, then stopped when she

saw that her hands were unsteady. “Don’t be so dramatic,

Arin. I’m busy. Go away, won’t you? You’ve interrupted my

practice.” She reached for her pen.
We’re being observed,
she

planned to scrawl on the sheet music.
I’ ll explain everything

later
.

Arin grabbed the pen from her hand and threw it across

the room. It clattered on the stone fl oor. “Stop it. Stop pre-

tending that I don’t matter.”

She stared at the pen. She couldn’t fetch it now. Her

father was no fool; he might guess what she wanted to do

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with it. Even her attempt a moment ago had been a risk.

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And then Arin asked his question. “What did you do

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for that treaty?” he demanded.