Read The Winner's Crime Online
Authors: Marie Rutkoski
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 363
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
Sometimes he managed to think of other things than
SKI
O
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—
-1—
heavy, probably fi lled with foodstuff s for the imperial
0—
364
kitchens. Arin dogged him. He crossed skinny streets. His
+1—
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 364
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 364
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
stride quickened, but he wouldn’t let himself do anything
so noticeable as to run.
CRIME
It was at the edge of the canal, where the opened locks
’S
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
THE WINNER
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.”
—-1
The Herrani maid arrived soon, a cosmetics kit in
365
—0
—+1
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 365
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 365
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
hand. She unscrewed a small pot with thick, tinted cream.
SKI
O
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
-1—
366
that icy needle in deeper. It grew frosted crystals. Kestrel
0—
+1—
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 366
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 366
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
imagined the ice spreading until it lacquered her in a clear,
cold shell. Kestrel lifted her hands from her lap and played
CRIME
the emperor’s sonata.
’S
The cook insisted that servants should accompany Arin.
THE WINNER
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
7
instructions. His pulse stuttered when he stumbled upon a
36
—-1
—0
—+1
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 367
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 367
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
couple of courtiers emerging, disheveled and giggling,
SKI
O
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.
-1—
Then it came: her father’s silvery chime.
0—
368
The corner of her mouth lifted.
+1—
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 368
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 368
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
All at once, she knew what she wanted to play for him.
The general wouldn’t recognize one half of a duet, and if
CRIME
he did, he couldn’t guess whose voice was meant to sing
’S
with what she played. Kestrel thought again about how
much she wanted to tell her father, and how little she could
say.
THE WINNER
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.
—-1
936
—0
—+1
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 369
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 369
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
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.
-1—
Kestrel raised her hand.
Stop,
she begged Arin.
Stay.
0—
Don’t move.
+1—
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 370
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 370
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
But the gesture set something in him on fi re. His palm
slid from the door. And she saw the determination in his
CRIME
face, the wild
suspicion
, the way it was already shaped into
’S
a question. With sudden horror, she realized what he was
going to ask.
He strode toward her.
THE WINNER
“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
—-1
1
with it. Even her attempt a moment ago had been a risk.
37
—0
—+1
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 371
135-58876_ch01_2P.indd 371
9/25/14 2:53 PM
9/25/14 2:53 PM
And then Arin asked his question. “What did you do
SKI
O
for that treaty?” he demanded.