Read The Winner's Crime Online
Authors: Marie Rutkoski
temerity to take a meta phor from Shakespeare and reshape it
to suit my fancy for a par tic u lar line in the scene by the canal
(hint: it’s from
Much Ado about Nothing
).
Thank you to all the librarians, booksellers, and bloggers
who have championed
The Winner’s Curse
. It’s been a real plea-
sure to get to know you in person and online. Your enthusiasm
is so infectious— and appreciated.
Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group! I’m one lucky
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woman. I’m very grateful to everyone who has supported me
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and this series. My amazing editor, Janine O’Malley. My in-
trepid publicist, Gina Gagliano. My designer of heart- stopping
covers, Beth Clark. And a whole marvelous cohort of people:
Nicole Banholzer, Simon Boughton, Anna Booth, Molly
Brouillette, Jennifer Edwards, Jean Feiwel, Jennifer Gonzalez,
Liz Fithian, Katie Halata, Angus Killick, Kathryn Little,
Karen Ninnis, Joy Peskin, Karla Reganold, Angie Chen, Cait-
lin Sweeney, Claire B. Taylor, Mary Van Akin, Allison Verost,
Maric Von Bargen, Ksenia Winnicki, and Jon Yaged.
Charlotte Sheedy, my agent, is a dream, and I thank her
and Mackenzie Brady and Joan Rosen.
Sometimes people ask me what the secret is to writing
books, and my very serious reply is “good child care.” Thanks
to my babysitters, parents, and in-
laws: Monica Ciucurel,
Anne Heltzl, Shaida Khan, Georgi MacCarthy, Sharon Singh,
Marilyn and Robert Rutkoski, and Jean- Claude and Christiane
Philippon.
My older son, Eliot (now fi ve and a half), has an idea about
why I sit in front of the computer instead of taking him to the
Natural History Museum. My younger son, Téo (two years
old), has only the sense of some great injustice and betrayal.
Boys, I always miss you when I’m not with you, and I love you
both best.
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dney
k and Sy
First published in Gr
First pub
eat Britain in Mar
lished in Gr
c
eat Britain in Mar h 2015 b
c
y
h 2015 b
Bloomsbur
Bloomsb y Publishing Plc
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50 Bedfor
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C1B 3DP
e, London W
First published the United States of
First pub
America in Marc
America in Mar h 2015 b
c
y
h 2015 b
Farr
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175 Fifth Av
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Bloomsbur
Bloomsb y Publishing Plc
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Copyright © Marie Rutk
Copyright © Marie R
oski 2015
utk
The mor
T
al rights of
he mor
the author hav
the author ha e been asser
v
ted
All rights reserv
All rights r
ed
eserv
No part of this publication ma
this pub
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epr
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epr
transmitted b
tr
y any means
ansmitted b
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onic, mec
, electr
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onic, mec
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher
the pub
A CIP catalogue r
A CIP catalo
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d f
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or this book is a
d f
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or this book is a aila
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b
aila le fr
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ar
om the British Libr y
ISBN 978 1 4088 5869 1
For Kristin Cashore
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’S
INNER
W
THE
CRIME
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1
MA22RIY BOS
AL
SHE CUT HERSELF OPENING THE ENVELOPE.
Kestrel had been eager, she’d been a fool, tearing into
the letter simply because it had been addressed in Herrani
script. The letter opener slipped. Seeds of blood hit the
paper and bloomed bright.
It wasn’t, of course, from him. The letter was from
Herran’s new minister of agriculture. He wrote to introduce
himself, and to say he looked forward to when they would
meet.
I believe you and I have much in common and much to
discuss,
he wrote.
Kestrel wasn’t sure what he meant by that. She didn’t
know him, or even of him. Although she supposed she
would have to meet with the minister at some point— she
was, after all, the imperial ambassador to the now in de pen-
dent territory of Herran— Kestrel didn’t anticipate spending
time with the minister of
agriculture.
She had nothing to
say on crop rotation or fertilizer.
Kestrel caught the haughty tone of her thoughts. She
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felt the way it thinned her mouth. She realized that she was
SKI
O
furious at this letter.
At herself. At the way her heart had leaped to see her
name scrawled in the Herrani alphabet on the envelope.
She had hoped so hard that it was from Arin.
MARIE RUTK
But she’d had no contact with him for nearly a month,
not since she’d off ered him his country’s freedom. And the
envelope hadn’t even been addressed in his hand. She knew
his writing. She knew the fi ngers that would hold the pen.
Blunt- cut nails, silver scars from old burns, the calloused
scrape of his palm, all very at odds with his elegant cursive.
Kestrel should have known right away that the letter wasn’t
from him.
But still: the quick slice of paper. Still: the disappoint-
ment.
Kestrel set aside the letter. She pulled the silk sash from
her waist, threading it out from under the dagger that she,
like all Valorians, wore strapped to her hip. She wound the
sash around her bleeding hand. She was ruining the sash’s
ivory silk. Her blood spotted it. But a ruined sash didn’t
matter, not to her. Kestrel was engaged to Prince Verex, heir
to the Valorian empire. The proof of it was marked daily
on her brow in an oiled, glittering line. She had sashes upon
sashes, dresses upon dresses, a river of jewels. She was the
future empress.
Yet when she stood from her carved ebony chair, she
was unsteady. She looked around her study, one of many
rooms in her suite, and was unsettled by the stone walls, the
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corners set insistently into perfect right angles, the way two
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narrow hallways cut into the room. It should have made
sense to Kestrel, who knew that the imperial palace was
CRIME
also a fortress. Tight hallways were a way to bottleneck an
’S
invading force. Yet it looked unfriendly and alien. It was so
diff erent from her home.
Kestrel reminded herself that her home in Herran had
THE WINNER
never really been hers. She may have been raised in that
colony, but she was Valorian. She was where she was sup-
posed to be. Where she had chosen to be.
The cut had stopped bleeding.
Kestrel left the letter and went to change her day dress
for dinner. This was her life: rich fabric and watered silk
trim. A dinner with the emperor . . . and the prince.
Yes, this was her life.
She must get used to it.
The emperor was alone. He smiled when she entered his
stone- walled dining room. His gray hair was cropped in
the same military style as her father’s, his eyes dark and
keen. He didn’t stand from the long table to greet her.
“Your Imperial Majesty.” She bowed her head.
“Daughter.” His voice echoed in the vaulted chamber.
It rang against the empty plates and glasses. “Sit.”
She moved to do so.
“No,” he said. “Here, at my right hand.”
“That’s the prince’s place.”
“The prince, it seems, is not here.”
She sat. Slaves served the fi rst course. They poured white
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wine. She could have asked why he had summoned her to
SKI
O
dinner, and where the prince might be, but Kestrel had
seen how the emperor loved to shape silence into a tool that
pried open the anxieties of others. She let the silence grow
until it was of her making as well as his, and only when the
MARIE RUTK
third course arrived did she speak. “I hear the campaign
against the east goes well.”
“So your father writes from the front. I must reward
him for an excellently waged war. Or perhaps, Lady Kes-
trel, it’s you I should reward.”
She drank from her cup. “His success is none of my
doing.”
“No?
You
urged me to put an end to the Herrani rebel-
lion by giving that territory self- governance under my law.
You
argued that this would free up troops and money to
fuel my eastern war, and lo”— he fl ourished a hand—“it
did. What clever advice from one so young.”
His words made her ner vous. If he knew the real reason
she had argued for Herrani in de pen dence, she would pay
for it. Kestrel tried the painstakingly prepared food. There
were boats made from a meat terrine, their sails clear gela-
tin. She ate slowly.
“Don’t you like it?” said the emperor.
“I’m not very hungry.”
He rang a golden bell. “Dessert,” he told the serving
boy who instantly appeared. “We’ll skip ahead to dessert.
I know how young ladies enjoy sweet things.” But when the
boy returned bearing two small plates made from porce-
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the emperor said, “None for me,” and one plate was set
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before Kestrel along with a strangely light and translucent
fork.
CRIME
She calmed herself. The emperor didn’t know the truth
’S
about the day she had pushed for an end to the Herrani
rebellion. No one did. Not even Arin knew that she had
bought his freedom with a few strategic words . . . and the
THE WINNER
promise to wed the crown prince.
If Arin knew, he would fi ght it. He’d ruin himself.
If the emperor knew
why
she had done it, he would
ruin her.
Kestrel looked at the pile of pink whipped cream on
her plate, and at the clear fork, as if they composed the
whole of her world. She must speak cautiously. “What need
have I of a reward, when you have given me your only son?”
“And such a prize he is. Yet we’ve no date set for the wed-
ding. When shall it be? You’ve been quiet on the subject.”