Read The Winner's Crime Online
Authors: Marie Rutkoski
have forgotten what it was like to burn on a fuse before
him? He looked at her, and she knew that she had remem-
bered nothing at all.
“I can’t be seen with you,” she said.
Arin’s eyes fl ashed. He raked the curtain shut behind
him. The closed-off balcony became deeply dark.
“Better?” he said.
Kestrel backed away until the heel of her shoe met the
balustrade and her bare shoulder blades touched the glass.
The air had changed. It was warm now. And scented,
strangely, with brine.
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“The sea,” she managed to say. “You came by sea.”
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“It seemed wiser than riding my horse to death through
the mountains.”
CRIME
“
My
horse.”
’S
“If you want Javelin, come home and claim him.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you sailed here.”
“Technically, the ship’s captain did, cursing me the en-
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tire time. Except when I got sick. Then he just laughed.”
“I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I changed my mind.” Arin came to lean against the
balustrade beside her.
It was too much. He was too close. “I’ll thank you to
keep your distance.”
“Ah, the empress speaks. Well, I must obey.” Yet he
didn’t move except to turn his head toward her. Light from
the curtain’s seam cut a thin line down his cheek in a bright
scar. “I saw you. With the prince. He seems bitter medicine
to swallow, even for the sweets of the empire.”
“You know nothing of him.”
“I know you helped him cheat. Yes, I watched you. I
saw you play at Borderlands. Others might not have no-
ticed, but I know you.” His voice grew rough. “Gods, how
can you respect someone like that? You’ll make a fool of
him.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“I
won’t
.”
Arin went quiet. “Maybe you won’t mean to.” He edged
away, and that line of light no longer touched him. His
form was pure shadow. But her sight had adjusted, and she
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saw him tip his head back against the window. “Kes-
SKI
O
trel . . .”
An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed
her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing after that, only
her name, as if her name were not a name but a question.
MARIE RUTK
Or perhaps that wasn’t how he had said it, and she was
wrong, and she’d heard a question simply because the sound
of him speaking her name made her wish that she were his
answer.
Something was tugging inside her. It yanked at her
soul.
Tell him,
that part of her said.
He needs to know
.
Yet those words had a quality of horror to them. Her
mind was sluggish to understand why, so caught it was in
the temptation to tell Arin that her engagement had been
the bargain for Herran’s freedom.
“I don’t want to talk about your fi ancé.” Arin pushed
away from the balustrade and stood tall enough to cast a
shadow over her if there had been any light. “I seek infor-
mation.”
“Gossip, Arin?” she said lightly, and toyed with her
necklace in the dark until its fretful clicking made her
let go.
“I’m looking for a Herrani servant. He’s missing.”
The memory of Thrynne welled up.
Tell him. He needs
to know.
Those had been the tortured man’s words. “Who
is he to you?” Kestrel asked.
“A friend.”
“You could ask the palace steward.”
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“I’m asking you.”
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She couldn’t believe it. The mere
fact
of Arin’s asking
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was so reckless. No matter that his trust didn’t extend quite
so far as to admit the truth of the situation: that Thrynne
CRIME
had been a spy sent to gather information on the emperor,
’S
and must be assumed caught. It was nevertheless clear
that Arin was the sort of person who would dash safety to
pieces. No one with any sense of self- preservation would
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inquire after the whereabouts of his spy from the emperor’s
future daughter-
in-
law, who had already betrayed Arin
once.
But self- preservation had never been Arin’s strong suit.
What would he do with the truth of Kestrel’s engage-
ment?
Where is my honor in all this?
he’d asked her once. She
didn’t know what honor was to him. She thought that it
wasn’t the same as her father’s: monumental, marble- cut.
No, Arin’s honor was alive. She sensed the way it moved.
She couldn’t see its face— maybe it had many faces— but
she believed that Arin’s honor was the kind that would
hold its breath and bite its lip until it bled.
If she told Arin the truth, he’d wreck the peace she’d
bought. It almost didn’t matter whether he loved her. Arin
wouldn’t let someone imprison herself so that he could go
free. He’d fi nd a way to end her engagement . . . and she
would let him.
She’d felt it before, she felt it now: the pull to fall in
with him, to fall into him, to lose her sense of self.
There would be scandal, and then there’d be war.
Kestrel must keep her secret. She was going to have to
lie with her whole self. She could be cold. She could be
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distant. Even with him.
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As for Thrynne . . . she had a plan.
SKI
O
“Very well,” Kestrel said. “Tell me your friend’s name.
I’ll share what I know in honor of the protection you gave
me after the Firstwinter Rebellion. A Valorian remembers
her debts.”
MARIE RUTK
Arin stayed very still. “I hadn’t realized I had done any-
thing that begged repayment. What I did, I did for you.”
“Precisely. So ask. I will answer. We will be even.”
“Even? If you insist on seeing things that way, you and
I will never clear our debts.”
“Do you want your information or not?”
“What I want . . .” He muttered the words. Then his
voice steadied and came clear. “My friend’s name is Thrynne.
He cleans. Floors, mostly.” Arin described the man’s fea-
tures.
Kestrel pretended to think. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t recall
seeing someone like him.”
“Maybe if you took more time to consider—”
“Doubtful. There are hundreds of servants and slaves
in the palace. How am I to know each one?”
“So you give me nothing.”
“When have I ever given you anything?”
Softly, Arin said, “You gave me much, once.”
“Well,” said Kestrel, “as cozy as this little chat has been,
I’d like to get back to my party.” She stepped toward the
curtain.
His movement was swift. He blocked her path, hands
coming down on either side of her to brace against the bal-
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ustrade. He didn’t touch her, but was close enough now
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that she could see the dark shape of his mouth and the
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angry glimmer of his eyes. He said, “That’s not all I came
for.”
CRIME
She could smell the sea on his skin, stronger now: salty
’S
and sharp.
“Kestrel, this isn’t you.”
She pressed back against the chill glass. “I don’t know
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what you mean.”
“This voice you’ve been using, that bright one . . . do
you think I don’t recognize it? It’s the sound of you laying
a trap. Of you hiding behind your own words. And I know
that the way you’ve been talking is
not you
. Say what you
want about me, about what happened between us, about
the shape of the sun and the color of the grass and any
other truths in this world you want to deny. Deny every-
thing until the gods strike you down. But you can’t say
that I don’t know you.” He was now close enough that the
air between them was alive against Kestrel’s skin. “I . . .
have thought about you.” His voice dropped. “I have thought
about how I have never known you to be dishonest with
me.”
Kestrel’s laugh was robbed of breath. It was short, in-
credulous.
“Let me rephrase that,” Arin said. “You may have
tricked me. But you were true to yourself. Sometimes even
to me. You have never been
false
.”
“Are you forgetting that I sent my father’s army to crush
yours?”
“I knew you would. You knew that I knew. Where is
the lie? I’ve never felt that there was a lie on your lips.
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Please, Kestrel. Please. Don’t lie.”
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She gripped the cold stone of the balustrade’s railing.
SKI
O
He said, “Do you know anything about Thrynne?”
“No. Now let me pass.”
“I’m not done. Kestrel . . . do you really want to marry
the prince?”
MARIE RUTK
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“Want and need aren’t the same.” His mouth hovered
near hers. “Tell me. Is this engagement really your choice?
Because I don’t believe it. Not unless I hear you say so.”
The glass against her back was a blaze of cold. She shiv-
ered. He was so close. All she had to do was uncurl her
fi ngers from the balustrade and lean forward into him. It
felt inevitable, like an overfull cup ready to spill.
The rasp of his unshaved cheek brushed hers. “Do
you?” he said. “Do you want him?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it,” Arin murmured into her ear. The heat of
him settled against her. His palm squeaked against the
glass by her head.
“Arin.” She could barely speak. “Let me pass.”
His lips caught at the base of her neck, slid upward.
“Prove that you want him,” he said into her hair. His kiss
traveled across her cheek. It brushed her forehead, then
rested right on the golden line that marked her engage-
ment.
“I do,” she said, but her voice sounded like she was
drowning.
His kiss was there, waiting near her lips. “Liar,” he
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breathed.
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Her hand came between them, and pushed. She was
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shaken, startled by the way she had shoved him. She felt
suddenly, cruelly starved— and angry at herself for this
CRIME
hunger of her own making. “I said,
let me go
. Or will you
’S
hold me here against my will?”
He recoiled. His boots scraped back. She couldn’t see
his expression, only the way he snatched his arms to his
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sides and stood stiff . He covered his face as if it weren’t al-
ready hidden by the dark. He muttered something into his
palms, then they fell away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He tore open the curtain, and was
gone.
The light hurt Kestrel’s eyes. She blinked, her lashes
wet, her vision too bright, blurry.
When her pulse had steadied and she could see and
breathe and think again, she tentatively stepped into the
hallway.
It was empty. She could hear music now. She hated to
hear it. Her whole future was in that airless ballroom. She
wondered if this ache inside her would ever go away— and
if she might feel even worse when it did.
She had to return to the ball. Surely she’d already been
missed. The emperor would be wondering where she was.
Kestrel slowly walked down the hall toward the ball-
room.
She had almost reached it when someone came out of
its open doors. Tensen took one look at her. His eyes wid-
ened, and he shook his head, striding toward her with an
urgency that defi ed his age and made his cane seem pur-
poseless.
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“You can’t go in there,” he said.
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“I must.”
SKI
O
“No, you must fi nd a mirror. A private one. Because
Arin just stormed through the ballroom. His mouth was
shiny. Maybe people will think it was from wine and not
glittered oil, but they won’t if they see you, too.”
MARIE RUTK
Kestrel’s fi ngers fl ew to her forehead and the engage-