The Winner's Crime

by Marie Rutkoski

  She tried not to look at Arin’s outstretched hand. She held the collar of her coat closed tight against the cold.

  To lose was unthinkable. But if she won … she could send Arin home. It would be for the best. It had become too dangerous for him to stay. Too hard.

  “Kestrel.” He touched her bare wrist. Slowly, he slid his fingers into the warmth of the coat’s large cuff. Her pulse shot beneath his thumb. “One last time?” he asked.

  Her fingers loosened, almost like they didn’t belong to her. They opened, and they found his.

  It suddenly seemed that Kestrel had been an empty room, and that all of her wishes came crowding in. They thronged: delicate, full-skirted, their silk brushing up against each other. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Arin’s eyes were bright in the darkness. His hand was hot. “Swear.”

  “A Valorian honors her word.”

  “Come.” He drew her toward a descending alleyway.

  “Now?”

  “Would you rather play in the palace? I wonder where would be best, my rooms or yours?”

  She dropped his hand. She rubbed her palm, trying to rub away the feel of him.

  He watched her do it. His expression changed.

  “We’ll play later,” she said, and that was when she knew for certain that she might have agreed for the simple pleasure of playing against him, or even for the poisoned prize of sending him from the capital, but some weak part of her had also agreed out of the sneaking hope that she might lose. “Later,” she said again.

  “No. Now.”

  “We can’t wander around the Narrows waiting to stumble upon a Bite and Sting set.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Arin. “I know a place.”

  20

  Arin wondered if the fever from the wound had truly left him. He felt wild.

  It was the confusion.

  He led the way back down into the Narrows. His stride was longer than Kestrel’s. He shortened it … and moments later, was practically loping.

  Arin didn’t know what was real anymore. What was real? Kestrel’s look of disgust when she’d first seen him? But then the wan lamplight had caught her face more fully. He’d seen shock and grief.

  Or he thought he had. You’re seeing what you want to see, Tensen had told him.

  When Arin had pulled that stolen—borrowed? won?—coat away from Kestrel’s throat, a sensation had sparked the air between them. Hadn’t it? But then she’d turned to stone. Like she had before on the balcony, that first night. Maybe those sparks had been in Arin’s head. Maybe they were the kind you get when someone punches you in the face.

  Arin hadn’t lied when he said that he trusted her. But that trust always came with a wrench of the gut. Trusting her made no sense. Arin knew all the reasons it didn’t. His trust was foolish. Unhealthy. To be honest, Arin didn’t understand his own trust. He wasn’t even sure if this stubborn impulse came out of real hope or was the habit of a beggar, fallen asleep with his hand held out for small coins.

  Arin shot a glance behind him. Kestrel was casting worried looks around the skinny alley—at the sick and waste in the gutter, the wavy orange light from torchlit gaming houses, the crumbling stairs. Mean-looking slicks of ice.

  She caught his glance. She tugged at her work scarf to hide her cheek as if he were a stranger. Like he didn’t already know who she was, and she might succeed in tricking him with her disguise.

  Her disguise! Arin stopped in his tracks and marveled at the sight of her dressed as a maid. Her bright hair was hidden. Her face bare. Brow clean. That godsforsaken gold mark was gone.

  He felt something buoyant. Practically giddy. It filled his lungs. It made him spin a story. A pure fantasy that exposed just how far his mind had gone.

  Arin imagined her as Tensen’s Moth.

  Yes, Arin mocked himself, surely that was it. Everything was explained.

  Amazed at his powers of self-deception, Arin told himself his absurd little story. Tensen’s hints about Risha as the Moth had been mere insinuation. Tensen had said nothing straight. And Kestrel was in a good position to gather information for Arin’s spymaster, wasn’t she? Beloved by the court. Daughter of the general. Close to the emperor. Promised to his son. Tensen would never tell Arin if she was his source.

  It fit perfectly. Look at her now. The maid’s uniform. That coat. Something hidden in her eyes. Oh, yes. Kestrel would make a fine spy.

  And let’s not forget that ruined dress Deliah had described, with the ripped seams and vomit and mucky hem.

  Wouldn’t it be like Kestrel, to risk herself?

  For what? Herran?

  Him?

  Gods of madness and lies. Arin was insane.

  He laughed out loud.

  * * *

  Kestrel had stopped, too. She’d seen his face fill with a strange, hard mirth even before he’d laughed. “Arin,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head, still smiling. “Everything. I don’t know.”

  “What is it?”

  “A joke. Something stupid. Not real. Never mind.”

  She was reluctant to press him. She didn’t want to hear that joyless laugh again.

  They continued on for a few paces beneath the wooden signs that hung over establishments’ doors like rigid flags. Kestrel stopped when she realized where Arin was leading her. She eyed the tavern across the street, the one with the sign of the broken arm, under which that sick lord had almost seen through her disguise. “I can’t go in there.”

  “Not grand enough for you?” Arin still had that satirical light in his eyes.

  “Someone might recognize me.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Do I look so different in plain clothes?” She heard the self-conscious note in her voice, and was embarrassed.

  “Kestrel, I’m going to suspect that you think yourself too fine a lady to enter the Broken Arm. Or that you’re afraid to lose to me, which is really quite understandable.”

  She scowled at him, then led the way.

  The tavern was all wild noise and light. There was a press of people. The air lay thick with tobacco smoke, the meaty smell of cheap tallow candles, and a yeasty, humid odor that seemed due to a mix of alcohol and sweat. Kestrel threaded through the crowd.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she heard Arin say near her ear, amused.

  Kestrel pushed ahead. She could breathe a bit better closer to the bar, though when she came nearer she saw three disheveled courtiers, drunk and loud. She knew one of them by name. He ranked highly, and had been a part of the emperor’s inner circle at the Winter Garden party.

  Kestrel ducked her head, afraid to be recognized.

  She wasn’t quick enough. His gaze fell on her … and slid away. She saw him not see her, or at least not see anything worth his attention. One of his fellows laughed at something the other said. The senator turned to them. There was a merry call for another round. They didn’t glance her way.

  “You’ve stopped,” Arin murmured in her ear.

  Her heart still hammering, Kestrel spun so abruptly to face Arin that she jostled into him. His hand caught her shoulder.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  “You promised. One game.”

  “Not here. Not now.”

  Arin’s grip tightened. “Then you forfeit. I win.”

  Her heartbeat changed in her ears. It rode high at his touch. There was temptation, and then there was … something else, that might have been the smart thing if she hadn’t forgotten it.

  That something else shape-shifted. It hardened inside her. It pushed for yes, spurned no, and called Kestrel a coward. It joined hands with temptation.

  “I never forfeit,” she said. He smiled. She led him to a far corner with a cluster of tables. The tables were all occupied. A pair of Valorian merchants sat at the one farthest from the senators. Kestrel went up to the merchants. “Give us your seats,” she said, and dropped the purse she’d stolen from the harb
ormaster onto the table. The merchants looked at it, looked at her, and decided to drink on their feet. They took the purse and left.

  “Blunt, but effective,” Arin commented as Kestrel claimed a chair, her back to the courtiers. Arin remained standing. She thought he might say something teasing. That steely mirth hadn’t quite left him, but it had softened during their push through the tavern. He looked a little tired, like a runner done running. Whatever thought had seized him in the alleyway was gone … or had gone away enough. She couldn’t see it anymore on his torn face.

  His dear face, dear to her, dearer still. How could she love his face more for its damage? What kind of person saw someone’s suffering and felt her heart crack open even wider, even more sweetly than before?

  There was something wrong with her. It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.

  Arin wasn’t looking at her anymore. He’d been distracted.

  Kestrel followed his gaze to see a black-eyed redhead at a nearby table giving Arin a cool look. His expression didn’t change, but something inside him did. Kestrel felt it. It twisted her heart.

  When Arin’s attention returned to Kestrel, she examined the splintery surface of the table. “I’m going to get a Bite and Sting set,” he said. “And wine. Should I get wine?”

  The answer to that was a clear no. Kestrel needed all her wits about her for a game she shouldn’t—couldn’t—lose. But she felt suddenly miserable, and realized that she’d been nervous ever since Arin had found her by the river. She said yes.

  He hesitated, like he might counsel her against that choice. Then he left the table.

  The crowd swallowed him. Kestrel couldn’t see where he had gone.

  * * *

  Arin didn’t like to leave her for long. She was going to attract attention. It was her nature. But when he returned with wine and a game set, she was alone and quiet: an almost eerie silence in the tavern’s storm.

  He saw her before she did him. He saw that she was unhappy. He realized that this was what had arrested him by the canal when he’d thought she was a nameless maid: the sense that this stranger had lost something as precious to her as what he had lost was to him.

  In his mind, Arin lost to Kestrel at Bite and Sting, and let all of his questions slip away.

  In his mind, he said, Tell me what you want.

  And she said, Leave this city.

  She said, Take me with you.

  Kestrel lifted her gaze. As he met her eyes—an extremely light brown, the lightest shade before brown becomes gold—Arin knew that he was a fool. A thousand times a fool.

  He must stop. They were painful, these waking dreams. Why did he allow himself to think them? They skewed everything. Arin was ashamed now, remembering how he’d pretended—even if for a moment—that Kestrel was the Moth. He shoved that lovely little lie from his head. He refused to think of it again. Thoughts like this made him feel split in two, just as his face was: one side fine and the other sore and throbbing.

  He sat, and set the game, wine bottle, and glass on the table. He poured.

  “Only one glass?” she said.

  He handed it to her. “I’ve no head for wine. How is it?”

  “Terrible.” But she drank deeply.

  Arin upacked the set. Kestrel picked up one of the tiles, which was made of rough wood, and turned it over in her fingers. Her thumb rubbed at some grime. He watched her drink again.

  Arin thought of the ruined dress Deliah had described. Tensen had dismissed it with an impatient wave of the hand, a gesture that told Arin it was ridiculous to imagine anything dire. Vomit on the sleeve of a dress? Well, don’t courtiers like wine? Arin had seen scores of Valorians drunk until sick. As for the dirt on the dress and split seams … anybody can trip. The Winter Garden had no mud, true, but Arin hadn’t seen all of the palace grounds. There were places he wasn’t allowed to go. Kestrel could have tripped anywhere.

  Neither tripping nor drunkenness seemed like Kestrel. But he watched her drain the glass.

  I could have changed, she’d said by the river.

  Arin took the game piece from Kestrel. He mixed the tiles with unnecessary force. They drew their hands.

  Arin’s was pitiful. The only thing that saved this game from being a lost cause was a pair of mice, and mice held almost the lowest value. The rest of his hand was an assortment of Sting tiles—which Kestrel delighted in playing, and played well. He, less so.

  And Kestrel had a high hand. He knew it. She had no tells—not exactly. It was more that she had a concentrated lack of tells. She changed without giving any clear sign that she had changed. She gathered intensity.

  “Kestrel.”

  She discarded a tile and drew another. She didn’t look at him. He’d noticed—of course he had—how she avoided looking at him now. And no wonder. Arin’s face stung. The stitches itched. He was tempted to rip them out. “Look at me,” he said. She did, and Arin suddenly wished she hadn’t. He cleared his throat. He said, “I won’t try anymore to convince you not to marry him.”

  She slowly added the new tile to her hand. She stared at it, and said nothing.

  “I don’t understand your choice,” Arin said. “Or maybe I do. It doesn’t matter. You want it. That’s clear. You’ve always done exactly what you wanted.”

  “Have I.” Her voice was flat and dull.

  He plunged ahead. “I was wondering…” Arin had an idea. He’d had it for some time now. He didn’t like it. The words lay bitter on his tongue, but he had thought about it, and thought about it, and if he said nothing …

  Arin made himself study his tiles again. He tried to think which Sting tile would profit Kestrel least. He discarded a bee. The instant he set the tile down, he regretted it.

  He pulled a high Bite tile. This should have encouraged him, yet Arin had the sense of flying toward the inevitable moment when Kestrel won and he asked her what she wanted.

  “I thought…”

  “Arin?”

  She looked concerned. That decided him. Arin took a deep breath. His stomach changed to iron. His body was girding itself in a way he knew well. Arin was tightening the muscles needed before a plunge into deep water. A punch to the gut. The lift of the hardest, lowest, highest notes he could possibly sing. His stomach knew what he’d have to sustain.

  “Marry him,” Arin said, “but be mine in secret.”

  Her hand lifted from the tiles as if scorched. She sat back in her chair. She rubbed at her inner elbow. She drank the dregs of her wine and was silent. Finally, she said, “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?” Arin was hot with humiliation, hating himself for having asked. The cut burned in his cheek. “It’s not so different than what you would have chosen before. When you kissed me in your carriage on Firstwinter, you thought to keep me your secret. If you thought of anything. I would have been one of those special slaves, the ones called for at night when the rest of the house is sleeping. Well? Isn’t that how it was?”

  “No.” She spoke low. “It wasn’t.”

  “Then tell me.” Arin was damning himself with every word. “Tell me how it was.”

  Slowly, Kestrel said, “Things have changed.”

  Arin jerked his head to the side, chin up, stitched left cheek tilted to catch the light. “Because of this?”

  She replied as if the answer was obvious. “Yes.”

  He shoved back from the table. “I think I’ll have that drink.”

  Arin began to walk away, then glanced back over his shoulder. He made sure his words were an insult. “Don’t touch the tiles.”

  * * *

  Kestrel didn’t understand. His anger made no sense. Wasn’t it clear that Arin’s wound was her fault? And that worse could happen?

  He didn’t return.

  She thought about what she didn’t understand. She thought about how Arin’s wound might run deeper than the flesh. She remembered his question and her answer. She remembered them again.

  Slowly, she began to see
the misunderstanding. For her, yes was the emperor’s message carved into Arin’s face. For Arin, yes was the scar itself, not what it meant. His anger was for how he looked … how he thought he looked to her now.

  A horror sank into her. She couldn’t wait until he returned. She must find him. She must set things straight.

  * * *

  Arin had forced his way up to the bar, where he waited to ask for a second glass. The Valorian barkeep ignored him. She served everyone else first. When new Valorians came up to the bar, she served them, too. She wasn’t going to glance at Arin unless he made a scene—which he was very ready to do. In his head, he heard Kestrel say Yes.

  The surface of the bar was sticky and smelled sour. Arin stared at it and thought of the emerald earring, how it had shone: enchanted, his. Sarsine had found it hooked into a thick, patterned carpet that had been rolled up and shoved into storage in a disused quarter of his house in Herran. The emerald had been like one of those tales where a god is revealed. Arin had sworn he would never part with it.

  Yet he had, and he understood now that it hadn’t really been information he wanted to buy. It had been trust. Arin could no longer trust himself. Arin had believed the bets in the bookkeeper’s hand were important. The emerald had seemed to promise that if this belief could be proven true, then Arin could trust his every belief.

  Arin’s palms were sticky now, flattened against the bar. His temper slowed. He remembered the Kestrel he’d known in Herran. He didn’t think about who she’d been lately. And he didn’t make his increasingly frequent mistake of reimagining this new Kestrel—so fully Valorian, so nicely set in the court and capital—as the person he wanted her to be.

  He simply remembered the person she’d been. Arin asked that Kestrel the same question he’d asked the Kestrel dressed as a palace maid, and she gave the same answer. But this time, her yes was also a no. This time, her answer was a box with a false bottom, and the meaning of it went deeper than he had seen.

  He had misunderstood her.

  Arin began to think he shouldn’t have walked away from that table. He should go back. He should go back right now.

  And he would have, if he hadn’t been distracted by a snatch of conversation from a nearby table.