Page 45 of The Winner's Crime
Arin slammed his good hand down on the end table. “I will send you back to Herran. I swear that I will pack you onto the next ship there if you don’t tell me who your informant is. Now.”
Tensen swept the scattered shards back into their pile. He relaxed into his chair. His small green eyes were bright. “I noticed you speaking with Princess Risha the other night.”
He fell silent, and the silence began to speak to Arin.
“Yes,” Arin said slowly. “She was upset.”
“Of course. What happened in the plains was tragic. Its people are refugees in the eastern capital. Hundreds died during the trek from the plains.”
“Are you telling me—?”
“It can’t be easy to be a knife held to the throat of one’s own people. That’s why Risha was kidnapped as a child. The emperor can make the eastern queen grieve at a moment’s notice. I’m surprised the emperor hasn’t killed the queen’s little sister already—but then again, that’s a card he can only play once. He must be waiting for the right moment. I wonder what Risha thinks, while he’s waiting.”
Arin absorbed what his minister was saying—or what Arin thought he was saying. It occurred to him that it might be wise to suspect one’s own spymaster, who’d been employed to traffic in deceit. And Tensen had been an actor before the war. But Arin could see no reason for Tensen to pretend that Risha was his Moth. Arin could see why she would work against the empire.
The old man looked at him, his expression kind. Arin suddenly craved kindness. He was seized by a horrible feeling, a familiar one. He’d been caught in its fist for ten years. He was sick of it. Why couldn’t he outgrow it? He was no child. He had no business feeling lonely.
Loss of blood made Arin light-headed. His thoughts seemed to float and drift.
Tensen rose and brought a fresh bowl of water to Arin, who sank his right hand into it.
“Risha is very beautiful,” the minister commented.
“Yes,” Arin said. “She is.” It was hard to think. Arin was so tired.
“Well, I’m going to bed,” Tensen said. “Unless I need to pack for an abrupt departure over the tempest-tossed winter sea?”
“No. Go to sleep.”
Tensen smiled and left him.
Arin sat for a long time in that chair. He considered what he knew, what he thought he knew, and what he knew he didn’t know. Then he reconsidered everything.
His thoughts began to take strange shapes. They beat their wings and fluttered away. Arin found himself borne on those wings and flown into sleep.
He had dreams where moths were crawling on his face. Their legs became black stitches. They laid eggs in a long line down his forehead and over his cheek. The eggs hatched.
He dreamed of Kestrel. He dreamed of Risha.
He dreamed that Kestrel had become Risha, that the sun had become the moon, and he couldn’t tell whether he was blinded by the light or the dark.
An infection set into the wound. Arin’s fever raged high.
16
No one looks at a slave, Arin had said. Kestrel began to look very closely at hers. She settled on one. This particular woman was in fact not a slave but a paid servant, one of the Valorians selected to be a lady-in-waiting to Kestrel. It was a mark of high status to be served by one’s own people; in return, the Valorian ladies-in-waiting were decently paid and their blue servant dresses trimmed with white.
Kestrel couldn’t remember the woman’s name. But she was about Kestrel’s height and size. She would do.
One morning not long after the reception in the imperial gallery, Kestrel contrived to be alone with the servant and spill a large glass of water on her.
“I’m so sorry!” Kestrel cried. “Oh, I am clumsy.”
“No matter, my lady,” said the flustered woman. “It’s just water.”
“But water is very wet. You must be uncomfortable. Here, change into this.” Kestrel offered one of her dresses, carefully selected for being simply cut, without ornament, yet made from a rich fabric.
“I couldn’t,” said the maid.
