The Winner's Crime (52 page)

mere minister of agriculture.”

“I don’t care for the emperor’s satisfaction.”

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“Sending me,
alone
, will either insult the emperor or

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reveal to him that I’m more important than I seem.” Tensen

rubbed his grizzled jaw, considering Arin. “You need to go.

It’s a part you must play. You’re a good actor.”

Arin shook his head.

MARIE RUTK

Tensen’s eyes darkened. “I was there that day.”

The day last summer when Kestrel had bought him.

Arin could feel again the sweat crawling down his back

as he waited in the holding pen below in the auction pit.

The structure was roofed, which meant that Arin couldn’t

see the crowd of Valorians ranged above at ground level,

only Cheat in the center of the pit.

Arin smelled the stink of his skin, felt the grit beneath

his bare feet. He was sore. As he listened to Cheat’s voice

rise and fall in the bantering singsong of an expert auction-

eer, he pressed tentative fi ngers to his bruised cheek. His

face was like a rotten fruit.

Cheat had been furious with him that morning. “Two

days,” he’d growled. “I rent you out for only
two days
and

you come back looking like this. What’s so hard about lay-

ing a road and keeping your mouth shut?”

Waiting in the holding pen, not really listening to the

drone of the auction, Arin didn’t want to think about the

beating and everything that had led up to it.

In truth, the bruises changed nothing. Arin couldn’t

fool himself that Cheat would ever be able to sell him into

a Valorian house hold. Valorians cared about their house

slaves’ appearance, and Arin didn’t fi t the part even when

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his face wasn’t half- masked in various shades of purple. He

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looked like a laborer. He
was
one. Laborers were not brought

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into the house, and houses were where Cheat needed to

plant slaves devoted to the rebellion.

CRIME

Arin tipped his head back against the rough wood of

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the pen’s wall. He fought his frustration.

There came a long silence in the pit. The lull meant

that Cheat had closed the sale while Arin wasn’t paying

THE WINNER

attention and had stepped into the auction house for a

break.

Then: a locust- like whir from the crowd. Cheat was re-

turning to the pit, stepping close to the block on which

another slave was about to stand.

To his audience, Cheat said, “I have something very

special for you.”

Each slave in the holding pen straightened. The after-

noon torpor was gone. Even the old man, whose name Arin

would later learn was Tensen, became sharply alert.

Cheat had spoken in code. “Something very special”

conveyed a secret meaning to the slaves: the chance to be

sold in a way to contribute to the rebellion. To spy. Steal.

Maybe murder. Cheat had many plans.

It was the
very
in what Cheat had said that made Arin

sick with himself, because that word signaled the most im-

portant sale of all, the one they’d been waiting for: the

opportunity for a rebel to be placed in General Trajan’s

house hold.

Who was there, above in the crowd of Valorians?

The general himself ?

And Arin, stupid Arin, had squandered his chance at

revenge. Cheat would never choose him for the sale.

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Yet when the auctioneer turned to face the holding pen,

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his eyes looked straight into Arin’s. Cheat’s fi ngers twitched

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twice. The signal.

Arin had been chosen.

“That day,” Arin told Tensen as they sat in the winter

light of his father’s study, “was diff erent. Everything was dif-

MARIE RUTK

ferent.”

“Was it? You were ready to do anything for your people

then. Aren’t you now?”

“It’s a
ball
, Tensen.”

“It’s an opportunity. At the very least, we could use it to

fi nd out how much the emperor plans to take of the hearth-

nut harvest.”

The harvest would be soon. Their people needed it

badly for food and trade. Arin pressed his fi ngertips against

his brow. A headache was building behind his eyes. “What

is there to know? What ever he will take will be too much.”

For a moment, Tensen said nothing. Then, grimly:

“I’ve heard nothing from Thrynne for weeks.”

“Maybe he hasn’t been able to get out of the palace and

into the city to reach our contact.”

“Maybe. But we have precious few sources in the impe-

rial palace as it is. This is a dicey time. The empire’s elite are

pouring out gold to prepare themselves for the most lavish

winter season in Valorian history, what with the engage-

ment. And the colonists who once lived in Herran grow in-

creasingly resentful. They didn’t like returning their stolen

homes to us. They’re a minority, and the military is solidly

with the emperor, so he can ignore them. But all signs

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point to the court being a volatile place, and we can never

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forget that we are at the emperor’s mercy. Who knows what

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he’ll choose to do next? Or how it will aff ect us?
This
”—

Tensen nodded at the invitation—“would be a good means

CRIME

to look into Thrynne’s silence. Arin, are you listening? We

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can’t aff ord to lose such a well- placed spy.”

Just as Arin had been well- placed. Expertly placed. He

hadn’t been sure, that day in the market, how Cheat had

THE WINNER

known that Arin was the perfect slave to pitch. Cheat had

a knack for spotting weakness. An eye for desire. Somehow

he had peered into the heart of the bidder and had known

how to work her.

Arin hadn’t seen her at fi rst. The sun had blinded him

when he stepped into the pit. There was a roar of laughter.

He couldn’t see the mass of Valorians above. Yet he heard

them. He didn’t mind the prickling shame spidering up his

skin. He told himself that he didn’t. He didn’t mind what

they said or what he heard.

Then his vision cleared. He blinked the sun away. He

saw the girl. She raised one hand to bid.

The sight of her was an assault. He couldn’t quite see

her face— he did not
want
to see her face, not when every-

thing else about her made him want to shut his eyes. She

looked very Valorian. Golden tones. Burnished, almost, like

a weapon raised into the light. He had trouble believing

she was a living thing.

And she was clean. A purity of skin and form. It made

him feel fi lthy. It distracted him for a moment from notic-

ing that the girl was small. Slight.

Absurd. It was absurd to think that someone like that

could have any power over him. Yet she would, if she won

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the auction.

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He wanted her to. The thought swept Arin with a mer-

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ciless, ugly joy. He’d never seen her before, but he guessed

who she was: Lady Kestrel, General Trajan’s daughter.

The crowd heard her bid. And at once it seemed that

Arin was worth something after all.

MARIE RUTK

Arin forgot that he was sitting at his father’s desk, two

seasons later. He forgot that Tensen was waiting for him to

say something. Arin was there again in the pit. He remem-

bered staring up at the girl, feeling a hatred as hard as it was

pure.

A diamond.

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3

KESTREL DECIDED TO DRESS EXTRAVAGANTLY

for her meeting with the captain of the imperial guard. She

chose a snow- and- gold brocade dress whose long hem trailed.

As always, she strapped her dagger on with care, but this

morning she tightened the buckles more than she needed to.

She undid and redid them several times.

The captain called for her in her suite as she was fi nish-

ing her morning cup of spiced milk. He declined to sit

while she drank. When he blinked at her dress and hid a

brief smirk, Kestrel knew that she wouldn’t like wherever

they were going. When he didn’t suggest that she change

into something that wouldn’t be so easily sullied, she knew

that she didn’t like
him
.

“Ready?” said the captain.

She sipped from her cup, eyeing him. He was a hulking

man, face scarred across the lip. His jaw had been broken;

it jutted left. The captain had an unexpectedly fi ne, straight-

nosed profi le, but she had caught only a glimpse of it when

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he’d glanced around the sitting room to make certain they

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were alone. He was someone who preferred to stare face- on.

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Then his features were all marred.

She wondered what he would do if he knew that she

hadn’t been an entirely unwilling captive in Arin’s house

after the Herrani rebellion.

MARIE RUTK

She set the empty cup down on a small table. “Where

are we going?”

His smirk was back. “To pay someone a visit.”

“Who?”

“The emperor said not to tell.”

Kestrel lifted her chin and gazed up at the captain.

“What about hints? Did the emperor order you not to give

hints, even little tiny ones?”

“Well . . .”

“What about confi rming guesses? For example”— she

tapped an arpeggio along the edge of the ebony table—“I

guess that we are going to the prison.”

“Not exactly a tough guess, my lady.”

“Shall I try something more challenging? Your hands

are clean, but your boots are dirty. Slightly spattered. The

spots are shiny; recently dried. Blood?”

He was entertained now. He enjoyed this game.

“You’ve been up even earlier than I this morning, I see,”

Kestrel said. “And you’ve been busy. How incongruous,

though, to see blood on your boots and to smell something

so nice lingering about you . . . a subtle scent. Vetiver. Ex-

pensive. A dose of ambergris. The slight sting of pepper. Oh,

captain. Have you been . . .
borrowing
the emperor’s per-

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fumed oils?”

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He no longer looked amused.

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“I’d think that such a good guess deserves a hint, cap-

tain.”

CRIME

He sighed. “I’m taking you to see a Herrani prisoner.”

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The milk curdled in Kestrel’s stomach. “Man or woman?”

“Man.”

“Why is it important that I see him?”

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The captain shrugged. “The emperor didn’t say.”

“But
who
?”

The captain shifted his heavy feet.

“I don’t like surprises,” Kestrel said, “any more than the

emperor gladly shares his oils.”

“He’s nobody. We’re not even sure of his name.”

Not Arin. That was all Kestrel could think. It couldn’t

be him— Herran’s governor was not
nobody
. Imprisoning

him could trigger a new confl ict.

Yet the prison held somebody.

The sweet taste of milk had soured in her mouth, but

Kestrel smiled as she stood. “Let’s go.”

The capital prison was outside the palace walls, situated

a little lower on the mountain, on the other side of the

city, in a natural sinkhole that was expanded and fortifi ed

and spiraled with seemingly endless descending staircases.

It was small— the prison of the eastern empire was ru-

mored to be as large as an underground city— but its size

suited the Valorian emperor well. Most criminals were

shipped to a labor camp in the mines of the frozen north.

Those that were left behind were the very worst, and soon

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Oil lamps were lit, and the captain led Kestrel down

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the fi rst black, airless stairwell. The trailing fabric of her

dress hissed behind her. It was hard not to imagine that