The Winner's Crime

Kestrel should have known right away that the letter wasn’t from him. But still: the quick slice of paper. Still: the disappointment.

Arin wasn’t thinking of her. He wasn’t.

He rules buying and selling, Enai had said, which means she rules negotiation. And hidden things. You can’t see both sides of one coin at once, can you, child? The god of money always keeps a secret. The god of money was also the god of spies.

His habit was worse with her. He said things he shouldn’t. He broke rules, and she watched him do it, and said little of the breaking.

Arin saw Kestrel step between him and punishment as if it meant nothing, instead of everything.

Anger at herself. At her own bare feet and how they were proof—pure, naked, cold proof—of her hope, her very need to see someone that she was supposed to forget.

The kiss had numbed her. Verex’s words didn’t register at first. When they did, they seemed like her own words, like she’d been saying them to her old self, the one who had given up Arin. I’m sorry, she told herself. Forgive me, she’d said. Kestrel had thought she’d known what her choices had cost her, but when the prince had kissed her she sharply understood that she was going to pay for this for the rest of her life.

“So you give me nothing.”
“When have I ever given you anything?” Softly, Arin said, “You gave me much, once.”

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 everything until the gods strike you down. But you can’t say that I don’t know you.”

“If you won’t be my friend, you’ll regret being my enemy.”

“So you give me nothing.”

“When have I ever given you anything?”

Softly, Arin said, “You gave me much, once.”

I wanted to feel free, Arin had told her once in Herran. She breathed in the cold, and it felt free, so she felt free, and it felt alive, so she felt alive.

“We could gamble for your coat.”

“Ah, love, why don’t we skip to the part where you win and I give it to you?”

“Arin,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

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

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

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.

“I never forfeit,” she said. He smiled.

“Sometimes you think you want something,” Arin told him, “when what you need is to let it go.”

It was different to give something up than to see it taken away. The difference, Kestrel said, was choice.