7
He was waiting in the reception hall, a lone figure lost in the vast, vaulted chamber. The Herrani representative was an elderly man whose thin frame leaned heavily on his walking stick.
Kestrel faltered. She approached more slowly. She couldn’t help looking over his shoulder for Arin.
He wasn’t there.
“I thought the barbarian days of the Valorian empire were over,” the man said dryly.
“What?” said Kestrel.
“You’re barefoot.”
She glanced down, and only then realized that her feet were freezing, that she’d forgotten even the existence of shoes when she’d left her dressing chamber and hurtled through the palace for all to see, for the Valorian guards flanking the reception hall to see right now.
“Who are you?” Kestrel demanded.
“Tensen, the Herrani minister of agriculture.”
“And the governor? Where is he?”
“Not coming.”
“Not…” Kestrel pressed a palm to her forehead. “The emperor issued a summons. To a state function. And Arin declines?” Her anger was folding onto itself in as many layers as her ball gown—anger at Arin, at the way he was committing political suicide.
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.
Arin had not come.
“I get that disappointed look all the time,” Tensen said in a cheerful tone. “No one is ever excited to meet the minister of agriculture.”
She finally focused on his face. His green eyes were small but clever, his wrinkled skin darker than hers. “You wrote me a letter.” Her voice sounded strained. “You said that we had much to discuss.”
“Oh, yes.” Tensen waved a negligent hand. The lamplight traced the plain gold ring he wore. “We should talk about the hearthnut harvest. Later.” His eyes slid slowly to glance at the Valorian soldiers lining the hall, then met Kestrel’s gaze again and held it. “I could use your insight on a few matters concerning Herran. But I’m an old man, my lady, and very saddle sore. A little rest in the privacy of my rooms is in order, I think. Perhaps you could show me where they are?”
Kestrel didn’t miss his message. She wasn’t blind to the way he had indicated that their conversation could be overheard, nor was she deaf to his coded invitation that they could speak more freely in his guest suite. But she struggled against the pain in her throat, and said only, “Your ride here was hard?”
“Yes.”
“And the snow. It’s falling already?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“The mountain pass will close.”
“Yes,” Tensen said gently, and he saw too much. Kestrel could tell that he heard that horrible note in her voice, and that he recognized it as the sound of someone fighting tears. “As expected,” he added.
But she hadn’t expected this: this stupid hope, this punishing one, for who would long to see someone who was already lost? What good would it have done?
None.
Apparently Arin knew this, too. He knew it better than she, or his hope would have been equal to hers, and would have driven him here.
Kestrel drew herself up straight. “You can find your rooms by yourself, Minister Tensen. I have more important matters to attend to.”
She strode from the hall. The veined marble floor was icy beneath her feet: a frozen lake with fractures she did not care to see.
She walked, she did not care.
She did not.