*
To Arin, the imperial palace was a big box of architectural tricks. It didn’t matter, though, how many dead-end hallways there were. He didn’t care about the dizzying array of chambers for leisure. He ignored the way that tight, winding staircases could split into several directions.
In the end, the palace was really just a building, and in every building servants were housed in the same place: the worst.
So when Arin went looking for Kestrel’s dressmaker, she wasn’t hard to find. He took staircases down. He went into the dark. He followed musty air. Insufferable heat. The kitchen’s fires. Sweat and fried onion smells.
The Herrani servants were helpful. Too helpful. Their eyes were shining. They would have shared anything with him. Their faces fell to be asked so little as the whereabouts of a dressmaker. Even the slaves from various conquered territories, whose languages Arin didn’t speak, and who worked in tense and arcane hierarchies with the newly freed Herrani, watched Arin with expressions approaching awe.
Arin’s failure felt hot within him. It was a kind of poison, steeping steadily. The Herrani servants asked to be told the story of how Arin had brought a mountain down on Valorian troops. How had he saved Minister Tensen during that assault on a country estate? Was it from a crossbow quarrel, or a thrown dagger?
The stories were worthless. Everything Arin had done, from the Firstwinter Rebellion to his last stand against the Valorian general, had changed nothing. His people still belonged to the empire.
“Deliah,” Arin reminded the Herrani gathered in the largest kitchen. “Where is she?”
Her workshop was in a nicer section of the palace, on the ground floor in a room with enough light to make the bolts of fabric glow. When Arin entered, Deliah was sewing, her lap heaped with rich, wine-dark cloth. Her mouth was full of straight pins. She removed them slowly, one by one, when Arin asked his question.
“I want to know who’s been bribing you,” he said.
“That’s not what I thought you’d ask.”
“I’ve been to the city.” Arin hated being in the palace. He felt better in the city, though he didn’t like that either, and never shook the feeling of being in enemy territory. He prowled it, and kept to the alleys. “There’s a tavern—”
“I know the one you mean. It’s the only place that serves Herrani.”
“They serve everyone—especially bet-makers and bookkeepers. If I were to bet on something, it’d be on the fact that you must have every courtier in the palace hounding you for a tip on what your lady will wear to her wedding. The payout could be huge.”
Deliah had been stabbing pins into the small cushion strapped to her wrist. Now she stopped and ran a finger over the stiff silver grass of clustered pins. “I don’t tell anyone anything about the wedding dress. I don’t take bribes. Not even from you.”
“I’m not saying that you do. That’s not what I want. Just tell me who’s been asking.”
“If you want a list, it’ll be long.”
“So tell me who isn’t asking.”
She was still wary. “Why?”
“Because that’s the person who already knows.”
Deliah touched the pins again. “The Senate leader,” she said. “Most of the courtiers ask in person, even the important ones. They don’t want to risk that somebody else might learn what they think I’ll tell. But I’ve never seen the Senate leader. Even his daughter, Maris, wants to find out. Her bribe was the promise that I could work for her.” Deliah gave a short laugh. “I dress the imperial family. The emperor would never let me go.” Her eyes challenged Arin, daring him to promise that something would change, that he could make it change for her.
His hot feeling of shame cooled into a black lump: a hard, burnt thing.
He moved to leave.
“Something happened to her,” Deliah said suddenly.
He stopped. “What do you mean?”
“Before you came—weeks before you came—Lady Kestrel’s maids brought me a dress. It was white and gold. And filthy. The hem had been dragged through something, I’m not sure what. It was on the seat of the dress, too. The knees. There was vomit on one sleeve. Some seams had split.”
Arin’s mouth went dry.
“The maids wanted to know if I could salvage it,” Deliah said. “Impossible. It was ruined. I tore that dress into rags.”
Arin made himself speak. “When?”
“I told you when.”
“Was Kestrel with someone the day she wore that dress?”
Deliah spread her hands helplessly. “I have no idea exactly when she wore it, or the company she might have kept. You’d have to ask her ladies-in-waiting, and I don’t recommend that. At least one of them is in the pocket of the prince, and only the gods know how many report to the emperor.”
“You must know something more.”
“I’ve told you everything.”
“You see her. When you fit her to a dress … you see her skin. Was there … damage?” He had a gut-wrenching memory of Kestrel’s face after Cheat had attacked her. “Bruises. Scars. Anything. Anything around that time. Anything since.”
“No,” said Deliah, which was a deep relief to him until she added, “not that I could see. I haven’t fitted her in the past week, though.”
“Watch her.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t keep reporting to you. The emperor…”
“I am Herran’s governor.”
She gave him a pitying look. “We both know how much that’s worth.”
He covered his eyes. He shook his head. “At least let me know if there’s been anything else … strange.”
She shrugged. “The usual. Orders for a new day dress. Minor repairs. Complaints about pests getting into the wardrobes and eating the fabric. That sort of thing.” Deliah still had that look on her face, and Arin wanted to defend himself, to say that the only reason she should report on Kestrel’s doings was that the general’s daughter was obviously up to something, that the ruined dress was evidence of what he couldn’t see and must see, because Kestrel had a knack for working her fingers through schemes, and sometimes she pulled the strings, and sometimes she tugged at the edges until she uncovered something she shouldn’t.
Arin wanted to insist that if a secret concerned Kestrel, it concerned the emperor, and that concerned Herran. This was why he asked for Deliah’s help. It was for his country. Only for that.
It was not out of worry for Kestrel.
Not out of love.
Not because the description of that dress made Arin try to imagine every possible thing that had been done to Kestrel while she wore it, or everything she might have tried to do.
In the end, none of this was easy for him to say. He was silent as he made to leave Deliah’s workshop.
“She cares for you,” Deliah said suddenly. “I know that she does.”
It was so blatantly untrue that it almost seemed like a cruel joke.
Arin laughed.