*
Arin had forced his way up to the bar, where he waited to ask for a second glass. The Valorian barkeep ignored him. She served everyone else first. When new Valorians came up to the bar, she served them, too. She wasn’t going to glance at Arin unless he made a scene—which he was very ready to do. In his head, he heard Kestrel say Yes.
The surface of the bar was sticky and smelled sour. Arin stared at it and thought of the emerald earring, how it had shone: enchanted, his. Sarsine had found it hooked into a thick, patterned carpet that had been rolled up and shoved into storage in a disused quarter of his house in Herran. The emerald had been like one of those tales where a god is revealed. Arin had sworn he would never part with it.
Yet he had, and he understood now that it hadn’t really been information he wanted to buy. It had been trust. Arin could no longer trust himself. Arin had believed the bets in the bookkeeper’s hand were important. The emerald had seemed to promise that if this belief could be proven true, then Arin could trust his every belief.
Arin’s palms were sticky now, flattened against the bar. His temper slowed. He remembered the Kestrel he’d known in Herran. He didn’t think about who she’d been lately. And he didn’t make his increasingly frequent mistake of reimagining this new Kestrel—so fully Valorian, so nicely set in the court and capital—as the person he wanted her to be.
He simply remembered the person she’d been. Arin asked that Kestrel the same question he’d asked the Kestrel dressed as a palace maid, and she gave the same answer. But this time, her yes was also a no. This time, her answer was a box with a false bottom, and the meaning of it went deeper than he had seen.
He had misunderstood her.
Arin began to think he shouldn’t have walked away from that table. He should go back. He should go back right now.
And he would have, if he hadn’t been distracted by a snatch of conversation from a nearby table.
A group of senators were drinking. The Broken Arm had a very mixed crowd that night, more than its usual share of courtiers. These were talking about the east.
“… an impressive victory,” said one. “Exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from General Trajan.”
“He can’t take all the credit,” said another. “The idea was his daughter’s.”
“Really?”
“I was there. There was a gathering in the Winter Garden the morning after the engagement ball. Only the most important members of the court were invited, of course. A group of us discussed how best to take the eastern plains. The emperor even asked my advice. If I say so myself, my idea was very good. Yet let no one believe that I am ungenerous. I understand why the emperor preferred Lady Kestrel’s plan. It was she who suggested that the general poison the horses. The eastern savages won’t be able to live without them, she said. We all knew that would do the trick. And didn’t it just?”
Laughter.
“To Lady Kestrel.” The senator raised his cup.
“To Lady Kestrel!”
*
Kestrel had stood to leave the table and find Arin when she heard the cheer.
Had she been recognized?
No one was looking at the maid in the corner. Still, Kestrel grew even more anxious.
She couldn’t see Arin. He was lost in the swarm of people by the bar.
Or had he left the tavern entirely? Had she offended him that much?
Kestrel was reassuring herself that Arin wouldn’t leave their game unfinished, when he emerged from the crowd empty-handed.
He dragged his chair back from the table.
“Arin … what I said earlier, about the wound—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” He sat, and repositioned his tiles.
“But I need to tell you. Arin, your face—”
“I don’t care about my face!”
Kestrel shut her mouth. Arin refused to look up at her. With a nauseating dread that she didn’t yet understand, she sank into her chair. “Why were those senators drinking to me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Do you know why?”
Arin met her gaze with an unflinching stare. “Play.”
“You’ve no glass after all.” She poured wine into her own. She spilled a few drops. She wiped them away with her thumb, rubbing hard at the glass, and offered it to him. He ignored her.
So Kestrel played, and watched Arin toss down tiles and claim others. She felt the pulse of his fury. It was worse than when he’d left the table. It had grown fierce, practically solid. It was the kind of anger that comes close to trembling. The game slipped from Kestrel’s control.
In the end, she welcomed the loss. She would tell Arin the truth. She swore to herself that she would. Everything could be explained. She was afraid of it, afraid of the anger in him now, and of what he would do with the truth. But she would give it to him. She could no longer bear not to.
Arin said, “Did you tell the general to poison the horses of the eastern plainspeople?”
“What?”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” she said haltingly, “but—”
“Do you realize what you’ve done? Hundreds of people—innocent people—died in the exodus to the queen’s city.”
“I know. It was a horrible thing—”
“Horrible? Children starved while their mothers wept. There are no words for that.”
Guilt swelled in her throat. “I can explain.”
“How do you explain murder?”
“How do you?” she said with a flash of her own anger. “People died because of you, too, Arin. You have killed. Your hands aren’t clean. The Firstwinter Rebellion—”
“This is not the same.”
He seemed to choke on his words, and Kestrel was appalled at how everything she said went so wrong. “I meant that you had your reasons.”
“I can’t even speak of my reasons. I can’t believe that you’d bring them up, that you would compare…” His voice shook, then dropped low. “Kestrel. The empire’s only reason is dominion. And you have helped.”
“I had no choice. My father would’ve—”
“Thought you weak? Disowned you for not being his warrior girl, ready with the perfect plan of attack? Your father.” Arin’s mouth curled. “I know you want his approval. I know that you’d marry the prince to get it. But your father’s hands run with blood. He is a monster. What kind of person feeds a monster? What kind of person loves one?”
“Arin, you’re not listening. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“You’re right. I haven’t been thinking clearly, not for a long time. But I understand now.” Arin pushed his tiles away. His winning hand scattered out of line. “You have changed, Kestrel. I don’t know who you are anymore. And I don’t want to.”
Later, when Kestrel remembered this moment, she said the right things. In her imagination, he understood.
But that was not what happened.
Arin’s anger curdled into disgust. He was sick with it. She could tell. She could tell from the swift way he stood, as if escaping contamination. She saw it in the set of his shoulders when he turned his back, even as she called to him. Arin walked away. He let the tavern door slam behind him.