The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski Read Free Book Online

enough.
    Verex nudged the fallen red general with his green one,
    listening to the rocking tap of marble on marble. “Maybe we
    could be friends, if you could explain why you don’t tell my
    father that you don’t wish to marry me.”
    But Kestrel couldn’t explain.
    “You don’t want me ,” Verex said.
    She couldn’t lie.
    “You claimed that you don’t have a choice,” he said.
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    “What did you mean?”
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    “Nothing. Truly, I want to marry you.”
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    His anger returned. “Then let’s list the reasons.” He
    ticked them off on his fi ngers. “You seek the empire, and a
    CRIME
    husband you can manipulate as easily as these game pieces.”
    ’S
    “No,” she said, but why wouldn’t Verex believe his por-
    trait of her: power- hungry, unfeeling? It was what Arin be-
    lieved.
    THE WINNER
    “You want a good laugh. So that at our engagement
    ball you can watch me lose at Borderlands while every
    single aristocrat and governor of the territories laughs with
    you.”
    “A ball? All the governors? Are you sure? No one’s told
    me about this.”
    “My father tells you everything .”
    “He didn’t. I swear, I knew nothing of a ball.”
    “So he plays games with you, too. My father is two-
    faced, Kestrel. If you think he adores you, you’d better
    think again.”
    Kestrel threw up her hands. “You’re impossible. You
    can’t blame me for his favor and claim that I’m no more than
    an amusing toy to him.” She stood and went toward the
    door, for she saw that the brief peace between them had dis-
    integrated, and her mind was reeling. An engagement ball.
    With all the governors. Arin was coming. Arin would be
    here.
    “I wonder why my father didn’t tell you,” Verex said.
    “Could it be so that in catching you off guard, he could
    observe exactly what lies between you and the new gover-
    nor of Herran?”
    Kestrel stopped, turned. “There is nothing between us.”
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    “I’ve seen the Jadis coin. I’ve heard the rumors. Before
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    the rebellion, he was your favorite slave. You fought a duel
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    O
    for him.”
    She almost reached out to a bookshelf to steady herself.
    It felt as if she might fall.
    “I know why you’re marrying me, Kestrel. It’s so that
    MARIE RUTK
    everyone will forget that after the rebellion, no one put you
    in a prison, not like every other Valorian in Herran’s city.
    You were special, weren’t you? Because you were his . Every-
    one knows what you were.”
    Her vertigo vanished. She snatched the clay soldier off
    the shelf.
    She saw instantly from Verex’s expression that she held
    something he cherished. She would smash it, she would
    smash it against the fl oor. She would break Verex like his
    father had broken him.
    Like she had broken her own heart. Kestrel felt the
    pieces of her heart suddenly, as if love had been an object,
    something as frail as a bird’s egg, its shell an impossible
    cloudy pink. She saw the shock of its bloody yolk. She felt
    the shards of shell pricking her throat and lungs.
    Kestrel set the soldier back on the shelf. She made cer-
    tain her voice was clear when she spoke her last words be-
    fore leaving the room. “If you won’t be my friend, you’ll
    regret being my enemy.”
    Kestrel retreated to her suite and sent her maids away. She
    didn’t trust any of them now. She sat by a tiny window that
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    gave a feeble light. When she took the Jadis coin from her
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    pocket, it looked dull on her palm.
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    This is the year of money, she remembered. She had in-
    deed planned on going to the library earlier today, as her
    CRIME
    maid had informed Verex. She’d hoped to research the
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    Herrani gods, then thought better of