Arin hadn’t seen her at first. The sun had blinded him when he stepped into the pit. There was a roar of laughter. He couldn’t see the mass of Valorians above. Yet he heard them. He didn’t mind the prickling shame spidering up his skin. He told himself that he didn’t. He didn’t mind what they said or what he heard.

Then his vision cleared. He blinked the sun away. He saw the girl. She raised one hand to bid.

The sight of her was an assault. He couldn’t quite see her face—he did not want to see her face, not when everything else about her made him want to shut his eyes. She looked very Valorian. Golden tones. Burnished, almost, like a weapon raised into the light. He had trouble believing she was a living thing.

And she was clean. A purity of skin and form. It made him feel filthy. It distracted him for a moment from noticing that the girl was small. Slight.

Absurd. It was absurd to think that someone like that could have any power over him. Yet she would, if she won the auction.

He wanted her to. The thought swept Arin with a merciless, ugly joy. He’d never seen her before, but he guessed who she was: Lady Kestrel, General Trajan’s daughter.

The crowd heard her bid. And at once it seemed that Arin was worth something after all.

Arin forgot that he was sitting at his father’s desk, two seasons later. He forgot that Tensen was waiting for him to say something. Arin was there again in the pit. He remembered staring up at the girl, feeling a hatred as hard as it was pure.

A diamond.

3

Kestrel decided to dress extravagantly for her meeting with the captain of the imperial guard. She chose a snow-and-gold brocade dress whose long hem trailed. As always, she strapped her dagger on with care, but this morning she tightened the buckles more than she needed to. She undid and redid them several times.

The captain called for her in her suite as she was finishing her morning cup of spiced milk. He declined to sit while she drank. When he blinked at her dress and hid a brief smirk, Kestrel knew that she wouldn’t like wherever they were going. When he didn’t suggest that she change into something that wouldn’t be so easily sullied, she knew that she didn’t like him.

“Ready?” said the captain.

She sipped from her cup, eyeing him. He was a hulking man, face scarred across the lip. His jaw had been broken; it jutted left. The captain had an unexpectedly fine, straight-nosed profile, but she had caught only a glimpse of it when he’d glanced around the sitting room to make certain they were alone. He was someone who preferred to stare face-on. Then his features were all marred.

She wondered what he would do if he knew that she hadn’t been an entirely unwilling captive in Arin’s house after the Herrani rebellion.

She set the empty cup down on a small table. “Where are we going?”

His smirk was back. “To pay someone a visit.”

“Who?”

“The emperor said not to tell.”

Kestrel lifted her chin and gazed up at the captain. “What about hints? Did the emperor order you not to give hints, even little tiny ones?”

“Well…”

“What about confirming guesses? For example”—she tapped an arpeggio along the edge of the ebony table—“I guess that we are going to the prison.”

“Not exactly a tough guess, my lady.”

“Shall I try something more challenging? Your hands are clean, but your boots are dirty. Slightly spattered. The spots are shiny; recently dried. Blood?”

He was entertained now. He enjoyed this game.

“You’ve been up even earlier than I this morning, I see,” Kestrel said. “And you’ve been busy. How incongruous, though, to see blood on your boots and to smell something so nice lingering about you … a subtle scent. Vetiver. Expensive. A dose of ambergris. The slight sting of pepper. Oh, captain. Have you been … borrowing the emperor’s perfumed oils?”

He no longer looked amused.

“I’d think that such a good guess deserves a hint, Captain.”

He sighed. “I’m taking you to see a Herrani prisoner.”

The milk curdled in Kestrel’s stomach. “Man or woman?”

“Man.”

“Why is it important that I see him?”

The captain shrugged. “The emperor didn’t say.”

“But who?”

The captain shifted his heavy feet.

“I don’t like surprises,” Kestrel said, “any more than the emperor gladly shares his oils.”

“He’s nobody. We’re not even sure of his name.”

Not Arin. That was all Kestrel could think. It couldn’t be him—Herran’s governor was not nobody. Imprisoning him could trigger a new conflict.

Yet the prison held somebody.

The sweet taste of milk had soured in her mouth, but Kestrel smiled as she stood. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The capital prison was outside the palace walls, situated a little lower on the mountain, on the other side of the city, in a natural sinkhole that was expanded and fortified and spiraled with seemingly endless descending staircases. It was small—the prison of the eastern empire was rumored to be as large as an underground city—but its size suited the Valorian emperor well. Most criminals were shipped to a labor camp in the mines of the frozen north. Those that were left behind were the very worst, and soon executed.

Oil lamps were lit, and the captain led Kestrel down the first black, airless stairwell. The trailing fabric of her dress hissed behind her. It was hard not to imagine that she was a prisoner being led to her cell. Kestrel’s heartbeat tricked her; it fumbled at the thought of being caught at some crime, of being locked up in the dark.