Kestrel hadn’t played the piano since discovering the music room’s hidden screen, but she no longer cared who heard her. She wanted someone to listen to her grief.

Her music was angrier than she had expected. A sweet prelude that twisted away from her, and darkened, and knitted its way down into the lower octaves. She played until her wrists hurt. She played until she fumbled. The room vibrated with dying chords.

Kestrel rubbed her hot wrists. There was a ringing silence. Then, just as Kestrel was about to go over her mistake, she heard a faint chime.

She knew that sound.

There was someone behind that screen. A person likely to know about the palace’s hidden listening chambers. And why wouldn’t the emperor share such a secret with this man? The emperor valued him. The proof? Consider the emperor’s gift: a golden watch. It showed the phases of the moon. Its hour and minute hands were tipped with diamonds. It chimed the hour.

Kestrel didn’t know what had made her father hide behind the screen. She didn’t know if he was still there, or if he’d left the instant after his watch had chimed and Kestrel had lifted her head at the sound.

All she knew was that he had listened to her play. He’d never done that before.

A memory came to Kestrel. Deep into her seventh year, when Kestrel was still weak from the same disease that had killed her mother, the general had decided to ride with his daughter out of the city. She had nearly fallen asleep on her pony. The Herran countryside was crisp. The chill had made her nose run. He had taken her hunting. He helped her notch the bow. He pointed out the prey. He shifted her elbow into the right position. When she missed, he didn’t say anything. He shot a pheasant, plucked it, and built a fire. She dozed before it, and woke to find herself covered with furs. It was dark. Her hair smelled like smoke and roasted fowl. When her father saw that she was awake, he reached into a saddlebag for a loaf of bread, which he broke. He gave her the larger half.

In the listening silence of the music room, Kestrel lowered her hands to the piano keys and played the memory of that day. She played the sway of her pony beneath her, the phlegm in her lungs, the tension in the bowstring, the glowing heart of the fire. She played the way that her father, when he thought that she was still asleep, had brushed hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. He had drawn the furs up to her cheek. She was young enough then to call him papa.

Kestrel played the moment when she had opened her eyes, and he had looked away. She played the feeling of the bread in her hand.

* * *

Not long after, Kestrel went to the gallery. She was brought up short to see her father there. He was looking out one of the slender windows, his back to the art. He turned when she entered.

“I heard that you come here every day,” he said. “I hoped to speak with you alone.”

They’d been avoiding each other since she’d heard his watch chime. “You could have come to my suite,” she said.

“I was curious. I wondered what you like so much about the gallery.” He came to meet her. His boots echoed in the vast space.

“You know what I like.” How many times had he called her love for music a weakness? He had warned her: the Herrani had admired the arts, and look what had happened to them. They’d forgotten about the sword.

A frown dented his brow. He lifted his gaze from the collection of sculptures and paintings and focused again on Kestrel. His voice low, he said, “Your mother played beautifully.”

“And I?”

“You, even more so.”

“I was glad that you listened to me play.”

He sighed. “That watch.”

“I like your watch. You must continue to wear it. It’ll keep you honest.”

“Listening like that was beneath me.”

“What if I had invited you?” Kestrel asked.

“You didn’t.”

“I did, over and over, for years.”

He was silent.

“It was always an open invitation,” Kestrel said. “It still is.”

Her father gave her a small smile. “Would you show me your favorites?” He gestured at the gallery.

Kestrel had almost forgotten why she was here. She’d pushed thoughts of Tensen, the water engineer, and the palace physician away. Now they came back. She felt a stitch of fear, a thread of guilt pulled tight.

She couldn’t really see the painting she now thought of as Tensen’s. It was farther down the gallery. From the entrance, it was a mere square of purple.

She kept her father from it. She showed him an alabaster bowl she admired, and a bronze fisherman lifting a fish scaled with lapis lazuli. There was an eastern porcelain egg that opened to show an armed girl.

But her father noticed the painting. “I remember that,” he said. “I took it for the emperor.”

He approached it. Kestrel, silent with dread, had no choice but to go with him. If she tried to turn him away from the painting, she would only call more attention to it.

A masker moth lay on the painting’s frame. Kestrel’s pulse leaped.

Her father studied the landscape. “It looks different here than it did in that southern mansion.” He didn’t appear to notice the camouflaged moth. If he did, what would he make of it? Nothing? It seemed impossible that something that meant a great deal to her could mean nothing to him. Carefully casual, she said, “Do you like the painting?”

He shrugged. “The emperor does.” His gaze lifted from the canvas. Kestrel felt a terrible relief. Then her father spoke again, and as she listened, that relief shriveled into shame. “I know that you don’t want me to return to the east. I won’t lie, Kestrel. I need to fight. But the need … has been different over the years. It hasn’t been just for honor.” His light brown eyes were fixed on hers. “You were born a few months after Verex. I wouldn’t have made you marry him. But I hoped. On the battlefield, I hoped you’d inherit the empire. When you chose Verex, it felt like fate.”