The Winner's Kiss (41 page)

“I can't do that. You'd make me responsible for what ever you're going to do.”

“No one will get hurt if you keep people away from the supply wagons. Make up some excuse. No one will die.”

“To night, maybe. What about tomorrow, when we need what you plan to destroy? You're after the black powder, aren't you?”

She said nothing.

Softly, he said, “I could stop you so easily, right now.”

“If you did, you'd hand your father yet another victory.”

He sighed. “The awful thing is, part of me wants to please him, despite every thing.”

“No. Please don't. You can't.”

“
But I
do
want to . . .
and
I hate myself for wanting to please him, and I can't think of a way to do it without hurting you. Maybe
you
could think of a way, but would never tell me. You'd fall into my father's hands again, and your father's hands, and I'd never forgive myself.”

Kestrel told him that she would miss him. She told him, quietly, as the sound of waves pushed and pulled at the night, that she wished he were her brother, that she was sorry, and grateful to know him.

There was no sound other than the waves as she walked away.

When she reached Arin, he released the parted bushes and lowered the eastern crossbow he'd held cranked at the ready.

“You wouldn't have,” she stated.

Arin looked at her. He certainly would.

“Verex is my friend.”

Arin unloaded the crossbow. His fingers were trembling. “You greeted him like a friend,” he acknowledged. “But . . .”

They both looked back toward the camp. The slender shadow of the Valorian prince slowly retraced his steps. He dissolved into the camp's firelight, a good distance from the supply wagons.

Kestrel untied the empty sack from her waist and dusted her hands, her clothes. “Matches, now.”

Arin's hands still weren't sure of themselves. He fumbled with the box. She took it, struck a match, and touched it to the trail of black powder she'd left behind. It sparked, lit, and burned down the line.

They
ran.

The explosion blossomed over the beach.

They stayed off the road as they rode through the dark. Their pace was slow. Moonlight painted the land. They were silent, but Kestrel knew that it couldn't be due to the same thing, because she hadn't told Arin that she'd seen her father in the Valorian camp. The sight of him lingered with her. Her love for him closed within her like a fist. Nervous, bruised. She despised it. Wasn't it the love of a beaten animal, slinking back to its master? Yet here was the truth: she missed her father.

It seemed too awful to tell Arin.

But finally, when they stopped to sleep, not bothering with a tent, just bedding down in a hollow they'd trampled in the tall grass with their boots, Arin spoke. He slid a hand under her tunic to touch her bare back, then stopped. “Is this all right?”

She wanted to explain that she hadn't thought she'd ever bear anyone's touch on her scarred back, that it should revolt him and revolt her. Yet his touch made her feel soft and new. “Yes.”

He pushed the shirt up, seeking the lash marks, tracing their length. She let herself feel it, and shivered, and thought of nothing. But a tension grew. He was still, but for his hand.

Kestrel said, “What's wrong?”

“Your life would have been easier if you had married the Valorian prince.”

She
drew herself up so that she could face him. The scent of black powder clung to them both. His skin smelled like a blown-out candle. “But not better,” she said.

It was the next day's end when they caught up with Roshar's army, which had stopped—oddly—at a time too early to make camp, and rather late for a moment's rest. More than that, it was the uncertainty of the soldiers that gave the halt a strange feeling. They looked as if they'd had no orders at all. They held ranks, but loosely, and were murmuring among themselves, armor still buckled, horses saddled. Several remained mounted. A Herrani soldier toyed with her horse's reins. A Dacran eyed her as if he wished
his
horse had reins, so that he could do something with his empty hands. When Arin and Kestrel rode up to the vanguard, all eyes lifted. Faces turned to Arin, seeking an explanation, relieved because here, at last, was an answer. But Arin didn't even understand the question.

“What has happened?” he asked the two nearest soldiers on their horses.

“Someone came for our prince,” the Dacran said.

Arin glanced at Kestrel, alert to the hesitation in the Dacran's voice. Arin wondered if he needed to translate for her.

“Someone took him away?” she asked the man in his language.

The soldier clicked his teeth.
No.
“But I heard that his face became terrible, truly. That no one could look at it. Some worry that she—”

“
She?”

“Brings news of the war's end. That we're to abandon the campaign and go home.” The soldier glanced sideways at Arin. “Some hope for it.”

“Your queen?” Arin asked.

But it was not, in fact, the queen who had come for her brother.

Chapter 37

Roshar was waiting alone outside his tent. Kestrel saw what the soldier had meant about Roshar's face. She'd grown used to the prince's mutilations; she rarely noticed them anymore. But now an emotion so scored his features that his face became pure in its damage: a mask of loss, twisted with anger and shame.

Arin went to him, eyes wide with concern. He spoke swiftly in Dacran. What was wrong? What had happened?

“My sister won't speak with me.” Roshar cleared his throat. “Not without you.” His gaze flicked from Arin to Kestrel. “Both of you.”

Then Kestrel remembered that Roshar had more than one sister.

The three of them entered the tent, the prince last, shoulders tight, eyes roaming everywhere except to where Risha stood near the tent's center, her Valorian braids gone. Her black hair was cut close to the skull in the eastern style, her eyes rimmed with royal colors, her limbs lithe. The air in the tent was hot and dense.

“
Sister,” Roshar began, then faltered.

She ignored him. Her gaze went to Kestrel, who didn't understand the young woman's presence here, or the animosity toward her brother, whom Risha must not have seen since having been taken hostage by the empire as a child.

“I've come to bargain,” Risha said.

Visibly hurt, her brother said, “I would give you anything.”

“Not with you.”

“I am so sorry. Risha, little sister—”

“I trust
you
,” she said to Arin. “As for this one”—she tipped her chin at Kestrel—“Verex holds her in high regard.”

Roshar said, “I regret every day since I saw you last.”

“What do you regret most?
This?
” She gestured at his mutilations.

“No.”

“How you let our older sister persuade you?”

“Yes.”

“Or when you saw the Valorians take me.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it was when you explained to a child that she wouldn't be gone long, that she must pretend to be surprised when she's taken hostage. All she has to do is kill one man.”

Kestrel felt Arin's tension, the way he looked at the prince. Arin's worry was plain, his hands still at his sides yet slightly open, as if his friend might shatter and Arin needed to be ready to catch the pieces.

“Could it be so hard to kill a man?” Risha continued. “Especially when we consider her talent. Look at the little girl's grace. Her skill with a blade. A prodigy, surely. Never
before
seen in one so young. Yes, the assassination of the Valorian emperor should be easy for her.”

Then Kestrel understood.

Roshar said, “I regret it all.”

“I have wondered, over the years, whether you were weak to let my sister rule you, or simply stupid.”

“I didn't think—”

“About what would happen to me
after
I killed the emperor? Brother,
I
thought about it when I walked the halls of the imperial palace. When I learned their language. Played childhood games with their prince. I thought about what the Valorians would do to the little girl who murdered their emperor.”

A pressure tightened Kestrel's lungs. Her father, when he had refused to be her father anymore, had transformed into something else. A block of opaque glass, maybe. She wanted to heft the weight of his betrayal and show it to Risha, to ask if it looked and weighed the same as what the princess carried, if it ever got any lighter, or could diminish like ice.

Yet Kestrel also saw the ruined expression in Roshar's eyes. Maybe she shouldn't pity him, yet she did.

Arin said, “Name what you want.”

Risha settled into a teak chair. “I will never kill Verex's father. But”—she flipped her hand at the three of them—“
you
could, with my help. Get rid of the emperor, and you can win this war without open battle.”

“Wait,” Kestrel said. Cautious, focused now, she said, “You're not even supposed to be here. Verex said you were safe at court.”

At
the sound of Verex's name, some of the anger left Risha. “Verex had left. There was nothing to hold me there. I escaped.”

“And found your way here? So easily?”

The princess shrugged. “It's not hard to find safe passage if you're willing to kill for it.”

In Herrani, Arin asked Kestrel, “What are you thinking?”

She noticed the switch in language and recognized that Arin believed it was safe to speak in Herrani, but she didn't risk an answer in front of Risha. She didn't say that General Trajan could have sent the embittered eastern princess with tempting bait. Kestrel feared a trap. “What kind of help are you offering?”

“I can give you a location where the emperor will be, separate from the army, with a light guard.”

“How did you come by this information?”

“The court.”

Kestrel didn't like this. It was too easy. “You still haven't said what you want out of this bargain.”

Risha kept her eyes on Arin. “Promise that Verex won't be hurt. Protect him.”

Startled, defensive, Arin said, “I don't wish the Valorian prince any harm.”

But Roshar's face changed . . . and Kestrel suddenly realized why. “No,” she told him, her voice rising. “You musn't. His death wouldn't serve you. You should
want
him to inherit the empire. He'd be a friend to the east.”

“Doesn't matter,” Roshar said. “Our queen will smash the empire to pieces if she can. Killing the emperor might win the war. Verex might become a political ally. But if he
inherits
Valoria, that country will always be a threat to us . . . and to you, Arin.”

“Someone else would step into Verex's place,” Kestrel argued. “If the prince died, the senate would elect a new emperor.”

Arin's gray eyes went flat. “It'd be the Valorian general.”

Roshar shrugged. “Unless we eliminate him as well. Knock down all the principal pieces in Borderlands, and what's left for your opponent? Surrender.”

“You forget an important piece in this game,” Risha said. “Me.”

Roshar's shoulders tensed. Kestrel felt a growing disquiet.

“Verex and I would marry,” said the princess.

“An alliance between east and west,” Roshar said slowly.

Kestrel sought Arin's gaze. When he met her eyes she couldn't read them.

“Not so good for you, little Herrani,” Roshar told Arin. “Your peninsula would get lost in the middle.”

The risk had always been there, even if they won the war: that Herran would be retaken by the west, or dwindle into the east. But now Kestrel saw it as if seeing the future: how a marriage between the empire and Dacra could lead to one power ruling the entire continent. Herran would vanish.

“Decide,” Risha said, “or I leave. My information for Verex's safety. Yes or no.”

Arin met Kestrel's gaze. Grim mouth, hooded eyes asking whether this was worth it.

She thought about the emperor's hand on her father's shoulder.

The key Verex had sent to the northern prison.

A
friend. A good heart.

But Roshar wasn't wrong.

Kestrel knew what her father would choose, in her place. She realized that she'd come to rely on his voice in her head, that it had saved her on the battlefield. Even now, the very thought of his advice was soothing . . . even as being so soothed repulsed her.

It didn't matter what her father would choose. She was not her father.

“Yes,” Kestrel said. “I agree.”

“Then I do, too,” said Arin.

Roshar gazed at his hands. “No one can promise anyone's safety. Never. Much less in war.”

“We can promise to try,” Arin told him. “And you
can
shield him from the Dacran queen.”

Roshar nodded, but distractedly, with a disbelieving wince, as if someone had presented him with a portrait where his features were whole, his mutilations erased, and he had no words to express how wrong this vision of him was.

“I overheard the senate leader say that if Valoria succeeded in seizing the beach, the emperor would move inland with a small contingent and take the Sythiah estate,” Risha said.

“The manor there is luxurious,” Arin said, “but it has nothing strategically interesting for the emperor or the army. Vineyards. The grapes won't even be ripe this time of year. There's little to be gained in terms of supplies. The estate is north of the road to the city; not convenient as a base for attack.”

Kestrel,
however, knew the emperor. “But the manor is beautiful?”

Arin lifted one shoulder. “The stained-glass windows were well known, before the war. There are rooms that seem to be made of colored light. Or so it was said. I wouldn't know. I've never seen it.”