The Winner's Kiss (42 page)

“The emperor enjoys beauty.”

Arin's hand twitched, as if he'd meant to touch, compulsively, the scar that ran deep into his left cheek, but had stopped himself in time. It wrenched Kestrel's heart to see him remember how he'd been attacked by the emperor's minion, his face sliced open.

She hadn't been there when it happened. Still, she saw it now as if she'd been a bystander: paralyzed, robbed of sound, her throat raw. Bones like lead.

And she saw herself in her suite in the imperial palace, dressed in red, her shoulders laced with golden wire. Kestrel had forgotten this. It came to her: the tight, gorgeous bodice. Folds of crimson samite. The emperor had selected her wedding dress. He had selected
her
, had cut her from the cloth of her home, then stitched her into place beside his son. He had embroidered how she'd look and who she'd become.
I have chosen you, Kestrel, and will make you into every thing my son cannot be. Someone fit to take my place.

It was difficult for Kestrel to move, as if she had indeed become a cloth doll, the stitches drawn tight. She touched Arin's arm, felt how the muscles had hardened. “You think that he seeks only to destroy.”

“Yes,” he muttered.

“
Beauty moves him. He destroys it only when he can't possess it.”

I asked myself,
the emperor whispered in her ear,
whether it was really possible that you might betray your country so easily, especially when it had been practically
given
to you
.

“He loves to shape things.” A remembered helplessness shrouded her. The prince and his sister faded in her vision, were present but unimportant. She felt strange; her blood prickled as if something were growing inside her. “Every piece in place, arranged to his satisfaction. It's why he enjoys games. You know, don't you, how a game with a perfect line of play becomes beautiful?”

Yes. A growing thing. Thorny. A briar.

Arin's expression changed. She saw how he read her stillness. She wondered if she'd gone pale. Anxiety stole over his features. “Kestrel, can I have a word with you?”

Outside the tent, night had come.

He cupped her face in his hands. “You don't look right.”

“I'm fine.”

“No. You look like a part of you has dis appeared. Like you're not really here. Like”—his hands fell away—“you do when you're plotting something.”

Which was how Kestrel realized that she
was
plotting something. That growing briar inside her was an idea.

“Kestrel.”

She blinked, then noticed the hurt shape of his mouth. Arin said, “Tell me.” She started to speak. He cut through her first words. “No deceiving,” he said.

“I wouldn't.”

“
Not again. After every thing. Don't keep me in the dark.”

“Arin, for someone who wants me to tell him something, you're doing an excellent job of not
letting me speak
.”

“Oh.” Rubbing a forefinger and thumb into his eyes, he gave her a rueful look. “Sorry.”

“Risha could be a trap. We've no proof of her true allegiance, and while I know she cares for Verex, this might only make her firmly on Valoria's side. This story of the emperor at the Sythiah manor could be a distraction. Worse, it could lure us into an ambush. But I also believe that the emperor
would
leave the battlefield to stay in a luxurious manor known for its stained-glass windows. He's let my father fight his battles for two decades. As Verex said, the emperor is here only for show. Valoria is likely to win this war—and given our loss at Lerralen, its path to seize Herran's city is reasonably easy. Having destroyed some of their black powder helps us, but they still have the greater numbers and their tactical position is strong. Why should the emperor
not
quit the army camp for a feather bed and a view of the vineyards? It would be like him.”

“Then I'll lead a small team there. Assassinate him. Death will guide me.”

“No. I have a better plan for how to win this war.”

She told him what she had in mind, then returned to the tent to ask Roshar for his help.

Chapter 38

In the rosy light of morning, Arin raked a fistful of dry grass and scattered the thin yellow blades. Again.

Kestrel, who sat near him, glanced up from what she was doing. She lifted one brow.

So he stopped, he knew it was pure anxiety, that if he didn't do something with his hands they'd tremble.

Her hands were steady. She dipped a skinny paintbrush she'd made from horse hair, a twig, and twine into the small vial resting on a wide board that had become an impromptu table. A Bite and Sting set lay spread across the board, the tiles all faceup. She flipped four of them and painted their blank backs. The liquid went on clear.

“Kestrel.”

“Almost done.”

“I worry the emperor won't agree.”

“I think he will.”

“But the stakes—”

“Will amuse him.”

“
He'd gamble the outcome of a war?”

“Maybe, for the plea sure of beating me.” She laid the paintbrush on the board. “But he won't win.” She turned a snake tile onto its face and moved it close to one that she'd painted. She studied the two blank ivory backs. They looked nearly identical, save that the painted one had a slight shine. She lightly tapped the paintbrush's wooden end against the painted tile. It left no trace. The tile had dried.

Arin's stomach was a wormy knot. “This game could go badly.”

“That's why I'm cheating.”

“Even
with
the marked tiles.”

“It's a good plan.”

“Yes, but he'll agree to play only if he believes the outcome won't matter, even if you win.
That
is what will amuse him: your expectation that he'll keep his word. He won't.”

“All part of the game.”

“If anything goes wrong, he'll hurt you.”

Kestrel turned away from the board, saw him rake another fistful of grass. It sounded like cloth being ripped apart.

“Not this time,” she said.

Arin smelled smoke from Roshar's pipe before he heard the prince approach from behind. The sun was going down. The sky looked candied.

“Pretty,” the prince commented.

“Storm colors. One's coming.”

“I was thinking . . .”

Arin turned to glance at the prince, alert to his quiet
tone.
Roshar avoided his gaze, but his black eyes were large. Glassy. Arin was about to speak when Roshar cleared his throat and said, “Now is a good time to remind you how generous I am.”

Arin refused to be distracted into a meaningless conversation where Roshar simultaneously praised and mocked himself. He knew what troubled the prince. “Give Risha time. She'll forgive you.”

Roshar continued as if he hadn't heard. “The very soul of generosity. You ask for an ally in war, and lo, here I am. I dole out favors. Even to your ghost. She asks, I give. What's more, I've selected five elite fighters to accompany her and my little sister to Sythiah's manor. Truly, I'm confident that Risha would be enough to keep Kestrel safe, but I thought you'd appreciate the extra protection.”

Arin realized where this conversation was going, and it was as if the storm he'd predicted had already arrived. “No. Wait—”

“A small team is best for infiltrating the manor. Silently. Efficiently. No more than seven people.”

“Eight.”

“Sorry, Arin. You must remain with the army.”

“You can't compel me to stay.”

“Am I not your commander?”

The sky deepened. Its oranges and reds were resinous. Arin's pulse leaped with anger.

But this time Roshar's voice came low. “I need you.”

“What?” The air whooshed out of him.

“The emperor might be in Sythiah. He might not. What we know for
certain
is that an entire Valorian army whose
forces
vastly outnumber ours will be traveling up that road with a general who will prob ably continue to fight regardless of what happens at Sythiah. Are we to bet every thing on Kestrel's game? I say, we deal with the Valorians. I say, no retreat.”

“You don't need me to fight a battle.”

Roshar tipped his head to one side, his shoulders shrugging, and opened his hands as if scattering seeds. The gesture—a Herrani one, used to indicate doubt—made Arin angrier. “You don't,” Arin insisted. “You'd be fine without me. You're good at war.”

Roshar met his gaze. The green paint around the prince's eyes was fresh, his expression sober. “You're better.”

He didn't like to tell her what Roshar had asked. But he did, focused on adjusting the small lamp they'd set on the canvas tarp that covered the dirt floor of his tent. The lamp didn't burn well. Its oil was bad. It smoked. As he talked, he tinkered with the burner, the chimney. Then Arin stopped, realizing that he was close to destroying the thing between his hands.

Kestrel sat up in the bedroll, unbound hair spilling over her bare shoulders. It was the color of candlelight. She said, “Roshar's right.”

Arin struggled with his unease, didn't know what to say, dreaded blurting out the wrong thing. Finally he settled on blunt truth. “You're taking a big risk. I don't want you to have to do it alone.”

She sat in profile to him. Her hair had slid to curtain
most
of her face, but she shoved it back, meeting his gaze with her own firm one. “It will work.”

He thought of the Bite and Sting tiles carefully stowed in a velvet bag. He scrubbed the heel of his hand against his scarred cheek, saw Kestrel's quiet regard, how her expression changed the way a story does: subtle, with shifts of detail. Revealing. It calmed him a little to see her intelligence, vivid and clear.

“I believe you,” he said. “I'll stay with the army. But it's strange to me that Roshar changed his mind. He was ready to retreat to the city.”

“Seeing Risha changed him.”

“Even so. It's hard to know what he really wants.” Arin explained how Roshar could lay claim to Herran, and in the eyes of his people he'd only be taking what was legally his.

Kestrel said nothing at first. Then: “It's not like you to question someone's friendship.”

With a nauseated jolt, Arin thought of Cheat, who'd been his first friend after the invasion. “Maybe I should.”

“Maybe it would make you less yourself, if you did.”

“And you? Do you trust Roshar?”

She considered it. “Yes.”

Arin let out a resigned sigh. “I do, too . . . even if I shouldn't.”

“Let the morning keep what belongs to the morning,” Kestrel said, but as if she wasn't paying attention to what she said. Then she blinked. Her jaw tightened. She blew out the lamp.

He drew her to him. “What is it?” he murmured. Her heart beat against his palm.

“
It just means that you shouldn't borrow tomorrow's problems. Deal with today's.”

“But why does it upset you?”

“It was something my father would say.” She grew smaller in Arin's arms. “I can't face him.”

“You won't have to,” he promised. This, he could do. Arin sensed his god listening. He felt the god's assent fall on him, light and warm, like ash.

Give him to me,
said death.

As Kestrel neared sleep, it occurred to Arin that the emotion that spread through him—delicate, and unable to be named at first, because so unfamiliar—was peace.

He held the feeling close before it could be lost.

Chapter 39

The rain began the next morning and showed no signs of letting up. Mud sucked at Arin's boots as he helped Kestrel ready her horse. The rain intensified, dropping down like little stones.

Arin squinted up at it. “Terrible day to ride.” He hated to see her go.

She wiped water from her face, glancing over at Risha, whose head was tipped back under the rain, eyes closed. “Not for every one,” Kestrel said, “and the rain will make it less likely a Valorian scout will notice that a small band is riding from camp.”

True. The middle distance was a gray fog. Arin raked dripping hair off his brow. He tried to be all right. His nerves sparked the way a blade does against the grinder.

Kestrel touched his cheek. “The rain is good for us.”

“Come here.”

She tasted like the rain: cool and fresh and sweet. Her mouth warmed as he kissed her. He felt the way her clothes stuck to her skin. He forgot himself.

She
murmured, “I have something for you.”

“You needn't give me anything.”

“It's not a gift. It's for you to keep safe until I return.” She placed a speckled yellow feather on his palm.

The rain fell in a veil behind her.

The ground oozed. Mud splattered Arin's trousers as he helped load a supply wagon. He was worried, he kept thinking about the Bite and Sting set in Kestrel's saddlebag, and the mud made his work sluggish. He grew frustrated.

Oh, I don't know,
said death, slightly smug.
I like the mud.

Arin stopped what he was doing.
You do?

There was no reply other than the rain.

Arin considered his army. He considered the general's. A strategy slowly formed, one that released an emotion close to plea sure. It was, he realized, the promise of revenge: right at the tips of his fingers.

In the prince's tent, the rain loudly percussive against the canvas, Roshar studied the map marked by Arin.

“Your people will fight better in the rain,” Arin said.

“The rain might end by the time our army is in position.”

“But the mud will remain. Think of that heavy Valorian armor the higher ranks wear.
We
wear leather. Most of them will flounder.”