The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(108)

“I will if you do the same.”

He unbuckled his dagger and set it gently, yet heavily, on the table. Her fingers fumbled as she undid hers.

The dagger Arin had made her looked plain next to the emperor’s—but strong, like her unexpected face in the mirror.

“Interesting.” The emperor stroked it where it lay. “A new acquisition? Perhaps this will be my prize when I win.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I haven’t decided what I want.”

She opened the satchel, set the velvet bag of tiles on the table, and moved to sit.

“Not yet.” He held out his hand. She gave him the satchel, which he examined. Satisfied that it contained nothing else, he dropped it to the floor, then said, “You’ll have no objection, I’m sure, if I make certain that you hide no weapons on your person.”

Her skin prickled. “I give you my word that I don’t.”

“The word of a traitor is hardly to be trusted.”

So she stood rigid as his hands moved over her unarmored body. They didn’t linger, except when he pressed his fingers to her throat, and then pressed harder to feel her pulse jump and run.

He said, “You’re welcome to do the same to me.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” He seemed to dare her to admit that she didn’t want to touch him.

“I trust you.”

“Well then, little liar, let’s play.”

The approaching Valorian army shone in a silver river under the sun.

Arin looked through a spyglass. He couldn’t find the general.

There was a thin, whistling whine.

Arin lowered the spyglass.

The whine stopped.

A cry of pain.

An arrow, studded into a Herrani soldier’s throat.

More arrows sped through the air. Valorian Rangers were shooting at them from the trees on either side of the road.

They sat. Kestrel, her back to the bed, loosened the velvet bag’s tie and poured the tiles onto the table.

She reached to mix the tiles, but as she had thought he might, the emperor stopped her. “Let’s confirm that this set is standard, shall we?” he said.

He checked the tiles to account for their values. When he saw that the set showed the proper amount of each Bite and Sting tile, he turned them onto their faces and mixed them. His face was calm, but his gestures were eager. He touched each tile, but barely. He wanted to get to the game.

Kestrel studied his smooth expression. He didn’t seem to notice that four ivory tiles were shinier than the rest. The gloom of the late hour helped. He drew his tiles.

Her stomach clenched to see the four shiny tiles left in the boneyard, from which she and the emperor would pull tiles throughout the game.

She drew her own hand. Arin had warned her that when she had a high chance of winning, her very lack of tells showed her confidence. I don’t think most people notice, he’d said. Your expression doesn’t change. You’ve no tic or gesture. I just get the sense that there’s an energy inside you I can’t reach, and that if I did, it’d strike like lightning.

She tried not to think about her plan, worrying that even the mere thought of it would show on her face. She felt her expression harden as clay does in a kiln.

Play, Kestrel.

She set down her first tile. The emperor did the same.

She found herself praying to Arin’s god. Please, let this be over soon.

But she heard no answer.

“Stand your ground,” Roshar shouted as arrows drove into the army. Eastern crossbows fired into the trees.

Roshar ordered Xash, his second-in-command, to lead a company into the forest to the left of the road. Roshar would take another company to the right. “We’ll take care of the Rangers. You,” he said to Arin, “take command of the road.”

Arin snagged the prince’s shoulder. “You’ll get bogged down in the mud. The Rangers will shoot every one down on the open land before you reach the trees.”

“Not much choice. Continue to return fire. The Dacran archers are plainspeople. They’re good.”

“They’re not gods.”

“They will be, to protect their prince.”

Then Roshar was gone, and Arin snapped his attention back to the road, because the enemy was upon them, thundering down the road, almost here, almost here.

Here.

As they played, the rain lessened and stopped. The glasses of wine sat untouched. The boneyard still held the four shiny tiles hidden among the others.

It was the emperor’s turn. He reached for a tile, then paused, too much drama in his movements. He wasn’t truly hesitant, or even pretending to be hesitant, but rather making an open mockery of hesitancy that he knew she’d recognize as such.

“Play your tile.” Her voice grated.

“I’m thinking.”

She said nothing.

“Don’t you want to know what I’m thinking?” He leaned back in his chair, his short, silvered hair a bright bristle in the lamplight. The emperor passed his fingers over his mouth with enough pressure to pull slightly at the slack skin of his cheeks. His touch explored the grooves age had made near his mouth, and he seemed pleased.

Then she saw that his gaze had shifted to her hands.

They were trembling. She pressed them down against the table.