The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(111)

The staves had ruined the Valorians’ strategy. It was impossible to flank Arin’s army, which became a solid column that thrust up the road. The edges of Arin’s vanguard began to work forward, fighting to reach the unprotected, muddy sides of the road on which the Valorians stood. With a little luck, Arin would flank them.

When his sword cut an enemy open, Arin thought that he would have chosen no other god to rule him, that none of the hundred could please him so well.

A gift, he thought.

This is nothing, death said. Did I not make you a promise? Have you not kept faith with me, in hopes of this very moment? See, see what I have for you.

Arin looked.

Just a few paces away, unhorsed, helmet gone, stood General Trajan.

This was taking too long.

It was full dawn. The stained windows were wild now, lurid with color. Kestrel had reached the end of her line of play. She held a worthy hand, yet dreaded exposing her tiles to the emperor.

It didn’t matter what tiles she held. All that mattered was that the game was over, and that the emperor appeared relaxed, lids half-lowered in anticipation, his dark eyes liquid.

“Show me,” he said.

Arin spurred his horse forward. The general saw him and stood tall. Arin’s mind went blank, he heard nothing, not even death, and he should have been listening, because at the last possible moment, the general fell to one knee and drove his sword deep into the chest of Arin’s horse.



As slowly as possible, Kestrel turned her last tile.

Four spiders.

The emperor didn’t smile. She almost wished that he had. He closed his eyes once, and when he opened them their expression was even worse than his smile.

He displayed his winning hand.

Four tigers.

Arin was thrown from his shrieking horse. His head rang against the road.

And rang, and rang.

Perspiration glimmered on the emperor’s upper lip. He touched it, glanced at his fingers strangely, then returned his attention to Kestrel.

She scraped her chair back.

He swept her dagger from the table and had it up to her throat in one swift movement. He pricked the skin; a tiny trickle of blood.

She’d been stupid, her plan had been stupid, a fool’s gamble, yet her mind kept scrabbling for an idea, something else, anything else that could reverse her mistake or make happen what should have already happened.

“Don’t take defeat too badly,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, I had no intention of ever fulfilling my agreement, even if you’d won. But the plea sure of the game was great. Now. Sit.”

Her legs gave out beneath her.

“Let’s discuss what you owe.”



Arin felt the hum of metal in the air.

He rocked his body out of its path, heard the general’s sword strike the road.

Arin shoved himself to his feet.

The emperor lowered back into his seat. Kestrel stared at his winning hand, light-headed with fear.

“Does the sight of this trouble you?” Her dagger still in one hand, the emperor turned his tiles facedown. Then he paused, frowning at their backs. He touched one of the two shiny ones, then flipped Kestrel’s hand over, studying her tiles’ backs. He found, in the boneyard, the two remaining marked tiles. “What is this?”

She made an involuntary sound.

He batted the air as if at an invisible insect. Colored light beamed into the room. The four tiles shone clearly.

“You cheated?” he muttered. “How could you cheat and still lose?”

Arin swung at the general, who cut the blow wide, deflecting it easily, holding it in a semi-bind that forced Arin’s sword low. Arin’s guard was open. The general was quick, his parry swift. The man’s steel was so sharp that Arin didn’t feel, at first, when it cut him.



The emperor licked his dry lips. He turned over the two marked tiles in the boneyard. A wolf. A snake. “These are good tiles. Why would you mark tiles and not take them for yourself?” He swallowed. The knot of cartilage in his throat bobbed.

Kestrel saw him begin to understand.

His body began to understand, too.

He lunged for her.

The sword nicked the side of Arin’s neck just below the ear. It would have taken off his head if he hadn’t recoiled in time.

Arin had been looking at the general’s face without really seeing it. He saw it now. He saw that the man knew exactly who he was, and that he longed for Arin’s death almost as much as Arin longed for his.

The emperor knocked over the wine. He seized up against the table, hand clamped around Kestrel’s dagger.

She stepped back from the table as he shuddered against it. She felt a relief so deep that it didn’t even feel like relief. It plunged straight into exhaustion.

“I lied,” Kestrel told him.

The emperor tried to push himself upright. She thought he might be trying to do something with the dagger, but his arm had gone rigid. It thumped into the spilled red wine.

“I lied when I said I hadn’t come to murder you.”

His eyes were wide, stark.

“It never mattered whether I won or lost the game,” Kestrel said. “Only how long the poison would take to kill you. It comes from a tiny eastern worm. In its purest form, the poison is clear. It dries to a shine. I painted it onto four Bite and Sting tiles. You touched them.”