The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(14)

He still heard her cutting replies.

He thanked the god of chance he’d stopped short of asking whether she was Tensen’s Moth—yet another of the fantasies he’d entertained about her in his compulsion to transform her into the person he longed for her to be. This, despite Tensen’s loyalty to him, his honesty. Tensen had already told him the identity of his anonymous spy: Risha, the eastern princess held hostage in the imperial court.

Arin straightened. His shoulders ached. He’d been standing in one position for too long. He sat on the wide windowsill, spine against the frame. He was aware of feeling both inside and outside. He let himself enjoy the balance of it. It cleared his head.

What happened with Kestrel hadn’t been for nothing. He’d gotten a feel for the way her mind worked. He’d caught her weakness for a sly move. He’d seen just how much she was her father’s daughter.

Arin wondered how many people he’d need to handle Valorian Rangers coming up the western cliffs.

He wondered if he, too, was tempted by cunning. Maybe he was drawn as well to the biggest gamble.

The first morning bird sang.

The Herrani god of games had once been mortal. Arin knew the tale. She’d gambled her way into immortality, then wreaked merry havoc. The gods were not pleased. They began to lose treasured possessions—a pair of gloves that let the wearer touch colors and sounds, a ring that contained a whole other world within its circle, the god of night’s favorite cat. When she won the sun, every one lost their patience. The god of war was sent to deal with her. But nothing is ever simple between the gods, and the stories of the gods of war and games were many . . . and took certain sensual twists and turns that Arin hadn’t been allowed to hear as a child.

Arin shut the window. He took his sword, which had been his father’s and forged with beautifully tempered steel. For almost ten years after the invasion the sword had hung on a wall in this house like a corpse on display. It felt good against his palm, and for a moment it felt as if he weren’t holding the sword but his father’s hand. Then the hilt became steel again.

He made his way (quickly, it was almost dawn) to his stables. He saddled Javelin—Kestrel’s horse, Arin’s now. The animal was strong and smart and fast.

Arin rode the stallion out into the gray morning. He thought that a commander of any army had better pray to both the gods of war and games. No battle is won without a good gamble.

As the ground sped beneath Javelin’s hooves, Arin had a fleeting thought of the messenger who’d come to see him.

Later, he decided, and spurred his horse.





Chapter 4

Arin slunk forward on his Belly and inched over the patchy grass. The wind shrilled in his ears. It whipped dirt into his eyes. He blinked it away, eyes streaming, and crept to the edge of the cliff. He heard soil crumble beneath his weight. It sifted down the cliffs.

Arin’s pulse thumped hard. He imagined the lip of the cliff giving way. He’d plummet fast.

Quickly, as he’d already done several times that day, Arin dug his elbows into the earth and pulled himself just far enough to look down the cliff. The sea was dizzyingly far below. It foamed white against the rocks.

There were no ships.

No Valorians climbing up the cliffs.

Nothing.

Arin pushed himself away from the edge, rolled onto his back, looked up at the pale sky, and then at the waiting Herrani.

He met their eyes. He shook his head.



Arin had ridden to Etrea, a country estate he’d helped liberate during the Firstwinter Rebellion. The people there were too far from the city and mountains to rely on aqueducts for water; they had wells. They were healthy. Maybe they weren’t born fighters, but Arin would take what he could get. He’d ridden through the village and begged for help. About twenty men and women followed him to the cliffs.

The bare cliffs.

The quiet ones.

Arin looked out again over the empty water and imagined what Roshar must have thought as he’d looked for Arin in the morning light and made his way to the beach without him.

Arin wondered if his disobedience—or would Roshar see it as cowardice?—had cost him the alliance he’d worked so hard to forge.

But on the second day, Arin saw them.

At first, he wasn’t sure it was really happening. He hadn’t seen the arrival of any ships—they must have dropped anchor out of sight, behind the southern edge of the cliffs that bulged out into the water at their base. Arin hadn’t seen the small launches row up to the foot of the cliffs. He only realized what they were (they looked like dark rocks below in the sea) when he saw tiny black figures against the shining white rock.

Arin peered again through his spyglass. The sun beat against his shoulders. He tasted sweat. His stomach tightened against the stiff grass beneath him.

Valorian Rangers were climbing up the cliffs in pairs. One held the rope at the bottom. The other, tied to the rope, moved up, setting pitons and strange pieces of gear into the rocks. The climbers clipped the rope to the gear (each looked somewhat like a horse’s stirrup) so that the rope passed through freely. Then the climbers scaled the cliff as their partners below fed out slack on the ropes.

There weren’t many. A hundred, by Arin’s count.

He watched the climbers reach the end of their ropes. They used their gear to anchor themselves to the cliff wall. Then they pulled up the rope, taking in the slack as their partners below began to climb the same path. When they met at the anchor, they repeated the whole process of climbing up as far as the rope’s length would let them.