The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(27)

She refused to let him help her inside his house. The glowing summer day did little to warm her. She huddled inside his dirty coat, and their progress up the path to the house was slow enough that by the time they reached the main entrance, the entire house hold had gathered to see them. Kestrel kept her eyes on her unsteady feet, but Arin knew that she was aware of the crowd; her mouth had set into a grim line.

Roshar came to them first, boots crunching on the gravel. He was uncharacteristically silent. Appalled, when he wasn’t someone given to being appalled by the appearance of others.

“I want Sarsine,” Arin told him, but Sarsine was already there. Kestrel eyed her: a moment’s worth of hesitation. Then she accepted Sarsine’s arm, and Arin had to hide the sting of what could be nothing other than hurt jealousy, after which he had to hide his shame at such a petty feeling. He trailed after them, hands upsettingly empty. He wasn’t ready to be useless. He had at least been useful on the tundra.

Arin followed them up the stairs to the east wing, where Sarsine opened the door to the suite where Kestrel had once stayed. When they entered, Arin searched Kestrel’s face for some sign of recognition. She kept her gaze averted from his in a way that showed that she knew she was being scrutinized, and why.

Sarsine settled Kestrel onto the nearest soft chair and knelt before her, removing the battered shoes that were barely recognizable as having once been a lady’s slippers.

Her expression flickering, Kestrel studied Sarsine’s dark, bent head. Kestrel’s voice, which she’d used less and less in the past few days, was hoarse. “Are you my maid?”

His cousin flinched. He saw Kestrel realize that she’d said something wrong. Sarsine looked to him. He leaned and whispered in her ear.

Sarsine set the shoes down in a neat pair. “Yes,” she finally said. “I will be for now, if you like.” She rose and began to peel the coat off Kestrel.

Something that Arin had tried to wind tightly inside him during the days on the tundra began to unwind. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when it came undone. He would have said—if he could have said anything at all—that what he felt was like the desolate trembling that seized Kestrel’s body at night.

Sarsine caught his eye. Lifted her brows. She had paused in the removal of Kestrel’s clothes. Her message was clear.

He nodded. He should leave, of course he should, yet he couldn’t make himself move.

“Arin.” Sarsine was stern now.

He turned, but hadn’t gotten far when he heard Sarsine’s sucked breath. He glanced back.

His eyes went wide. He was next to them before he was aware of having taken a step. His hand snatched the loose cloth of Kestrel’s shirt at the shoulder. He saw it: the red welt that slashed down her shoulder blade. She jerked away from his grasp. The cloth tore. Not much. Enough.

“Arin!” Sarsine.

He saw more, he saw how the lashes looked like his own, how they had sliced her skin and went out of his sight under the cloth. He knew it was all over her back. “I asked you.” His voice was wretched. “I asked you if you were hurt.”

“I’m not. It’s healed.”

“But you were.”

“I didn’t remember.”

He didn’t believe her. “How could this happen to you? How could you not tell me?” He had pulled her to her feet. He was holding her by the upper arms. There was no flesh there. His thumbs met bone. He was not himself. This was not his world. There was no version of his world where this could be real.

“You’re frightening her,” Sarsine said.

Not fear. Kestrel’s face was a blazing challenge: chin lifted, shoulders tight, shirt loose at the neck. One of the lashes had curled up over her collar bone. She tugged free.

His throat was tight. “You should have told me.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Kestrel, you . . . did something for me. For this country. Don’t you remember? Can’t you try? Or let me tell you, please—”

Her flat palm cracked across his face.

It sucked the air out of him. His cheek burned. She’d caught him across the mouth, too. Her eyes were liquid and golden and lost and angry. He was too ashamed of himself to speak.

Gently, Sarsine said, “I know you want to help.”

“Of course I do,” he whispered.

“Then you need to leave.”

It wasn’t until he was alone in the hallway, sagged against the wall, that he touched where she had hit him. His fingers came away wet. He stared at the tears. They shone on his fingertips like blood.





Chapter 11

“Will she die?”

Sarsine shut the door to Kestrel’s suite behind her with more force than necessary. Hands planted on her hips, she stared down at Arin where he sat in the hallway, back to the wall opposite Kestrel’s door. His joints were stiff. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there.

“Gods, Arin. Pull yourself together. No, she won’t die.”

“The lashes. There could be an infection. A fever.”

“There isn’t.”

“It happened to me.”

“She’s not you.”

“She can’t keep anything down. It’s gotten worse.”

“She was drugged twice a day, every day for about a month. Some of what she’s going through is because her body wants the drugs it can’t have.”