The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(35)

“Why are you telling me this?”

Sarsine looked at her in the too-strong light. “So that you will understand me.” She added, “And him.” She paused again. “You asked where he is.”

“I don’t care where he is.”

“He’s been away. He’s just come back.”

After these words, Sarsine abruptly took her leave.

The obviousness of Sarsine’s hint to go see him so annoyed Kestrel that she nearly did nothing. The annoyance grew, became larger than life. If Sarsine had put that pressed flower in Kestrel’s hand, she would have crushed it in her fist, would have been glad to see the arrowed pink flakes. She felt exactly the same as when she’d woken in his empty bed.

Ultimately, it was anger that got Kestrel to her feet and out the door.

As she strode down the hallway that led from his sunroom, and then into another chamber, she heard muffled thumps coming from the recesses of his suite. A short, metallic clatter. Quieter sounds.

Silence.

Then the quality of the silence seemed to shift. It changed the way a thought does: from soft idea to exploration to firm decision.

To footfalls, coming toward her.

Her pulse jumped. She had frozen in place. She held on to her anger . . . and somehow lost it when he appeared at the threshold of the room she had entered. He didn’t look like she’d expected. Boots off, jacket half undone. Grimy. Unshaven, the scar a white line cutting into the black.

Startled, he stared. Then smiled a little. The smile was sweet. It was so different from what she felt that it surprised her how two people in the same room could feel such different things. As she thought about this difference, it became clear to her that she no longer knew what she felt.

She recognized the rusted smears on his skin. It was easier to focus on this. Simpler to decode. She remembered that earlier, metallic clatter. He had come from war.

“Did you win?” she asked.

He laughed. “No.”

“Why is it funny that you lost?”

“It’s not that. It’s just . . . the question is very much like you.”

She lifted her chin, felt her body go hard again. “I’m not her. Not anymore. I’m not the person that you—” She shut her mouth.

“That I love?” he said quietly.

She made no reply. He looked down, rubbed at his dirty hands.

“Excuse me,” he said. He moved to leave the room, then hesitated, one finger on the curved wooden ripple of the doorjamb. “I’m coming back.” A note in his voice made her realize that it had been obvious to him that he’d come back, and that it hadn’t been to her, and that his pause had been from the understanding that what was obvious to him wasn’t obvious to her. “One moment. Please don’t go.”

“All right,” she said, surprising herself.

He left. Nervousness swarmed inside her.

She refused to be ruled by nervousness. That refusal held her there a little longer. Then: the realization that despite the way he’d looked, he’d had a kind of gentleness. It gentled her, and even if this was exactly what he had hoped, she found it hard to resent someone for being gentle.

She was still thinking about this when he returned. His jacket was changed for a fresh shirt. Soft shoes. Hands and face clean. A scrolled paper tucked under his arm. He unrolled it onto a small, octagonal table (delicate, with worked legs. For two. A breakfast table).

The paper was a map. “We lost Ithrya Island,” he said, pointing south. “It’s uninhabited, but . . .” He pressed a palm down on the buckling paper and looked up at her. “Do you want to know this?”

“Is there something wrong with me knowing?”

“No. But you might not like it. My people are at war with your people.”

Her people were the ones who’d held her captive. They had hurt her. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So?”

“Your father—”

“Don’t talk about my father.”

Her pulse was high again, stammering in her ears. His dark brows had gone up—his hand, too. The palm had risen off the map, fingertips still pinned down. His skin was clean, but the fingernails were ringed with black. Odd. She concentrated on that. As she did, she evened out. It calmed her to concentrate, and to find his blackened nails familiar. At least she could recognize familiarity, even if she couldn’t translate it. She said, “You didn’t wash your hands very well.”

He glanced down at his hand. It came entirely off the map. The paper curled up. “Oh.” He swept a thumb once across his nails. “That. That doesn’t come out for a long time.” His eyes went, strangely, to the dagger at her hip, then darted away, making her think that he was thinking of the battle he’d just been in.

She said, “Does losing this battle mean you’ll lose your war?”

“Maybe.”

“How many did you kill?”

He shrugged. He didn’t know.

“Does it bother you?”

He met her eyes. Slowly, he shook his head.

“Why not? Do you like killing?”

“They want my country.”

“So you do like it.”

“Lately, sometimes.”

“Why?”

“There are many reasons.”