The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(39)

“You’re not ugly.”

“What a sweet little liar you are.”

“Except when you smile. You make yourself look like a grinning skull. You do it on purpose.”

“Not so sweet, then.”

“Not a liar.”

“But you were a liar. A very good one, if what I hear is true. Who’s to say you’re not lying about your lost memory?”

She gave him a look of such plain hatred that he drew back. The wasps buzzed.

“I have a confession,” he said. “Sometimes I offend on purpose. It’s like my smile.”

“That’s not an apology.”

“Princes don’t apologize.”

In a swift move, she had her dagger in her hand at his throat. He jerked his head back with a hiss.

“Apologize,” she said.

“I’m not sure giving you that dagger was wise. You’re not exactly stable.”

She pressed the dagger. He stepped back. She stepped forward. “Every one says I’ve done these marvelous things. Traitor to my country for the greater good. I was so noble.” Her mouth became a sneer. “Poor girl. Poor Kestrel with her worthless weak body, her empty mind. Why would I lie now?”

“To torment him.”

Startled, she lowered the blade.

Roshar said, “You torment him.”

“Is that why you’re here? To protect your friend from me?”

This time, Roshar’s smile was a mere twist of the mouth.

“I don’t want anything from him,” she said.

“That might be part of the problem.”

She spoke as if she hadn’t heard. “I don’t care about your war.”

“Did you, or did you not, just advise us on how to improve a weapon designed to riddle your people with holes? A weapon that if we are very lucky will kill your father.”

“My father.” The blue sky went black. Wasps buzzed inside her head. She opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

“Yes,” Roshar said. “He’s leading the Valorian army. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

The hand that held the dagger sagged. She thought about her conversation with Arin in his rooms. He had tried to tell her.

Roshar touched her shoulder. Her vision cleared, but her heart was racing. He said, “I apologize. I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

She felt far away and horribly grounded at the same time, like her heart had been torn from her body and lost, and she didn’t know whether she was her heart or her body.

“Kestrel?”

It was one thing to perfect a weapon that would kill her people. It was another to discover that she hadn’t considered her father, had never even thought about his role in this war, though she’d had enough information to guess it without being told.

She realized she didn’t regret perfecting the weapon. Part of her wanted her father to be a target. Her own father. What kind of person was she?

Abruptly, Roshar said, “I don’t remember how I used to look.”

It took her a moment to absorb what he had said.

“When I look in a mirror, this is all I see,” he told her. “There’s no memory of what I was before.”

The scent of ilea fruit was heady. She forgot her father. She did not want to remember him. Bringing her gaze up again to Roshar’s face, she met his lovely, untouched eyes. And saw the satiny brown skin of his cheek. She asked, “Do you miss who you were?”

At first, she thought his reply would be mocking. Yet he simply shrugged and spoke in a voice that was light yet thin. “Oh, what’s the use of missing?” He squinted one eye and, apparently aware of how the mood had changed between them, he said, “You’re good with a blade.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “I never was.”

“I said good, not divinely talented. You’ve got an ease that comes from training for a long time.”

“Is that what you see, or what you know about me from before?”

“What I see. I didn’t know you before.”

Kestrel watched him smile yet again, softly this time. She waded into the sheer relief of being with someone who knew her only as she was now.

The piano and the horse were hers in an uncomplicated way.

They didn’t talk, which helped. It wasn’t that they expected nothing from her. Even the piano seemed expectant, each key ready for the strike. Javelin chewed her loose sleeve and slobbered and shamelessly leaned in for her caress. Yet both the horse and the piano knew her and didn’t care how she compared with her former self. They were hers. She was theirs. There were no questions.

She saddled Javelin. It wasn’t easy. But if she lifted the saddle to his back every day then a day would come when her weak arms were strong. She tightened the girth. An irrielle bird hopped in through the open stable doors, pecking at the dirt. It cocked its head, watched Kestrel with tiny green eyes. Tipped its long, narrow tail. She got a mounting block, which she thought she prob ably hadn’t used since she was a child, and set her foot in the horse’s stirrup. The stallion was enormously tall. Mountainous, really. A warhorse. He shouldn’t suit her, but he did.

She pulled herself up clumsily, but the horse didn’t seem to mind. The bird launched itself back out into the unclouded sky, dipping and weaving. Irrielles don’t fly straight.