The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(42)

He laughed. “You can.”

There was a silence. Javelin shifted beneath them.

Arin touched a fingertip to the nape of her neck. He found, beneath the edge of her dress at her shoulder, a healed scar, thin and long. The skin where the whip had fallen was deadened, but the skin that bordered it was alive, and shivered. She was glad that she no longer faced him.

“You are changed,” he murmured, “and you are the same. Honorable. I honor you.”

That shiver dissolved into fear. Fear, for the fork in the path that loomed in the forest behind them. For what it meant that Arin knew her before and knew her now and honored her.

She did not ask him to honor her. She was suspicious of honor.

She nudged her knees into Javelin’s sides. Arin’s fingertips fell away. The horse headed for the stables.

Arin said nothing more to her that day, beyond an offer to curry Javelin. She accepted. She wanted to be alone. Even when she retreated into the house, her skin felt vibrant. Wakeful, unruly. Like it would give her no quarter. It would insist and insist, all because of a touch that had seemed intended to soothe.

But it was not soothing.

Although the day had not been without comfort, Kestrel kept the last potent moment of it in mind. She decided that Arin was the opposite of relief.





Chapter 14

Arin was gone again. He left Kestrel A note that announced his departure but gave no reason for it nor an indication of how long he’d be away. She assumed it had something to do with the war, and that he hesitated to explain anything in writing, which begged the question of why he hadn’t spoken with her, which in turn reminded her of how she’d flinched from his touch.

She understood the note. But she didn’t like it.

She asked Roshar where Arin was and why.

“Nosy, nosy,” said the prince. His tone was arch. Friendly enough. Still, it drew a clear hard line that warned she’d waste her time pressing for more information.

They were playing Borderlands in the parlor. The windows were open and a storm was brewing, but the rain hadn’t come yet. Dark clouds knotted on the horizon. The wind that stirred the curtains smelled raw. Roshar shifted, and shifted again, eyeing the game pieces.

Arin hadn’t taken Javelin. No horses were missing from the stables. She’d counted them.

Roshar glanced at the darkening sky.

“Is he at sea?” Kestrel asked.

“Dear one, what do you care?”

“You’re nervous.”

“I’m nervous about you. You’re going to beat me.”

“I thought you were at war. You should have better things to do than stay here and play Borderlands with me.”

He lifted one brow, but merely said, “Your move.”

She made it. It had been a plea sure to discover that she remembered how to play. How was not a problem for her. She knew how to do things. Play a game, play the piano, ride a horse, speak a language. If there was anything she no longer knew how to do, she wasn’t conscious of it.

The issue was what. Her memory was a gaming set where she could see the board and knew the rules of the game yet didn’t recognize all the pieces.

She said, “Who commands the Dacran-Herrani alliance?”

“Need you even ask? Do I not exude an air of irrefutable authority?”

“What’s Arin’s role?”

“That,” he told her, “is a good question.”

The wind billowed a curtain. She moved her engineer, keeping her eyes on the board. “I’m surprised your people support the alliance.”

He shrugged, muttering something short and irritable in his language.

“Dying for someone else’s people is not usually how war works,” Kestrel said. “What exactly does your queen want from Herran?”

“That deadly little invention of Arin’s, for one.”

“You have that already. He’s given you the plans.”

“The empire must be kept at bay. If they take this peninsula, it’s only a matter of time before they take the east.”

“Is your sister intelligent?”

He gave her an impatient look. She saw his answer. “Then she must want something more,” Kestrel said. “Does Arin know what she wants?”

Roshar’s green-rimmed eyes narrowed. “Arin knows a good deal when he sees one. We’re the best thing that could have happened to him.”

“Yes, clearly. You are great benefactors. If you care so much for his well-being, why have you sent him to sea in the middle of a storm?”

“Arin sent himself.”

She fell silent. Roshar made his move. “Tell me, little ghost: do you enjoy my company?”

She was surprised. “Yes.”

“I enjoy yours, too. I can see why you like me. I’m intelligent, charming—not to mention handsome.”

“And skilled at preening. Let’s not forget that.”

“Lies, all lies.” He met her eyes across the gaming board. “The reason you enjoy my company is because I look like how you feel.”

“That’s not it,” she said, though when she looked again at his damaged face she realized that what he’d said was true. Yet it was only partly true, and she didn’t know how to put the other parts into words.