The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(55)

Her memory limped up to her. It crawled into her lap. Kestrel didn’t remember every thing, but she remembered enough.





Chapter 19

Arin arrived early at the brook in the gray hour before dawn. Sat on the grass. Had thoughts that kept forcing each other from his head.

Nervous. He pressed his palms hard against the earth. He was too nervous.

She didn’t come.

He watched the water glint with the rising sun. The brook gently coursed along its path. Birds sang out. An irrielle called, notes flat and sweet. It repeated itself. There was no answer. It continued, the sound casting a spell. The bird sounded caught in its own enchantment.

He waited as long as he could. Eventually, a quiet part of him admitted that he had doubted all along. He’d never really expected she would come. It had been doubt, hadn’t it, that had kept him from sleeping after she’d left his rooms? Not the difficult plea sure of her presence there, or how her absence felt. Not the anticipation of war, nor the possibility that she might lay claim to him.

Be honest, now.

He held himself to honesty. Held hard. Conceded. Yes, the plea sure and difficulty and absence and anticipation had all conspired to keep him from sleep last night. Still, doubt—fizzy, sour—had also been part of it.

And now some heavy emotion. Round. About the size of the hollow of his palm. An emotion he seemed to have kept in an invisible pocket, and now took out to see fully.

Just a small sorrow, he told himself. Small, because expected. What else could he have expected?

He plucked a few blades of grass, rubbed them between fingers and thumb, and inhaled the young scent. Then—he knew it was odd, he wanted the oddity of it to distract him, or to give him one last thing to do before he left, because maybe she would arrive in that final moment, if he waited but one more moment—he put a blade of grass in his mouth and chewed. It tasted soapy. Clean.

She wasn’t coming. She prob ably had never had any intention of coming.

He went to ready his horse.

Arin drew up short several paces from the stables. Soldiers—perhaps a hundred strong, on horse and on foot—gathered on the hill. The morning was loud with the huff and stamp of horses, the rough irritation of people who got in each other’s way, the click and tap of metal and leather, the slap of a saddle dropped on a horse’s back. None of this surprised Arin. What surprised him was the sight of Roshar, standing with two saddled horses, smiling at him.

Roshar approached, the horses walking behind. “You’re late. Sleep in, did you?”

Arin said nothing.

“Here you are.” Roshar passed the reins. “You ride this one sometimes, I’ve noticed. He’s good. Not as good as mine, but he’ll do. I thought you’d want to leave that big war horse behind. Hers, isn’t it?”

“Javelin stays.”

“Of course,” Roshar said easily. “Well. Wasn’t this thoughtful?” He swept his hand at Arin’s saddled horse.

“Yes . . . though a little unlike you.”

“Never say so. I am the soul of thoughtfulness.”

Arin found himself smiling faintly back. He mounted the horse.

Every one ordered themselves behind him and the prince. They would make their way down to the city, gathering soldiers as they went. Eventually they’d reach the harbor, where eastern soldiers who’d come on ships waited for them. Then the march south.

But first they passed along the path to the house. A few people lined the path, having learned or guessed of the soldiers’ leaving.

Kestrel wasn’t there. Sarsine was, and the queen. Inisha lifted one sardonic brow at him, and said, “Careful.”

But Sarsine. She looked different than he’d ever seen, like she knew he wasn’t sure he’d come back this time. He thought that his promise to his god might be absolute. She was weeping. She held out flowers, tiny ones that grew at the base of trees, in their shadows. The kind you had to get on your hands and knees to see properly. They had been his favorites, long ago.

He took them. From his height on the horse, he leaned to brush away her tears. “Don’t,” he said, which only made her eyes swim again.

“I love you,” she said. He said that he loved her, too.

The horse moved forward. His hand fell away. The distance grew between them.

Don’t you worry, murmured a voice within him. I take care of my own. Yet the god of death sounded ominous.

I heard you, the god added. Last night. A promise to stay? To miss it all? Arin, you made me a promise. Glory. In my name. Or do I misremember?

Arin said nothing.

Ah, Arin. You’re lucky that I like you.

Why do you? Arin asked, but the god just smirked silently inside him.

The ships stayed in the bay. The queen would defend the city. Arin tried to dismiss the thought that she could easily claim it for her own. He had no choice but to trust her.

A few thousand marched south. They could only travel as fast as foot soldiers walked and supply wagons trundled. The roads were good. They were Valorian, made after the invasion by slave labor. They were paved for war.

“You haven’t asked me about Arin,” Roshar said as he rode alongside him.

“What?”

“The tiger. Not the surly human. I thought it was best to leave him behind to keep my sister company. Since you won’t.”