The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(65)

At least, he didn’t let go until a woman pressed her swaddled infant against his chest. Awkward, quick, Arin brought both arms up to hold the baby against his leather armor. He stared at the mother as if questioning her sanity.

“Bless him,” the woman said.

“What?”

“Bless him by your god.”

Arin looked down at the cradled boy, who slept, eyelids delicate, his cheeks round with health. A tiny flower of a hand peeked out of the swaddling. It flexed and curled against the cloth. Hoarsely, Arin said, “My god?”

“Please.”

“But you don’t know. Who, I mean. My god—”

“It doesn’t matter. If your god cares for my son the way he cares for you, that’s all I want.”

Arin’s eyes flew to Kestrel’s.

“Is there any harm?” Kestrel asked, but still he wouldn’t do it.

Sternly, the mother told him, “You’ll offend your god if you don’t share his blessing.”

Arin shifted the baby more securely against him. Fingers tentative, he touched the baby’s brow. The child sighed. Arin’s face changed. He softened, grew luminous, the way certain early hours of certain days are pearled, quiet, and rare. Kestrel seemed to feel with her own fingertips the baby’s fresh skin beneath Arin’s touch.

The baby opened his eyes. They were Herrani gray.

Arin murmured words too low for Kestrel to hear. Then he settled the baby into the waiting arms of the mother, who appeared satisfied. She made the Herrani gesture of thanks, which Arin returned. There was something about the way he did it that reminded Kestrel that the gesture could mean an apology as well.

Arin’s hand found hers again. He felt slightly unfamiliar. Something had changed between them.

She knew why it changed her to see Arin hold this child. She understood the question that had opened inside her, but she was unprepared. She hadn’t thought of this. Her heart raced with an emotion too complicated for either fear or happiness.

She released Arin’s hand. “Ready to go back?” Her voice didn’t match how she felt. It was cool, even careless. She realized that this particular voice was perhaps her most treasured armor.

Arin’s expression closed. “Yes.”

The crowd cleared a path for them. They returned to their horses and mounted.

“See?” Roshar said, “wasn’t that fun?”

Arin looked ready to shove the prince off his horse.

The army moved from the road into a meadow that swelled into hills. It was near misery for the horses that dragged the light cannon and supply wagons, but Roshar wanted the high ground. Kestrel wanted the cover of the forest edging the higher hills, as well as the proximity to Errilith’s manor with its fortified walls—visible, but a day’s ride away. Arin didn’t say what he wanted. He said little of anything.

A stream swiveled down through the meadow: a clear rill bordered by tufted grass. The air pulsed with the sound of cicadas. Roshar called a halt.

Kestrel let Javelin drink and dropped to her knees beside him, cupping water to her mouth, down her sweaty neck. Delicious, chill. “The water,” she said to no one in particular. Her father would want this estate for its abundant fresh water even more than for the stores behind the manor walls, or for the sheep ranging the hilltops. This much water this far south was a prize.

Arin’s horse nosed past her to reach the stream. She looked up, expecting to see its rider, but Arin wasn’t there.

She found him sitting far off on a knoll overlooking the slopes that curved and gentled down. The village sat in the distance like a gray pebble.

Arin glanced up as she approached. One tree shadowed the knoll, a laran tree, leaves broad and glossy. Their shadows dappled Arin’s face, made it a patchwork of sun and dark. It was hard to read his expression. She noticed for the first time the way he kept the scarred side of his face out of her line of sight. Or rather, what she noticed for the first time was how common this habit was for him in her presence—and what that meant.

She stepped deliberately around him and sat so that he had to face her fully or shift into an awkward, neck-craned position.

He faced her. His brow lifted, not so much in amusement as in his awareness of being studied and translated.

“Just a habit,” he said, knowing what she’d seen.

“You have that habit only with me.”

He didn’t deny it.

“Your scar doesn’t matter to me, Arin.”

His expression turned sardonic and interior, as if he were listening to an unheard voice.

She groped for the right words, worried that she’d get this wrong. She remembered mocking him in the music room of the imperial palace (I wonder what you believe could compel me to go to such epic lengths for your sake. Is it your charm? Your breeding? Not your looks, surely).

“It matters because it hurts you,” she said. “It doesn’t change how I see you. You’re beautiful. You always have been to me.” Even when she hadn’t realized it, even in the market nearly a year ago. Then later, when she understood his beauty. Again, when she saw his face torn, stitched, fevered. On the tundra, when his beauty terrified her. Now. Now, too. Her throat closed.

The line of his jaw hardened. He didn’t believe her.

“Arin—”

“I’m sorry for what happened in the village.”