The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(67)

So instead she thought about what she’d say to Sarsine when she returned to the city. I missed you, she’d say. I never thanked you for what you did for me.

She shucked her clothes onto the grass. She needed to feel the water on her skin.

It was freezing. She ducked under, opened her eyes, and looked up through the wavering water at the blue and yellow sky. The cold made her remember that her father must have held her once the way Arin had held the baby. She held her breath and treaded hard to keep her weight below the surface.

It was cold, but the light was beautiful: broken and blurred by the water’s rippled silk, as if the sky wasn’t simply the sky but a whole other world. Magic, possible. Just within reach.

She washed her clothes and didn’t wait for them to dry fully before putting them back on. She wrung out her hair and braided it.

Wending between the trees, she stepped noiselessly, finding moss or dirt or stone for her feet, never leaves or twigs.

You walk well, her father had said once.

Being quiet is hardly a requisite skill for battle, Father.

You could be a Ranger, he’d insisted, but this was after a spectacularly bad training session he’d watched. Her with a sword. The captain of her father’s personal guard screaming at her. She knew her father didn’t believe his own hope.

His voice echoed in her head, and her heart cramped. It felt as if she were underwater again, with someone holding her below the surface.

She shoved the memory away. There was only so much she could bear to remember.

A game. Make a game of it. How silently can you walk? Let’s see.

Toe, not heel. Tree root. This patch of earth, darker and therefore soft. Spears of sun pierced through the trees. Her damp braid bounced between her shoulder blades.

But there was no one to witness her silence. No one to say You walk well. Although Kestrel understood the plea sure of doing something for herself alone, had played the piano for hours for her own ears and to feel the stretch and jump of her fingers, the reach of her long arms, she also knew what it was like to play for someone. It makes a difference. It’s hard not to want to be heard, seen. To share.

A twig lay in her path. She paused, then deliberately stomped it. Crack.

“Pity.” The voice echoed in the quiet clearing. “You were doing so nicely.”

Roshar. Her eyes found him several paces away, leaning against a tree, watching her. She approached. There was blood on him.

“Sometimes, little ghost, you remind me of my sister,” he said.

Her brows shot up.

He laughed. “Not that one.”

Kestrel wasn’t sure what connection he saw between her and Risha. Because his younger sister was a hostage in the imperial court? Maybe.

“Whose blood?” She tipped her chin in the direction of his spattered forearms.

“A Valorian scout. About your size. I came looking for you, thought you might like to try her armor. Stylish. Light. Very Valorian. Good condition. Nary a scratch in the leather.”

“What about the scout?”

“Hard to catch. Harder to subdue.”

She gave him a level look.

Roshar tugged a cropped ear. “She’s alive.”

“When that scout doesn’t report back, the general will know we’re here.”

“All the more reason to find out what she knows.”

“Don’t . . . press her.”

“Kestrel,” he said quietly, “the blood is from the fight when we captured her. Not torture.”

“So you won’t?”

“Now, it would be nice if information fell out of the sky. Given that it doesn’t, it is still nevertheless comforting that certain people do horrible things so that other people don’t have to. We should be grateful to such people. Or we should at least not ask questions when we don’t want answers.”

“She can’t help us. Valorian scouts operate in relays. She doesn’t report directly to the general’s camp, but to a station between there and here. An officer remains at the station and sends hawks with coded messages back to the main camp, which keeps the scout from knowing too much: she won’t know how the general’s army might have shifted in formation, or what the conditions there are. She won’t know the codes.”

Roshar tilted his head, regarding her. “Do you know the codes?”

Kestrel nudged her memory. It pushed back. “I might have,” she said slowly, “once.”

“I’m sure the scout knows something useful.”

“There’s no point torturing her for information she doesn’t have. Let her be.”

His expression was difficult to read. “I’ll do as you wish,” he said finally. “For now.”

“Thank you.”

He slouched against a tree. “Do you forgive me for earlier?”

“That piece of pageantry in the village? I’m not the one you should be asking.”

“It’s good for Arin.”

“Good for you, too.”

His black eyes met hers. “You want to win?”

“Yes.”

“If Arin is admired and my people are trusted, does that help or hurt?”

“Help,” she acknowledged.

“Come try your armor. I think it’ll fit.”

Arin came into Roshar’s tent just as the prince tightened the last buckle on Kestrel’s armor. Arin was shaven, his hair wet. What ever he was going to say died on his lips.