The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(69)

“I’ll braid my hair like hers, wear every thing she wore. Did you search her pockets? She’ll have had a token. Sometimes the general sends an officer to relieve the one at the station. Then the new officer and a scout—and there are many of these scouts, not just this one reporting to a station—present a token to confirm their identity. We might get lucky. There might be a new officer at the station, one who’s never seen the scout but knows her only by name. Roshar, no one would expect someone in your army to impersonate a Valorian scout. Normally, it wouldn’t be possible. Not for an easterner. Not for a Herrani.”

“What if the Valorians know you’re with us? That stationed officer might be aware of it.”

“If my father knows, he’ll do his best to keep it hidden from as many people as possible.”

“Why?”

There was a lump in her throat. “He’s ashamed of me. It would shame him, for others to know.”

Roshar settled back into the bed, arms folded. “What would we gain if you pretended to be the Valorian scout?”

“Misinformation. Let’s assume the general knows of our presence here. If he doesn’t, he will soon enough. The issue isn’t whether he’ll attack. It’s how. I can influence that. I’ll say you have a light force, which other Valorian scouts—if they’re eyeing us—will confirm. But I’ll also say that I overheard plans that you’ll entrench yourselves in Errilith’s manor.”

Roshar was already off the bed, leafing through the maps spread out on the table in the tent’s center.

“He’d take the main road then,” Kestrel said. “He wouldn’t expect resistance along the way—or at most he’d expect stealth attacks by small bands of soldiers. There to strike and run, to whittle away at him, like by burning the supply wagons. Nothing serious. Nothing he couldn’t handle. Nothing that would stop him from taking the easiest—and most obvious way—to Errilith.”

“ There are hills along the main road outside the estate. I can set our forces on either side.”

“Use the guns. They have a longer range than crossbows. If you position the gunners far enough away, they can shoot without ever being touched by Valorian fire.”

“I’m sorry I said you were crazy, little ghost.”

Kestrel remembered how it felt to lose to her father at Bite and Sting, at Borderlands, at anything he chose to play. The dig at her pride. A hurt certainty that she’d never be able to prove herself to him. Embarrassment for wanting to prove herself.

She remembered her hands clinging to his jacket, her whole self reduced to two claws as she pleaded with him.

War wasn’t a game, but she wanted badly to make her father know how it felt to lose.

Roshar said, “Tell me what you need.”

“A horse. Javelin might be recognized. Prob ably not—I don’t intend for the horse to be seen—but better not risk it, and I want to get there while it’s still dark. Scouts run on foot, so I’ll have to tether the horse at a distance from the station. As for the station . . .”

“You need the location.”

“And the scout’s gear.”

Roshar clicked his teeth; a chastising sort of sound. “The gear is easy. If you want the location of the scout’s camp, we need to revisit our conversation this after noon about not-so-nice means of extracting valuable information.”

“Don’t.”

“I don’t enjoy it. But she’s not likely to tell us just because we ask nicely.”

“You can’t.”

He drew an impatient breath, and she knew what he’d say, knew the arguments, the costs and benefits. She knew that Roshar, with his mutilated face, understood what it was like to be subjected to pain. She wanted to say all this before he did, and to find a convincing reason that he was wrong. There was no reason she thought he’d accept. She couldn’t think of another way.

Then she did. “Don’t do it. Trick her instead.”

Roshar squinted. “Explain.”

“When Valorians enlist, they do so partly because of friendships. There are lovers in a camp. Even without that, there’s a sense of belonging. People you’d die for, and do anything to protect. She’ll have someone she cares about among the scouts. Take her token. Cast it with a mold. A bit of soap, maybe, or wax. Melt down metal to match the token and make a new one. Return hers, show her the other one. Say you found its mate on another scout who claims to be her friend. Promise to torture her fellow scout if she doesn’t give up the location of the officer.”

“She might care more about the officer than this other scout.”

“Try.”

He shrugged, then nodded. “I hope that in your bag of delightful schemes, you have one for how to deal with Arin.”

“No.”

“Dear ghost, he will tie you and me up and dump us both into a very deep hole before he allows you to do what you plan to do.”

“No more allowing,” Kestrel said, “and no more lies.”





Chapter 24

Arin woke to the sound of screams.

He shoved out of his tent and into the night. But the camp was calm, undisturbed—though soldiers near their fires seemed to have stopped in midconversation to eye the tent from which the screams came and then choked off into a sob.