The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(74)

A pallet. A caged messenger hawk, hooded, sleeping. A stool, set before a table that bore papers, a pen, an inkstand, and a set of counters.

The papers.

She went for them, snatching a page. Then she dropped it, her stomach roiling when she realized that it was a letter the dead man had been writing to his mother.

Keep looking, she told herself. Forget his broken face.

She examined each page in the small pile, searching for any scrap of a coded message between the officer and her father. Since the military used several different codes, she had to find evidence of which one the officer had been using. Maybe she’d recognize it. Remember. Decode it.

But there was no evidence, only the letter to his mother and blank pages.

She limped back outside and saw, in the rising dawn, the man’s crushed brow, the jelly of one eye. She swallowed hard, then searched the man and found his seal.

Relief. The seal could be useful. But there was no coded message. She had hoped to try to fake a report from the officer to her father.

An impossible thought.

A stupid one.

She didn’t know the code, didn’t even know the dead man’s name. She wanted to bury her face in her hands.

She returned to the tent and sank down onto the stool. Blood leaked from the cut on her leg. She should bandage it. She had no bandage.

The hawk flexed its claws around its perch, shifting its weight with a scratchy, rustling sound. She glanced at it, feeling close to frustrated despair. Then her gaze fell to the counters. Beads of wood that slid along skinny steel rods in their wooden frame. Used for accounting.

Kestrel touched a bead. A memory unfolded inside her.

She unscrewed the pot of ink and found a blank sheet of paper. Glancing at the officer’s letter to his mother, Kestrel got a feel for how to imitate the man’s handwriting. She inked her pen and composed the first line of code.





Chapter 26

The horse trudged up the hill to the camp, its head hanging. The sun had climbed; it was near noon, and the day promised to be hot. It squeezed Kestrel’s heart to hear the horse’s breath. She’d ridden him too hard. But her left leg . . .

The wound had stopped bleeding. The flap of her sliced trouser leg stuck to it, hardened with clotted blood. The cut stung and the skin around it felt fiery. She was going to have to peel the fabric away to see what was under neath.

The horse slowed and sighed. Kestrel didn’t have it in her to force him forward. She shifted to dismount, then winced and stopped when the movement opened the cut along its edges.

Thirsty. The sun made her queasy. At the scout’s station, she’d splashed water from her canteen onto the wound. In the forest, when she’d untied the horse, she’d poured water into her palm for the animal to drink, and did it again until there was nothing left.

Now she could see the pale peaks of tents along the rise of the hills. She was close. And really, her poor horse. She’d moved again to dismount when she heard her name.

Arin was coming down the steep hill, skidding on the grass in his haste yet keeping his balance. A breeze tore through his hair, kited his shirt. His descent became a breakneck run, and Kestrel wondered wryly whether the god of death watched over him after all, or maybe the god of grace, or heights, or goats, or what ever god might allow Arin to run like that and not trip over a hillock and come tumbling down. It seemed a little unfair.

He jogged up to her, his hair heavy with sweat. His skin had darkened on the trek south, but he seemed paler now as he looked up at her, shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t slept.

He noticed her hand first. Her left side was hidden from his view. It touched her how his gaze went straight to her bloody right hand, his eyes flashing with the same thing she’d feel if her fingers were damaged, if she couldn’t play, and had to hobble along the piano keys when she wanted to fly.

He stripped off her forearm guard, swearing at the straps.

“That’s not my blood,” she said.

“You’re not hurt?”

“Left leg.”

He came around the horse, saw, and went quiet. “All right,” he said finally. “Come on.” He helped her down. “I can carry you.”

She heard the question in his tone. “No. Roshar will see. He’ll tease us mercilessly about it.” She smiled, because she wanted Arin to smile. She didn’t like the way he looked: the drawn lines around his mouth, eyes hooded with worry.

He didn’t smile. He cupped her face with both hands. An emotion tugged at his expression, a dark awe, the kind saved for a wild storm that rends the sky but doesn’t ravage your existence, doesn’t destroy every thing you love. The one that lets you feel saved.

Nervousness rose within her. It simmered, sickened.

Unreasonable. She knew that she could lift her parched lips to his and taste the truth of his love on his tongue. Still, she couldn’t say what she wasn’t sure she felt.

Her thigh throbbed. “No carrying,” she said lightly. “But I’ll let you help me up the hill.”

Leading the horse behind them, they moved slowly through the camp, Arin’s arm under Kestrel’s shoulders. He brought her to his tent.

“I think—” He hesitated. “Inside. You could stay outside. But.” He glanced down at her bloody thigh. “The trousers need to come off. I can fetch someone else—”

“No. You.”