The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(84)

“You wouldn’t.”

“Because you and I are friends? How touching. And naive. That’s actually what I like about you. You’re so endearing sometimes.”

“I’d never let you. You’d have to kill me.”

“Yes, little Herrani, I know.” Roshar set aside his pipe. He brushed his hands as if cleaning them, then looked down at their emptiness.

Arin was no longer angry. “You wouldn’t,” he said again, “or you’d never have said any of this to me.”

“I’d like to think that, but we’re talking about the same person who deliberately let his little sister be taken hostage by his enemy. What will you say? That we all make hard choices? Do things we regret? Betray our best selves? Yes, exactly. I have wanted to tell you. I didn’t. Not for months.”

“What did you think would happen if we lost?”

“Usually I don’t think. Usually my sister thinks, and tells me what to do. I’m quite comfortable letting other people run my life.”

“You never say what you really mean.”

Roshar held his eyes. “If we lose, I’ll take you home.”

“Your home.”

“Mine, yours.”

“Not possible.”

Roshar sighed. “Well, lots of things are.”

“Your sister . . .” Arin flushed.

“Oh, that.”

“How does that play into this?”

“Well, that, as I understand, happened in my city when you were just a ragged, trespassing foreigner of little importance. Of course”—Roshar gave him a sidelong look—“you have your charms. Now you’ve put an end to that—which, I don’t know, I think that if I were you I wouldn’t have. Your country could always be returned to you as a wedding present.”

Arin made a frustrated sound.

“It might be better for you if you didn’t draw every thing in such rigid lines.” Roshar thumbed more tobacco into his pipe. “It might be better for me if I did.”

“You know how I feel. Where I stand.”

Roshar arched one brow. “Indeed.”





Chapter 30

Kestrel stopped short of where the prince lay on his back in the grass in the midst of camp, eyes loosely closed against the sun. It was rare to see his face relaxed. The sun showed how scar tissue had thickened his upper lip and knotted where the tip of his nose had been.

She knew he wasn’t sleeping. “Lazy,” she accused.

“This is how I look when I conspire.”

“No Valorian commander would let his soldiers see him like this.”

“This is a strategy.”

She snorted.

“It is.” His eyes were still closed. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it is?”

She toed him. He stretched like a cat and seemed to settle back into position. Then his hand lashed out, seized her ankle, and yanked her leg out from under her. She landed on her rear.

“Yes.” Roshar’s black eyes glinted as she spluttered. “A masterful plan. Divine.”

Kestrel kicked him.

“ Tch. Lovely lady, won’t you hear my plan? It is the very best. You’ll like it. Here it is: I am waiting.”

“Sunbathing.”

“Waiting, I say, for you to tell me what to do.”

She told him exactly what he could do.

“Such language. Did you learn that from Arin? Stop kicking, little ghost. We’re in full view of the camp. Weren’t you just haranguing me about my honor? How can I cultivate respect in the rank and file if you kick me? Now. Truly. Look at my absolutely serious face as I say this. What would you have me do? More to the point, what will your father do?”

Kestrel went still.

“A move must be made,” said the prince.

Lerralen. Kestrel had learned of the Valorians’ failure to invade via the beach there. She knew how smooth the terrain would be from the beach to Herran’s city.

If victory is slow, her father would say, it becomes increasingly harder to grasp.

He must wince from his defeat along the southern road. How could he wreak the most damage in retaliation? He could claw victory to himself by regrouping his forces to land at Lerralen with overwhelming force, with countless cannons and soldiers spread thick and wide. A costly victory. But if achieved, it’d lead to a rapid seizure of the city.

She told Roshar to garrison a contingent at Errilith to hold what they had well defended, and move the rest of his army west to reinforce the Dacrans stationed at Lerralen.

As she saddled Javelin and tightened the girth, she tried to quell the leaping worry in her belly. She should not worry.

After all, what could the general do that she could not do? Had she not learned war at his knee? Did his voice not haunt her? She thought about the way her memory—or imagination—of him seemed to advise her.

She didn’t like the way he was right. How she listened. She wondered if there was any difference between how she listened to him and how Arin listened to his god.

Hilly terrain smoothed as the army rode west. The land grew slightly arid. The dirt was a light grit.

Kestrel saw how the Herrani soldiers lured Arin into riding with them in the middle ranks. There were requests that he consider the gait of an unruly horse. Or a story left dangling, a teasing challenge: finish it, Arin, why don’t you . . . if you can. Sometimes a question: was Arin sure he wasn’t related to the Herrani royal line? This flustered Arin, and was so likely to hold him in extended conversation and vigorous denials that it was the most common ploy used to keep him in their company.