The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(92)

She made herself look again at the dagger in his side, and unbuckled the armor to see better.

Only the tip of the dagger had entered the flesh. It was stuck between the ribs. Her sudden hope was savage.

She didn’t want to pull the dagger out—she had nothing to stanch a flow of blood—and returned her attention to Arin’s head. This time, when her fingers went for his pulse, she found it and knew it to be his. Her tears flowed fresh.

The wound in his side was minor. Yet a blow to the head can do anything, can kill, paralyze, take away his senses, his mind. It could make him sleep forever.

“Arin, wake up.”

Once the words came, they didn’t stop.

“We have to move. We can’t stay here.”

“Please.”

“Please wake up.”

“I love you. Don’t leave me. Wake up.”

“Listen to me. Arin?”

“Listen.”

Someone was weeping. Her tears fell warm on his brow, his lashes, his mouth.

Don’t cry, he tried to say.

Please listen, she said.

He would, of course he would. How could she think that he wouldn’t?

This felt familiar. Unreal. He had the sense that this had happened before, or would happen, that this was either an echo or its source. If he opened his eyes, the world would double. His skull throbbed. Stones weighted his eyes. He was covered with earth. Thick and loamy and loose. A comfort. It eased the nauseating ache.

Yet there were no stones, no earth. A part of him knew this, the same part that clung to the woman’s voice.

Her voice was breaking apart. He heard it turn horrible. Soon, he realized, she would scream.

“Don’t,” he managed, and opened his eyes, and was sick.

He wondered at it, faintly, her expression: that mix of anguish and relief. Her hands were wholly still for a moment, then instantly busy, lifting a canteen of water to his mouth, trying to worm under his weight and lift. Too heavy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Arin, you must get up.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Yes. Just to Javelin. Come on.” She was tugging at him—shoulders, arms. He didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop, that the ache in his head was monstrous, that every jostle hurt. He tried to focus, and saw Javelin standing nearby, saw the undulating crush of soldiers and metal. Fear entered him. This little peace that sheltered him and Kestrel couldn’t last long. Impossible, that no one had noticed them, that no one had already brought a sword slicing through her neck as she knelt beside him, and pulled, and begged.

“Go,” he told her.

She recoiled. “No.”

“It’s all right.” He tried to touch her cheek, but either his vision was wrong or his hand was. He fumbled, touched her nose and lips. “I don’t mind.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Ride fast. Far.”

“Don’t ask me that. You wouldn’t do that. You would never leave me.”

But it’s different, he tried to say, then became lost in what he wanted to explain, that this . . . her—what? sorrow?—was dear to him, unexpected. So hard, to heave words into his mouth. He realized his hand had fallen.

Her face screwed into an expression he couldn’t read. “Get up,” she said through her teeth.

“Please. Go.”

She curled fingers over the rim of his leather breastplate and gripped it. “Make me.”

This time, Arin recognized her expression. Determination. He closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t see. You don’t owe me anything, he would have said. You’ll lose no honor if you leave. Arin wondered if she knew the way her whole being could become a vow.

He would say, Tell me why you can’t leave. Maybe, if his head were clearer, he would know why without asking. For now, he saw only her determination and its danger.

Was this his god’s version of mercy: that she would die on this beach with him?

Unbearable.

Through the thump of his head, he discovered a different pain. Traveled down it. His side. His ribs. A dagger. He pulled it out. She made an appalled cry. His side became sticky. He dug the dagger into the sand and gripped her shoulder with his other hand. Felt his head split. Arin pushed himself up, levering off the dagger.

He tried to distance himself from what he was doing, from the spasm that racked his body as he was sick again. On his knees, sky dark—rain? Kestrel’s shoulder, frail-seeming in his hand. Not able to bear his weight, surely, but she did, she strained to get him to his feet. Each stumble hurt, and he dreaded how it would be to mount Javelin and ride, but he would.

He did, and she was with him. Eventually he couldn’t tell if the sky was raining and dark or if his mind was. Everything was black and wet. As the horse moved beneath them, a quiet grew through the pain. A feeling floated over him like sillage from a rare perfume. He seemed to hear the tinkle of a glass stopper lifted from a tiny flacon. The release of scent. How was it possible, to smell flowers that weren’t there?

Arin became aware that his thoughts were hard to hold. They vanished into smoke. It didn’t matter. He let them go. Smoke, perfume, rain. All lovely, unlasting. The same, maybe, as what ever had made Kestrel swear that she wouldn’t leave him.

He wasn’t sure what had made her do that. But it had been something. It had been real.