The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(94)

“Yes, old ones.”

“I’ll tell them to you.”

His eyes cracked open. He didn’t remember closing them. “You know those tales?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t. This became clear as she began to tell them. She knew bits and pieces, cobbled together in ways that would have made him smile if smiling didn’t hurt. “You,” he breathed, “are such a faker.”

“Don’t interrupt.”

Mostly pure invention. She remembered the images—it pleased him, how vividly she knew the temple floor’s details. Which god curled around which, or how the snake’s tongue forked into three. But the stories she told had little to do with his religion. Sometimes they didn’t even make sense.

“Do this again,” he said, “when I have strength to laugh.”

“As bad as that?”

“Mmm. Maybe not. For a Valorian.”

But eventually every thing grew slow, unthreaded. He thought of raw cotton pulled apart, fibers trailing. Maybe Kestrel had talked for hours. He didn’t know. When had she rested her cheek against his heart again? His chest rose and fell.

“Arin.”

“I know. I shouldn’t sleep. But I’m so tired.”

She threatened him. He didn’t hear the whole of it.

“Lie with me,” he murmured. It bothered him to think of her kneeling on the ground.

“Promise not to sleep.”

“I promise.”

But he didn’t mean it. He knew what would happen. She slipped in beside him. Every thing became too soft, too dark, too velvet. He sank into sleep. He sighed, and let go.





Chapter 34

When she woke, he was gone.

Kestrel’s heart crashed against her ribs and didn’t let up, not even when she pushed her way out of the tent and found Arin making tea under the hollowed blue of a near-dawn sky. He stoked the little fire.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“I found a box of tea in the tent.” Arin saw her expression. “Roshar won’t mind.”

“I mind.”

His gaze traveled between her and the pot of boiling water. “What’s wrong?”

“You shouldn’t have slept.”

“I’m better for it.”

Maybe. But it hurt her to see his face, the inky bruise that spread over his brow and cheek and into the corner of his eye. The broken skin where he’d been struck at his temple. He wore a dirty tunic, perhaps because he didn’t want to soil a clean one; dried blood flaked the skin of his bare arms. An awful bubble expanded inside her chest. “I shouldn’t have slept.”

“You needed to. The battle. The ride. It can’t have been easy.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Arin turned the closed tea box in his hands. The dry leaves whispered. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I thought you were dead. That you would die.”

He considered the box. “I know how hard it is to watch someone die.”

“Not ‘someone.’ You, Arin.”

He nodded, but winced, set the box aside, and didn’t seem to truly hear her.

She sank to sit by the fire, her crooked arm resting on a bent knee drawn to her chest. She pressed her mouth and chin against her inner arm. “You’re still in pain.”

“Not so much anymore, which is why you must talk to me.”

“Arin, I am.”

“About the war.”

She looked at him.

He said, “We can’t retreat to the city.”

“We can’t face them in open battle. Not the entire Valorian force. Lerralen proved that.”

“Inviting them to lay siege to the city is no answer. I already tried once to hold the city against the general. He made short work of its defenses. He breached the wall.”

“It’s repaired. This time, you have the east as an ally.”

“If you weren’t trying to protect me right now with false optimism, what would you really say?”

The sky had lightened. She heard the camp begin to stir.

“Be honest, Kestrel.”

“About the war.” Her voice was flat.

His expression shifted slightly. He set his thumb against his jaw, fanning dirty fingers over his scarred cheek. “Is there something else?”

His fatigue. His bruises. The pain he was trying to hide. The way her heart had grown scales. But inside: hot as a live coal.

He said, “We both know what will happen if we retreat to the city.”

So she said it. “The east might look at its losses, see a likely defeat, and leave . . . even if Roshar wants to stay.”

“And then it’s over.” Arin’s gray eyes were naked. “I can’t lose. There’ll be nothing left for me if I do.”

“That’s not true.”

But he had stood. The camp was awake. His small fire had gone out. The tea, forgotten, had cooled.

She kept her head bowed. “We must retreat inland until I think of something better.”

Arin stepped close to her, his footfalls hushed by the pale, sandy earth with its wisps of grass. He touched the nape of her neck, fingertips brushing down to the first bones of her back. He gently hooked the collar of her shirt.