The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(97)

She slowly buckled an open saddlebag.

He said, “This isn’t what I want to ask you.”

He had sleepless eyes, his mouth a little swollen, the deeply tanned skin somehow burnished. Kestrel thought that she, too, must look like this: polished by desire, the way a river stone holds a luster from having been made so smooth.

“I wish . . .” He caught himself, and from the way he was looking around the busy camp, she thought that Arin had almost said that he wished there was no war, or that they could lose themselves in each other without losing everything.

But this wasn’t entirely true for him or for her, and she needed to win the war as much as he did. “We haven’t been attacked because my father’s strengthening his foothold on the beach. Supplying his troops. Recovering, too. It was a costly victory for them. He doesn’t need to eliminate us now, when his forces will be stronger later. But he’ll move soon. He’ll take territory along the road all the way to the city.”

“Also?” Arin looked at her.

“Also,” she said reluctantly, “he thinks he’ll conquer the city with little trouble.”

“We’re herding ourselves into a trap.”

“Yes, but . . .”

He waited.

“It buys us time,” she said. “If we are retreating instead of simply seeming like we’re retreating, and his scouts report this, then when we’re able to find a way to counterattack it will catch him off guard. Sometimes it’s better to do instead of pretend—especially if you don’t intend to follow what you’re doing to the conclusion your enemy expects.”

“What do you intend?”

She stroked Javelin’s nose. “I’m not sure.”

“Black powder is the biggest problem. If the Valorians didn’t have so much of it, we’d stand a chance against them.”

“Well.”

“What?”

“I could destroy it.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and crinkled his brow as he listened to her explain what she had in mind.

He didn’t like it.

“You know I’ll go anyway.”

He left his horse, dusting his hands free of the dirt from the animal’s hooves. When he came close, it felt as if she’d come in out of the cold and stood next to a fire. Arin touched the dagger at her hip and ran a thumb over the symbol on its hilt: the circle within a circle.

“The god of souls,” Kestrel said. “It’s his symbol.”

“Hers,” he corrected gently.

Kestrel wasn’t sure how long she’d known what the symbol meant. Maybe for a long time. Or maybe she’d only realized it last night. It was the kind of knowledge that, once it enters you, seems like it’s lived there forever.

His expression was soft and entranced and puzzled. “Do you feel changed? I feel changed.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He smiled. “It’s strange.”

And so it was.

“We could reach Lerralen by nightfall,” she said, “if we press the horses. Will you come with me?”

“Ah, Kestrel, that’s something you never need to ask.”

The sun was gone when they reached the wind-twisted bushes that hedged the beach. Beyond were the fires of the enemy’s camp; the blue-black air smelled of smoke and salt.

Kestrel cleaned her Valorian armor, strapped on a traditional-looking dagger she had taken from the arms supply wagon, and wordlessly handed Arin the one he’d made for her.

“I don’t love my role in this particular mission,” he said. “It’s mostly watching you saunter into danger.”

“You forget.”

“That? That’s nothing.”

“You could get hurt.”

He blinked. “No.”

“You don’t ever fear for yourself?”

“Not for something like this.”

“Then what?”

He studied his hands. “Sometimes . . . I think of who I was. As a boy. I talk to him.”

Slowly, she said, “Like you do to your god?”

“It’s different. Or maybe I think about him like my god thinks about me. I’ve made promises to the child. I worry I won’t be able to keep them.”

“What have you promised?”

“Revenge.”

“You’ll have it.”

Arin nodded, but more in simple acknowledgment than actual confidence.

She looked at him through the smoky night. Just light enough to see his expression, and dark enough that his body smudged into the shadows. Soon, night would truly fall. Waves folded and unfolded against the shore.

“We should wait for the moon to rise,” she said, “before we go down to the camp.”

“And what,” he murmured, “will we do while we wait?”

She brought his fingers to her lips so that he could feel her smile.

His hand traveled the length of her braid and toyed with the leather string that bound it. He untied the knot. The sound of it coming undone was as soft as a breath. He unraveled her hair, and brought her close.

When the moon was high, Kestrel and Arin gathered what they needed and made their way down to the beach, keeping close to the ragged bushes, blending in with their darkness. They waited, crouched near the edge of camp, where they could see the supply wagons, their domed canvas covers as pale as mushrooms in the moonlight.