The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(98)

Finally, a sentry on his rounds walked close to their hiding spot. In one swift movement, Arin surged up, clamped a hand over the sentry’s mouth, and dragged him down to the sand.

“Not a sound,” Arin hissed at the sentry, the point of his dagger pricking the hollow behind the man’s ear. Arin forced the sentry’s face to turn up to the moon. Eyes wide. Skin strained and white. “Tell us which wagon holds the black powder.”

The sentry shook his head.

“Do you remember,” Arin whispered, “the punishment for runaway slaves? No? Let me remind you.” He lightly drew his dagger over the man’s ear, down the tip of his nose. “Which wagon?”

The Valorian shook his head again, but this time his gaze jerked in the direction of one of the larger wagons.

Arin glanced at Kestrel. Enough? his eyes asked. Yes, she mouthed, but—“Don’t,” she whispered, ill at the sight of the sentry pressed down in the sand, his eyes as dark as her childhood friend’s, as that of any Valorian child. They were gleaming, glassy with the kind of fear a child eventually learns how to hide. But death will do that. It makes you unlearn all you know. “Don’t,” she told Arin again.

He hesitated, then slammed the pommel of his dagger against the man’s head, knocking him unconscious.

“Be swift,” Arin told her.

She cut into the small bag of black powder tied to her waist. She felt grit flow thinly from the hole. Then she straightened and walked into the camp.

She kept her head down, her tight braid trailing over one shoulder. Her face was dirty, she reminded herself as she passed campfires. She was changed. Her hair had reddened—was redder still, by firelight. No one would recognize her, surely. Not in armor. Not like this, with no trace of cosmetics, no finery, no silk or jewels or glittering gold engagement mark. She was not herself. She was simply one of them. Just another Valorian. But her throat was dry, and her stomach shrank into a stone.

The wagons weren’t far off. To reassure herself, she passed her fingers through the little stream of black powder from her bag and thought about how it traced a line between Arin and her.

When she reached the wagon the sentry had glanced at, Kestrel let out a slow breath. She peered inside and saw, in the halo of moonlight through canvas, fat mounds of sacks tied with twine.

“What are you doing?” someone demanded.

Slow, very slowly, squeezing all of her sudden fear into the sound of her boot shifting in the sand, Kestrel turned.

It was a guard. The woman looked Kestrel over. “What,” the woman said, “does a scout like you want with that wagon?”

The small sack at Kestrel’s waist felt light. It had leaked nearly all of its black powder. Could the guard see it in the shadows? “I’m verifying inventory.”

“Why?”

The words sprang to her lips before she even fully remembered them. “For the glory of Valoria.”

The guard drew slightly back, startled to hear the phrase that indicated a military mission whose details couldn’t be discussed. “But . . . a scout?” She stared again at Kestrel’s armor, whose color and material (leather, unlike the steel for officers) indicated her low rank.

Kestrel shrugged. The empty black powder bag lay slack against her hip. “It’s not for you to question the general.”

“Of course,” the guard said immediately, and stepped aside as Kestrel moved to walk past her . . . and tried not to walk too quickly, but wanted to, wanted to run all the way up into the dunes.

Then it was as if a cold, marble hand rested on her shoulder, pressing her down into her boot prints.

There was no hand, she told herself. No one touched her.

Move.

But she couldn’t, just as she couldn’t help the way her gaze lifted and saw, not fifteen paces away, her father standing in the orange light of a fire.

It cracked her open. It hatched some creature of an emotion: two-headed, lumpy, leather wings, unnumbered limbs, a thing that should never have been born. Kestrel hadn’t known until she saw her father’s face how much she still loved him.

Wrong, that she felt this way. Wrong, that love could live with betrayal and hurt and anger.

Hate, she corrected herself.

No, a voice whispered back, the voice of a small girl.

Her father didn’t see her. He was looking at the fire. His eyes were shadowed, his mouth sad.

“Trajan,” someone called from across the camp. Kestrel saw the silver-headed man approach. Soldiers fell away from him like shed water. The emperor approached his general, whose face changed, becoming full of something older than she was.

Firelight striped the emperor’s cheek as he leaned to murmur in her father’s ear. She saw that slight smile, and remembered the plea sure the emperor took in his games, how he could make a move and wait for months to see its final play. But there was no scheme in his expression now.

Her father answered him. She stood too far away to hear what they said to one another, yet she was close enough to see that their friendship was solid and true.

Kestrel looked away. She walked toward the dunes, careful not to retrace her steps and risk smudging the line of powder that, once lit, must burn directly from Arin to the wagon. The bushes where Arin waited were thick black scribbles. Her cheeks were wet. Valorian soldiers didn’t look as she passed. She wiped her face. Sand hissed under her hurried boots. She left the camp behind.