The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3)(99)

She’d almost reached the bushes when she heard someone following her.

Pacing the sand. Right in her tracks. Coming up close.

She slowed, hand on her dagger, heart in her mouth.

She turned.

“Kestrel?”





Chapter 36

Her hand dropped from her dagger’s hilt. “Verex.”

He stood awkwardly in the moonlight: long and slopey, shoulders narrow, eyes large, his fair hair ruffled and feathery. When he met her gaze, he let out such a large breath that his chest seemed to cave in. “I was so worried for you,” he said.

Kestrel crossed the sand and flung herself into his open arms.

“I tried to help,” he murmured.

“I know.”

“I sent a key to the prison camp.”

“I got it.”

“I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Verex.”

“I couldn’t do more. I wanted to. I should have.”

She pulled back, stared at him. “That key was every thing to me.”

“Not enough. My father—”

“Did he find out?” Her blood went cold. “Did he punish you?”

“He talked as if he knew it was me. ‘Well, dear boy, have you heard? A prisoner tried to escape the north. Somehow—how, do you think?—she laid her filthy little hands on a key.’ Never acknowledging that the prisoner was you. Never accusing me of having sent the key. Just watching and smiling. He said—he told me that the prisoner was tortured. Killed. And I—” Verex’s face twisted.

“I’m all right, I’m here.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“What did he do to you?”

Verex flopped one hand. “Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Nothing that mattered. I think he enjoyed it: that I knew, that I tried. Failed. I have my spies in the court—I must—and when you dis appeared I found out too quickly what had happened to you. He wanted me to know. All the while, he said nothing of your absence, only informed me of the story he’d tell the court, and that I’d be sailing to the southern isles. He said he’d watch over Risha while I was away.” Verex thrust his hands in his pockets, slumped his shoulders. “He said, ‘I know how you care for the eastern princess.’ ”

“Did he—?”

“No.” His voice went hard. “He knows that if he did anything to her I’d kill him. She’s safe in the capital.”

“What are you doing here? Verex, you’re no fighter.”

He laughed a little. “I’d have said the same of you. Yet look at you.”

“You knew it was me.”

“You have this way when you walk. You stride.”

“I didn’t expect to see the emperor here, let alone you.”

“I’m mostly here to be looked at. The emperor came with me in tow for the morale of the troops. There’ve been a few military setbacks in this campaign.” He peered at her. “Your doing?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer. For the first time, it occurred to her that it might not matter that Verex was her friend. Maybe he would seize her anyway.

Maybe he’d cry an alarm.

Maybe he couldn’t be her friend when it seemed so obvious that she was his people’s enemy.

She took a step back, then stopped when hurt flickered across his face.

“I think,” Verex said gently, “that your father knows it’s your doing.”

“My father?”

“I didn’t make much of it before, but after the Valorian victory on the beach, an officer mentioned the ambush along the road near Errilith. Said things about Arin. What would be done to him, if caught alive.”

Kestrel’s stomach twisted.

“Said something about that . . . slave with the clever tricks.”

In Verex’s pause, she could hear the foulness of what he didn’t repeat.

“Your father made no reply at first. Then: ‘Not his tricks. Not his alone.’ And the officer smirked and said, ‘You mean the no-nosed barbarian.’ But I don’t think, now, that the general did mean the eastern prince. After the battle on the beach, I saw him searching . . . he went among the prisoners taken. He turned over bodies in the sand. The way he looked . . .”

“ Don’t tell him you saw me.”

“Maybe he should know.”

“Verex, don’t. Swear.”

Worriedly, he scanned her face. “You have my word. But . . .” He raked a hand through his fine hair, then peered at her through narrowed eyes. He lifted the empty bag at her hip, dropped it, rubbed his fingers and thumb together, and sniffed the unmistakable odor of black powder. A slow horror stole over his face. “What exactly are you doing here?”

“Just let me walk away. Forget you saw me, please.”

“I can’t do that. You’d make me responsible for what ever you’re going to do.”

“No one will get hurt if you keep people away from the supply wagons. Make up some excuse. No one will die.”

“To night, maybe. What about tomorrow, when we need what you plan to destroy? You’re after the black powder, aren’t you?”

She said nothing.