The Winner's Kiss

  “Find some.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Now.”

  He swallowed. “I want to. I didn’t know . . . how everything would become impossible. This is what happens when you destroy the thing most precious to you.”

  “You chose to do it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t say, but his eyes became clear hard shells, and she knew that it hadn’t been only his code of honor that had made him tell the emperor of her treason. Her father had wanted to hurt her, because she had hurt him.

  He said, “It didn’t seem real when I was doing it. Like I wasn’t awake.”

  “Do you know,” she whispered, “what they did to me in the mines?”

  He closed his eyes.

  She described it. He let her. Water slid from beneath his eyelids.

  “Kestrel,” he said finally. “You know that there is only one solution. I can’t be a father to you.”

  “But you are.”

  “There’s no place for me here. Am I to be a prisoner for the rest of my life?”

  This had been discussed—loudly. Roshar was in favor of a public execution. Arin had lost his temper in a way that Kestrel hadn’t seen in a long time, had shouted back that the general’s fate was Kestrel’s choice alone.

  “I don’t know,” Kestrel told her father.

  There was a silence.

  She said, “How can you not even ask for forgiveness?”

  “Impossible.”

  “Ask.”

  For a long time, he said nothing. “I can’t ask for something no one could give. I ask for mercy.”

  Her vision blurred, and Kestrel knew that forgiveness and mercy would take years for them both, and that she needed every single minute of that time.

  She said that she still loved him, because it was true. He owed her better answers than the ones he had given, and even if he never had them, it was her right to keep asking. She would never give him her dagger. “I tried so hard to live in your world,” she told him. “Now it’s your turn to live in mine.”

  Chapter 42

  Arin should have expected it, but somehow didn’t.

  So many flowers. All the summer blooms must have been cut from the gardens, which would be naked for weeks. When the army came through the gate, a roar vibrated the stone walls, and Arin flinched in surprise, hands tightening on the reins, for the tiniest moment believing that the sound meant danger. Then he saw the glowing faces of people thronging the streets and thought, Ah, happy. Which made him happy, and as Kestrel smiled at him from her seat on Javelin, a pink petal clinging to her cheek, it occurred to him that he might have to grow comfortable with happiness, because it might not abandon him this time.

  Then Kestrel’s head turned, and he saw her survey the Dacran-Herrani army unfurled behind them in Lahirrin’s main street, a tension in the line of her mouth. She said, “I’m not sure it’s wise to bring all the soldiers within the city walls.”

  “This is every one’s victory. Every one must be honored.”

  “I know.”

  “But?”

  “Our eastern allies outnumber us.”

  He knew what she was getting at. “They always have.”

  “If they want this country, it’d be easy for them to take it . . . especially from within the city walls.”

  Arin glanced at Roshar, who’d ridden ahead to meet the queen. “I trust him.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Arin paused his horse. Javelin stopped, too. Flowers flurried down around them. He said, “It would hurt me to suspect him.”

  “That’s why I do it for you.”

  A cloth dropped onto his head from above, from a window of one of the tall, narrow homes near the market. Startled, blind, Arin tugged it from his face, his horse shying beneath him.

  It was an old Herrani flag, stitched with the royal crest.

  Arin said, “But the royal line is gone.”

  “They’re looking for something to call you,” Kestrel said, nudging Javelin forward.

  “Not this. It’s not right.”

  “Don’t worry. They’ll find the right words to describe you.”

  “And you.”

  “Oh, that’s easy.”

  “It is?” It seemed impossible to name every thing she was to him.

  Kestrel’s expression was serious, luminous. He loved to see her like this. “They’ll say that I’m yours,” she told him, “just as you are mine.”

  When Sarsine saw Kestrel, her eyes narrowed to mere cracks and Kestrel became very conscious that Sarsine was a tall woman. “For someone with a reputation for being so smart,” Sarsine said, “you act like you haven’t a thought in your head. Did it never occur to you that I’d worry when you dis appeared from the city with no word?”

  “I didn’t exactly mean to leave.”

  “Oh, so it just happened.”

  “Yes.”

  “The gods made you do it.”

  Kestrel laughed. “Maybe they did.” Then, earnestly, she said, “I’m sorry, Sarsine.”

  Sarsine folded her arms. “Then make it up to me.”

  “How?”

  Sarsine’s expression softened. Now there was an inquisitive gleam in her eye. “Start with the night you left. End with this very moment. And tell me every thing.”

  So Kestrel did.

  There was to be a city-wide feast to celebrate the military victory, with a banquet at the governor’s palace, where Queen Inishanaway would preside. The cooks in Arin’s house were hard at work, slaughtering every chicken in the yard, pulping erasti fruit and thumping dough against floured tables.

  Arin was in the still room, trying to soothe the anxiety of a woman who was saying that she had just preserved the jams, and must all of them be used for the banquet, every last one? She didn’t think the Dacrans appreciated ilea fruit. Why serve something they wouldn’t love as much as the Herrani did? It would be best, surely, to keep at least those jars for winter.

  Trying to explain the politics of such lavish consumption tangled Arin up in frustrated half sentences, because it didn’t make much sense to him, either, to consume every edible thing in one night.

  And then he heard Roshar’s accented voice in Herrani drifting down the hall from the kitchens.

  “. . . you don’t understand. The piece of meat must be the finest, cut from the loin, seasoned with this spice, not that one . . .”

  Arin excused himself, told the woman he’d discuss jams later, and followed the prince’s voice.

  “. . . and it must be well roasted on the outside, almost charred, yet bloody inside. Bright pink. Listen. This is crucial. If anything goes wrong, the banquet will be ruined.”

  Arin entered the main kitchen to find the prince haranguing the head cook, who slid a half-lidded look of annoyed sufferance at Arin.

  “There you are.” Roshar beamed. “I need your help, Arin.”

  “For the preparation of meat?”

  “It’s very important. You must impress this importance upon your cook here. The fate of political relations between my country and yours hangs in the balance.”

  “Because of meat.”

  “It’s for his tiger,” said the cook.

  Arin palmed his face, eyes squeezed shut. “Your tiger.”

  “He’s very particular,” said Roshar.

  “You can’t bring the tiger to the banquet.”

  “Little Arin has missed me. I will not be parted from him.”

  “Would you consider changing his name?”

  “No.”

  “What if I begged?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Roshar, the tiger has grown.”

  “And what a sweet big boy he is.”

  “You can’t bring him into a dining hall filled with hundreds of people.”

  “He’ll behave. He has the mien and manners of a prince.”

  “Oh, like you?”

  “I resent your tone.”

&n
bsp; “I’m not sure you can control him.”

  “Has he ever been aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you’ll get married, and make babies—”

  “Gods, Roshar, shut up.”

  Even if Arin hadn’t known how much Kestrel hated to enter the palace built for the Valorian governor during the period of colonization, he would have seen it in her tense shoulders, the way she touched the dagger at her hip, and practically snarled at Roshar when the prince had suggested that surely she could forgo, this one night, the barbarism of openly bearing a weapon.

  Arin gave him a warning look. The prince pretended to look innocently confused, then shrugged and moved to walk ahead of them, the half-grown tiger slinking at his heels. The tiger was eerily docile, even for a young one raised by humans. It pushed its head up under Roshar’s hand like a house cat. Arin watched its solid sway, the already powerful shoulder blades rising and falling under its fur. Arin sensed but couldn’t name the origin of what made people (animals, too, apparently) long to follow the prince. With an uncomfortable prickle, he suspected that if he asked and Roshar deigned to give a straight answer, the prince would say that what ever it was, Arin possessed it, too.

  A strange feeling: as if filaments trailed from Arin’s body. A thousand fishing lines snagging attention. Here and there. Little tugs. People caught on the lines. The way sometimes people couldn’t look him in the eye, and when they did they became fish trying to breathe air.

  He wished it weren’t like that.

  He knew it would be necessary.

  Roshar and the tiger dis appeared inside, leaving Kestrel and Arin alone on the path.

  Kestrel was stiff, her delicate shoes planted in the walkway’s gravel. She had lifted the hem of her storm-green skirts, the gesture of a lady, but he saw how she made fists of the fabric.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, guessing what troubled her: the memory of the Firstwinter Rebellion. Her dead friends, Arin’s deception, the halls of the governor’s palace choked with corpses.

  She gave him a narrow look. “Part of you isn’t sorry.”

  He couldn’t deny it.

  But she softened and said, “I’m not innocent either. I, too, feel sorry and not sorry about things I’ve done.” She let her dress’s hem fall to the stones and touched three fingers to the back of his hand.

  Arin forgot, for a moment, where he was and what they were discussing. A marvel: that such a light touch could feel like a whole caress, that his body could ignite so easily.

  Now she looked amused.

  “Let’s leave.” He slid a hand beneath her loose hair and thumbed the slope of her neck, feeling the fluttery pulse there. Her expression changed, amusement melting into slow plea sure. He said, “Let’s not go in.”

  “Arin.” She sighed. “We must go in.” Her slightly parted mouth closed again into a tense line.

  “What else is troubling you?”

  “The queen hasn’t said a word to you.”

  “Well,” Arin said, uncomfortable, thinking of various reasons for Inisha’s silence.

  “All of the Dacrans are too quiet.”

  “Not Roshar.”

  “Him, too. He just says a lot without meaning much.”

  Arin paused, then said, “I believe in our alliance.”

  “I want to, too.”

  He offered her his hand.

  They went inside.

  They sat at a table on a raised dais in the dining hall, the four of them in a line, Arin and the queen occupying the center and Kestrel and Roshar to their sides, an arrangement Roshar maneuvered without seeming to as the hundreds of people already seated watched them.

  The queen gave Arin a sidelong glance, her black eyes unreadable. She said nothing, and didn’t look at him again.

  Roshar, the tiger curled at his feet, barely touched his food as the first courses were served, but instead drank the green Dacran liqueur he favored. Arin saw, beyond the silhouette of the queen, how Roshar clenched and released the glass. His fingers were unsteady.

  “Brother.” The queen spoke as if nudging him.

  “Leave me alone.” He refilled his cup.

  When people entered bearing the main course—including, Arin noted with wry amusement, the fastidiously prepared loin for the tiger, on its very own platter—Roshar stood, swaying a little. The room hushed. He scanned the faces, Dacran and Herrani alike.

  “People of the hundred,” he said, using an ancient Herrani phrase Arin was surprised he knew, “who leads you?”

  So many cried Arin’s name that it no longer sounded like his name.

  “Do you trust your country to him?”

  Yes.

  “Would you say that Herran is his?”

  Yes.

  Sudden distrust slicked down Arin’s spine.

  Roshar raised his hand to quiet the roaring crowd, and Arin was reminded of Cheat relishing his role as an auctioneer. A stone rose in his throat. Kestrel’s hand tightened on his, but Arin no longer felt wholly there.

  “Enough,” said the queen . . . not so much in reprimand, but rather as if telling him to get to the point.

  “I have fought for Arin, bled for him. I hold him in my heart. I have even named my tiger after him—no small honor. And yet, we have a problem. Arin of Herran was not always my friend, and once committed an offense against me that caused my queen to award me control over all he owns: his life, his belongings, and—since you say he possesses it—his country. I’ve been told to take from Arin what is due to me. I’ve been told it is mine by law. Must I? Yes. Will my people support my claim, with force if necessary? They will. Will my queen rise in admiration of me? Oh, indeed. And so I must.

  “No, Arin. Sit down. Other wise you’ll make an ass out of yourself, and that role is mine. I see my tiger’s meal is here. You, there. Yes, you. With the platter. Bear it forth.”

  Kestrel laughed. Arin felt rather than saw that she had relaxed beside him, aglow with mirth. He sank back into his chair, because now he too understood Roshar’s game. He wanted to sag with relief. He wanted to strangle the prince.

  And thank him.

  “There.” Roshar flourished a hand at the platter. “Arin the tiger’s meal. Since I’ve been ordered to take from Arin what belongs to Arin, I shall.” Roshar returned to his seat, platter in hand, and commenced cutting the meat. He took a bite. “Mmm. This is excellent. So well done. Now, as for what belongs to Arin the human, I relinquish any claim to it. Nothing of his was ever mine to take, nor will ever be. What belongs to him, I defend his right to keep, out of my love for him, and his for me.” He looked directly at the queen as he ate. “This is delicious. Exactly the way I like it.”

  The queen forced a smile.

  “Oh, and would someone bring another slice of loin? Raw, please. My tiger is hungry.”

  Chapter 43

  “I don’t want you to go.” waves rocked against the pier. The sun was too bright. Weathered boards creaked beneath Arin’s feet.

  “Only because you enjoy a good bully. Someone to make you behave as you ought.”

  “No, Roshar.”

  “You know well enough what to do now. You’ll be fine.”

  “That’s not why.”

  “Why you’ll miss me? I admit that the impending absence of my keen wit would make anyone sad.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Now I’m getting sad, just thinking about how it would feel to be parted from my sweet self. Lucky me: I will always have my own company.”

  “What you said at the banquet was true.”

  “Every thing I say is true.”

  “That I love you.”

  Roshar’s face went still. “I said that?”

  “You know that you did.”

  “That was more for the drama of the moment.”

&nb
sp; “Liar.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” Roshar said slowly. “I really am. Arin.” His voice roughened. “You’ll see me again.”

  “Soon,” Arin told him, and embraced him. Then they broke away and maybe some would have thought that the sun was a little cruel, for how its brightness allowed no subterfuge in their expressions, and every thing that could be seen was shown. But Arin thought that it was a kindness. He wanted to be a mirror, to reflect what Roshar was to him.

  A launch waited in the water below. Arin wished him fair tides. He watched until the launch reached Roshar’s ship, then watched as the ship, with the rest of the entire Dacran fleet, left his city’s bay.

  He glimpsed Sarsine as he walked through the city. She had a laden basket—it dragged at her arm, making its weight known even from far away. Her faintly harried expression softened at the sight of him.

  Arin took the basket from her. “Coming or going?”

  “I’ve an errand here, and won’t be home until late.”

  “Shall I guess what brings you to town?”

  “You can try.”

  He peeked in the basket. Bread, still warm from the oven. A bottle of liquor. Long, flat pieces of wood. Rolls of gauze. “A picnic . . . with a wounded soldier? Sarsine,” he teased, “is it true love? What’s the wood for? Wait, don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know.”

  She swatted him. “The cartwright’s oldest daughter has a broken arm.”

  It dropped ice to the bottom of his stomach. He thought of the ruined bodies he’d seen, including the ones he himself had ruined. He realized that he had somehow expected that he’d never have to think again about the way people damage other people.

  The night of the invasion. Kestrel’s back. His own. Roshar’s scarred face. His own. The way a body on the battlefield could look as if it had never been human, and that was exactly what Arin had wanted to do to Kestrel’s father, who was in this city, his city, in a prison made to be comfortable, when no comfort could return the man’s arm, and no walls could imprison Arin’s knowledge of what he had done and wanted to do and couldn’t regret.

  Yet he did regret.

  He could not.

  He did.

  “Arin, are you all right?”

  “How?” he managed. “How did her arm break?”