The Winner's Kiss (6 page)

Roshar shuddered. “I want to go home.”

“What
are
you doing here?”

“Admit it. You missed me.”

Arin looked at him. Softly, he said, “I did.”

The prince squinted at him through a cloud of smoke. “You seem better.”

Arin frowned, leaning against the casement. “I wasn't aware that I seemed all that bad.”

Roshar snorted. “As one of Dacra's royal line and educated in the finest points of grace and discretion, I shall pass over any description of exactly how you were when you set your no-good, illegal foot in my city.” Roshar eyed him closely, then his gaze wandered to the sword that Arin had unbuckled and slung by its belt over the back of a chair when they'd entered the study. “What happened to your dagger?”

“Gone.” Arin had dropped Kestrel's dagger into the sea.

Roshar
toyed with his pipe. “As for why I'm here, the queen thought that you could use someone with authority.”

“I've been managing fine.”

“So I understand. Xash is impressed. Also, he hates you. But your delightful little power struggle is moot now that I'm here and outrank you both. Don't I?”

Slowly, Arin said, “Of course.”

Roshar smiled. “The queen sends her greetings.”

Arin was silent.

“Hoping for something a little more friendly? Well”—Roshar's voice went sly—“
you
know how she is, don't you?”

Arin flushed. “I think we should discuss possible scenarios for a Valorian attack.”

“Boring.”

“We don't have time for—”

“Oh! Oh! The Valorians are battering down the door
right now
. We have to
do something
.”

“You can go home now.”

Roshar settled comfortably into his chair. “Speaking of Valorians, I hear that Lady Kestrel and Prince Verex married in secret. Yes, word has it that they were so consumed with passionate love that they disappointed hundreds of wedding guests with a private ceremony right after the lady's birthday at the end of spring. The amorous couple simply couldn't wait.”

Arin doubted that “passionate love” had much to do with it. He shook his head. “She wants the empire. She gets what she wants.”

“They're on a lovers' holiday in the southern isles.”

Arin
shrugged. His shoulders felt tight. Roshar didn't appear to notice. “You
are
better,” said the prince.

“Can we talk about the war now?”

“What ever you want, little Herrani.”

Arin unrolled a map and spread it across his father's desk. They studied the western coastline, the cliffs and rocky shores that would offer the Valorians an opportunity for a surprise attack, and the beach, known as Lerralen, that led to flat land running right into the southern Herrani estates.

When daylight had darkened and Roshar's eyes grew slowly heavier, Arin realized that the prince's gleeful needling had hidden a genuine fatigue from his journey. Arin told him he should rest.

“Choose what ever suite suits you best,” Arin said. “But please: keep that tiger in his cage.”

“Arin's a kitten,” Roshar protested. Purely for the purpose of annoying Arin, it seemed, Roshar had named the tiger after him. “He's sweet-tempered and polite and very good-looking . . . unlike some people I could mention.”

“You're wrong,” Roshar said.

They were leaning over a map in Arin's library. Arin kept his fingers stubbornly pressed down on the cliffs along his country's western shore.

“Wrong,”
Roshar insisted.

Arin shook his head. “You're underestimating the Valorian general.”

“He's not going to send soldiers up
cliffs
. He doesn't need to. He's got the numbers. He can land his ships on that beach
and
take the countryside with sheer force. He doesn't have to be clever.”

Arin remembered Kestrel. “I think he enjoys being clever. I think he might be undercut by his own cunning, if we can catch him at it.”

“Those cliffs are monstrously high.”

“His Rangers are capable of it. If they scale the cliffs and come south while we're dealing with the Valorians that have landed on the beach, they'll flank us and squeeze us between them.”

Roshar made a dismissive noise.

Frustrated, Arin said, “Are you so proud that you think no one can outmaneuver you?”

“Are you so ready to make the general into some almighty being capable of anything just because he had your family slaughtered?”

Anger knocked the wind out of Arin. There was a hard silence.

Roshar rubbed his eyes, smearing the green paint that lined them. He sighed. “I didn't mean—”

“Arin.” It was Sarsine. She was standing in the library doorway.

“Not now,” he told her.

“Someone's here to see you.”

“Not now.”

“He says it's important.”

“
What
is important?”

“His message.”

“Which is?”

“He won't tell me. He wants to tell you himself.”

“
I'm busy.”

“No, no,” said Roshar. “Go ahead, talk to him. We're done anyway. I'll inform the battalion leaders of my battle plan, and—”

“Wait. Sarsine, who
is
this person?”

“A Herrani groom who took care of horses at a way station in Valoria along the road that goes north to the tundra.”

“Does his message have anything to do with a Valorian military operation?”

“I asked him. He says no.”

“Does he have information on the general, his troops, or the emperor?”

“No, nothing like that. But—”

Arin turned away. “Later.”

She took a breath as if to argue, then seemed to change her mind. “I'll put him in your old rooms. He's traveled far to see you.”

“Well,” Roshar said cheerfully, rolling up the map he and Arin had argued over. “Every thing's settled, then. What's that beach called? Lerralen? We'll set out for it tomorrow at dawn.”

Arin couldn't sleep. He threw his windows open. He heard an owl hunting in the summer dark.

It was, of course, safer to send the majority of the eastern forces to the beach at Lerralen, with no soldiers held back to guard the cliffs. The beach was an ideal place for the Valorian army to land. The beach and its surrounding terrain were
relatively
flat and wide open—good for an invasion. The Dacrans, who didn't know the land they were defending, wouldn't have any height on the Valorians, and that would make repelling the invaders harder . . . which General Trajan would like. Roshar was prob ably right.

Prob ably.

Arin had no power to overrule him anyway. Few of his people were in any condition to fight. He had no troops to command. He was lucky to have the eastern queen's help.

Yes, lucky.

The queen, however, was no fool. She must have heard of Xash's resentment at being ignored by Arin in the planning of a key battle.

Arin was glad Roshar was here, but it was nonetheless clear that he had been sent to put Arin in his place.

Arin braced an arm against the casement, resting his forehead against his wrist. The night curled around him. He'd lit no lamp. He wondered if one of the reasons Valorians trained to get by on little sleep was so that they could feel the way he did right now: like there was no difference between him and the darkness. He heard the sough of trees. He thought of the general landing on Herran's shore. The muscles in his arm hardened. He'd never sleep now. He kept seeing the cliffs. They rose, white and sparkling, in his mind.

Kestrel wouldn't be able to resist those cliffs.

If she were mustering an invasion, she'd like the looks of the beach at Lerralen, but she'd love the cliffs. The cunning of it would be its own attraction. And the results . . . if even a small force got up those cliffs and came south to meet
the
Valorians already massed on the beach, Herran's defenses would be easily broken. The Valorians would take the countryside and work their way to the city, whose bay was now too well defended to take by sea.

If Kestrel were the general, that's what she'd do.

If Arin were Kestrel, that's what he'd do.

Arin found that his loose hand had become a fist.

He remembered the golden, oiled line that had marked Kestrel's brow as the sign of an engaged woman, and how much he'd hated it. One evening in the palace, Arin had slowly nudged Kestrel up against the wintered windows of a closed balcony door. He'd felt her slender length against him. He'd kissed her mark. Later, he tasted the cosmetic oil on his lips. It had been bitter. He'd touched his tongue to it again.

Arin had had to struggle so hard for clarity. The things he had believed! He thought about the night the spell had finally broken. He'd sailed from the east. He'd risked everything to creep into the palace. He saw her again: the dismay on her face, the cold irritation, the way she'd rubbed her hands against the skirts of her blue silk dress, the sleeves belled and fastened tight at the wrist. That deep blue poured around her as she'd sat at the piano and tried to ignore him and played a laughing little melody. When he refused to leave, she'd turned cruel.

It wasn't entirely true that Arin felt nothing when he thought of Kestrel. He felt shame. He shuddered to think of his godsforsaken questions. He couldn't believe he'd asked them.

What did you do for that treaty?

It
gave me my country's freedom. It saved my life. What did you do to make the emperor sign it?

Did you . . . are you . . . marrying the prince because of me? Was it . . . part of some kind of deal you made with the emperor?

He still heard her cutting replies.

He thanked the god of chance he'd stopped short of asking whether she was Tensen's Moth—yet another of the fantasies he'd entertained about her in his compulsion to transform her into the person he longed for her to be. This, despite Tensen's loyalty to him, his honesty. Tensen had already told him the identity of his anonymous spy: Risha, the eastern princess held hostage in the imperial court.

Arin straightened. His shoulders ached. He'd been standing in one position for too long. He sat on the wide windowsill, spine against the frame. He was aware of feeling both inside and outside. He let himself enjoy the balance of it. It cleared his head.

What happened with Kestrel hadn't been for nothing. He'd gotten a feel for the way her mind worked. He'd caught her weakness for a sly move. He'd seen just how much she was her father's daughter.

Arin wondered how many people he'd need to handle Valorian Rangers coming up the western cliffs.

He wondered if he, too, was tempted by cunning. Maybe he was drawn as well to the biggest gamble.

The first morning bird sang.

The Herrani god of games had once been mortal. Arin knew the tale. She'd gambled her way into immortality, then wreaked merry havoc. The gods were not pleased. They
began
to lose treasured possessions—a pair of gloves that let the wearer touch colors and sounds, a ring that contained a whole other world within its circle, the god of night's favorite cat. When she won the sun, every one lost their patience. The god of war was sent to deal with her. But nothing is ever simple between the gods, and the stories of the gods of war and games were many . . . and took certain sensual twists and turns that Arin hadn't been allowed to hear as a child.

Arin shut the window. He took his sword, which had been his father's and forged with beautifully tempered steel. For almost ten years after the invasion the sword had hung on a wall in this house like a corpse on display. It felt good against his palm, and for a moment it felt as if he weren't holding the sword but his father's hand. Then the hilt became steel again.

He made his way (quickly, it was almost dawn) to his stables. He saddled Javelin—Kestrel's horse, Arin's now. The animal was strong and smart and fast.

Arin rode the stallion out into the gray morning. He thought that a commander of any army had better pray to both the gods of war and games. No battle is won without a good gamble.

As the ground sped beneath Javelin's hooves, Arin had a fleeting thought of the messenger who'd come to see him.

Later,
he decided, and spurred his horse.

Chapter 4

Arin slunk forward on his Belly and inched over the patchy grass. The wind shrilled in his ears. It whipped dirt into his eyes. He blinked it away, eyes streaming, and crept to the edge of the cliff. He heard soil crumble beneath his weight. It sifted down the cliffs.

Arin's pulse thumped hard. He imagined the lip of the cliff giving way. He'd plummet fast.

Quickly, as he'd already done several times that day, Arin dug his elbows into the earth and pulled himself just far enough to look down the cliff. The sea was dizzyingly far below. It foamed white against the rocks.

There were no ships.

No Valorians climbing up the cliffs.

Nothing.

Arin pushed himself away from the edge, rolled onto his back, looked up at the pale sky, and then at the waiting Herrani.

He met their eyes. He shook his head.