The Winner's Kiss

by Marie Rutkoski

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  She whispered, “I’m terrified.”

  “Of the battle?”

  “No.”

  “Your father?”

  Her voice was flat. “He should fear me.”

  Arin didn’t want to relax his sinewy need for the general’s death. It clenched inside him. But if it was this . . . if there’d been no error at the temple, if Arin had done nothing that he needed to undo and instead what had made her seem to try to hide from him in plain sight was dread of Arin’s vengeance or her own . . . “Kestrel.” He put it bluntly. He couldn’t think of any other way. “Do you want his death?”

  Her eyes flashed.

  “I won’t do it,” he said, “if you don’t want it.”

  “Kill him if you can. I don’t care. He left me for dead. Worse.”

  Arin’s hatred knotted within him. “If I did, would you forgive me?”

  “You talk as if his life or death was your choice.”

  “It’s been promised.”

  She squinted at him. “By your god?”

  “Not in so many words, exactly.”

  She shook her head.

  “Please answer my question.”

  “Maybe it will be my hand,” she said. “My sword.”

  “I need to know your choice.”

  “Do it.” Her eyes were wet. “Swear that you will.”

  The knot released. “Yes, of course.”

  “He changed us both.” She seemed to struggle for words. “I think of you, all that you lost, who you were, what you were forced to be, and might have been, and I—I have become this, this person, unable to—” She shut her mouth.

  “Kestrel,” he said softly, “I love this person.”

  But her slim mouth tightened. Her face shone again with fear.

  Arin curled his fingers into Javelin’s mane. “I am what troubles you.”

  “No, Arin.” But she had hesitated.

  He thought about what it meant that Kestrel’s father had had her love, and had cast it aside. He wanted to tell her about the jolt of recognition that had rattled through him when he’d ripped the ivy from the face of his god, how it had been like looking into the black-water mirror Kestrel had described as they’d gazed into the clear night sky. He wanted to explain his hard joy, his relief of feeling fated for something, and how mattering to his god was akin to becoming a son again, or a brother. He wanted to warn her, to say that she couldn’t know, not fully, what it was to no longer be someone’s child.

  Kestrel asked, “Are you afraid of the battle?”

  This, at least, was easy to say. His smile was free. “No.”

  The beach was quiet.

  Which wasn’t true, of course, not with an entire Dacran regiment camped on its sands. But it quieted Arin to see that the Valorian ships hadn’t landed, that there were no sails on the horizon, and even if Kestrel had warned that this could translate to an overwhelming onslaught, he was glad to see the empty stretch of rain-darkened sand from the tents to the shore, to see the low tide, the muck of green-plastered rocks, the gulls squabbling over crabs as they picked through tide pools. The wind was dead. The sky, a flat slate. It had stormed the night before. The briny air smelled raw.

  Roshar’s people were so glad to see the arrival of their prince that Arin doubted the way Roshar styled himself as someone with no political ambition. The queen had her people’s fealty. Roshar, their love.

  “This is a safe time of day,” Kestrel said, then kneed her horse in the direction of the pale grass on higher ground, beyond which, they’d been told, was a stream that watered the army and its horses.

  Arin followed, drawing his horse up alongside hers. “Yes, the Valorians will land at high tide,” he said.

  Kestrel looked slightly startled, not at what he’d said but that he’d spoken at all, which made him think that her words hadn’t been a start of a conversation but rather just a moment in her mind that had somehow slipped out, and that she’d been deep in her own thoughts. She didn’t bother to ask how he knew what she’d meant, prob ably because she assumed that the advantages of high tide for an invading force were obvious.

  The sea will carry them swiftly to shore, murmured death. It will froth white. Bear the weight of countless black-throated cannons.

  Arin glanced at Kestrel. This battle would be very different from the ambush along the southern road. There would be no safe place, only the open arena of the beach.

  Don’t look at her, Arin. Look at me. You will embrace them. Your heart will rise, high and glad. What is an enemy? It is the stick and pull and slash of your sword. It is the clean path you cut between you and what you want. It is the path to me.

  The human stench of the camp had lifted. Kestrel and Arin had ridden far enough away. There was only the swampy saline of low tide, the exposed underbelly of the sea. It smelled good.

  You can wonder about her all you like, whispered death. But I am the only one who will have you.

  Kestrel had ridden a few paces ahead. She turned, catching Arin’s glance. A bead of rain fell on his cheek. The back of his neck.

  You are mine. I am yours. Is it not true, Arin?

  Her expression closed. He thought of a box shut so firmly that one cannot see its seams.

  Yes.

  That night, Arin stood with Kestrel and Roshar on the bluffs. Moonlight glazed the sea. The water sparkled black and white. The moon coated the sand with silver.

  “Pretty,” Roshar commented, “though it puts me in mind of pure worm poison, the way it dries to a clear sheen.” He asked Kestrel, “How do you think the battle will go?”

  Arin answered instead. “For them and us, it will be the kind of battle where a general puts his soldiers in such a desperate situation that the fear of death and difficulty of retreat push them to fight their utmost, because there is no other choice.”

  Roshar coolly lifted one brow. He looked ready to say that Arin was being needlessly dramatic.

  But Kestrel nodded.

  The alarm came at noon. There was a faint drizzle. The sun was somewhere, but couldn’t be seen. Off to the east was a solid ridge of gray cloud. And at sea: a faint pale line of sails.

  Gunners flanked the beach. The Dacran-Herrani army waited in a wedge formation, the cavalry spearheading the bristling mass of people.

  Kestrel’s face was taut, her hands white-knuckled on the reins. Javelin lifted and dropped one hoof. A muffled thud.

  There were flat, open Valorian boats on the water, thousands of them, heavy with horses and cannon. They rowed from the anchored ships. Oars lifted and dipped in the rain.

  Arin couldn’t hear the Valorian command. The sound of it was lost over the sea. But he saw when Valorian soldiers began to prime the cannons. He could practically smell the black powder. For a moment, he wasn’t on his horse with a sword in hand but on an unsteady boat, palms gritty with powder, hands ramming the charge home.

  They’d fire even before they reached the shore.

  A plea rose within him, surging hard as if unexpected, although if he’d examined himself more thoroughly earlier he would have known all along what he’d beg in this final moment, despite his promise to trust her.

  Arin touched her shoulder. She startled, keyed to an extremity he knew very well.

  “Change your mind,” he said. “Turn back, go to the bluffs, please.”

  “No.”

  Finally, he felt the fear that infected every one else. “Then stay close to me.”

  What ever she said in reply was lost as the first explosion split and broke the world.

  Chapter 32

  He didn’t see where the first cannonball hit, but he heard the sick thud and felt the impact judder up from the beach into his boots. The shriek of horses, human cries. Deep into the left flank. Roshar’s army returned fire, mostly missing, because it was harder to hit moving targets on the waves. Geysers sprayed where cannonballs hit the water. One speeding iron ball punched into a boat
and splintered it. Horses and men slid into the sea.

  Black smoke plumed across the beach.

  The first Valorian boats nudged up onto the shore. Soldiers dropped into the water, knee-deep. Horses were led down ramps. Cannons would soon follow.

  “Shatter them all,” Roshar ordered.

  His gunners riddled the first wave of Valorians. But there was a second wave, and a third, and finally a Valorian cannon was maneuvered into position to blast one flank of gunners into a bloody smoking screaming heap.

  Arin’s horse reared. He wrestled it down, pressing his weight into his seat. He held the horse between his tight knees, preferring that than to tug at the bit, and he was distracted, every thing was loud. Even after he calmed his horse he no longer trusted it to obey him. Then came a little sound he shouldn’t have been able to hear, a dry swallow.

  He glanced at Kestrel. Javelin—magnificent war horse, steady beast—was stock-still. So was she. But her skin stretched thinly across her cheekbones. Her eyes were too large and pale.

  Please, Arin prayed. Give her your mercy.

  His god was amused. If she doesn’t believe in me, how can I believe in her?

  The general had landed. Arin could see him. He saw Kestrel see him. Several columns of Valorians pushed up from the shore onto the beach.

  Roshar ordered his vanguard forward.

  Death bit the nape of Arin’s neck, where a cat bites her kitten. Maybe, death murmured, I’ ll show her the same kind of mercy I’ ll show you.

  Arin’s heart thumped. His blood rushed. He put a free hand to his stinging skin and drew it away, expecting blood.

  Nothing.

  A push of damp wind at his back. The trembling of the horse beneath him. A cannon boomed. The animal screamed, reared again. It plunged forward, through the lines of the vanguard, right into the oncoming Valorians.

  She couldn’t see Arin. She couldn’t see him, and it felt as if she couldn’t see anything at all.

  The cannons held their breath. Vanguard crashed into vanguard. She saw the collision happen a few ranks ahead. The spurt of blood. Hideous masks of fear and hatred. An arm shorn from the shoulder. Bodies shoved from horses, crumpled into the sand beneath hooves. And the cruelty of what she couldn’t see.

  Where was he?

  Javelin hadn’t moved. He was stone, which made her realize that she was, too. One hand clutched a sword as if she could squeeze the hilt into nonexistence. A sword. Her, with a sword. She had no skill for it.

  Terror snaked through her, slipping and winding.

  The Valorians hadn’t yet broken through the front lines. Artillery couldn’t be used, for fear of hitting one’s own. There were a few brief moments before an enemy reached her.

  And maybe ahead, somewhere, was what she realized she feared most of all. Arin’s emptied eyes. His blood spilling, spent.

  She kneed Javelin forward and rode up through the ranks.

  He was nearly thrown from his horse. A Valorian slammed into him. Arin caught a blow to his armored chest, sucked in a sharp breath. Felt the bruise, maybe a fracture. No blood, he thought. For the smallest of moments it was hard to focus, hard even to know what his hands were doing or what he saw and whom he fought. He asked his god a formless question. If he could have put it into words, he would have asked if the god’s mercy was to have let him live for so long. Twenty years is better than nine. Or was the god’s mercy to die this way, and not a different, worse way? Or simply to come home, to the haven of the gods. Mother, father, sister. A wash of loneliness, of longing, of yes. Yes, maybe that was it, maybe that was what the god had meant. Mercy. A promise: that the final moment before this world became the next one would be as sweet as love.

  But he could not think this, or understand it. He simply felt it, this question that was many questions condensed into an iron bead, the head of a pin, a tiny hard point of dread and hope and relief.

  His horse. His damned horse. The animal kept straining its will against Arin’s. This horse was going to get him killed. Arin tried to feel worried.

  His sword opened someone’s belly. He wasn’t sure how. His blade shouldn’t have gotten past Valorian armor. But entrails probed out of a gash. A slow, wet unfolding.

  Arin ended it.

  To come home, mused his god, who had been able to take the iron bead of Arin’s heart and make it a feather, and could separate each barb from the other, all along down the quill. The god ran a finger down the unnaturally fanned vane. Is that what you think I meant by mercy? Is that what you want?

  Well, Arin.

  Well.

  Kestrel didn’t understand why no one attacked her. Then she did, and felt stupid and grateful. Her armor. Her Valorian looks. Roshar’s forces knew her, knew her horse. But to the Valorians, she seemed to be one of their own. Oddly positioned, if they thought about it, but no one thought. They gurgled from cut throats. They drove swords so far into bodies that their fists vanished inside someone else’s flesh.

  She moved Javelin among them—Valorian, Dacran, Herrani. Little ghost. Yes. She didn’t exist. Even when someone’s blood sprayed her cheek, it didn’t feel real. No one touched her.

  Until she saw Roshar hack a sword from someone’s grip, smash his shield into the Valorian’s nose, and slice in at the neck. The prince kneed his horse out of the path of the body’s fall. He wheeled his horse and saw Kestrel. “Where’s Arin?” he shouted.

  Kestrel’s voice didn’t work. “I don’t know,” she finally said, the whisper hoarse. Roshar wouldn’t have been able to hear even if he weren’t several feet away.

  But a nearby Valorian heard. He’d seen the look between her and the prince, had heard them speak the Dacran tongue. A cavalry officer. He shouldered his horse into hers. Reached. Grabbed her throat.

  “A scout?” His dark eyes were narrow, his teeth bared. “In the vanguard? Name your regiment.”

  She gasped.

  “Traitor.” He knocked the sword from her limp hand.

  “Kestrel!” Roshar.

  Too far away.

  She strained to breathe. She didn’t break his gaze. Whispering something she knew he couldn’t hear, she watched the Valorian lean forward, loosen his grip just slightly. Kestrel reached for her dagger and drove it into his armpit.

  He grunted, let go. She jerked her dagger free and pierced his throat.

  His weight sagged against her. He was gasping in her ear, the sound sticky and wet, blood gushing onto her as she tried to keep her seat, tried to push the armored officer away. But his horse balked. The Valorian gripped her, his brown eyes staring, vengeful, fading. With the last of his strength, he dragged her down with him. He pulled her from her horse.

  Arin’s horse was bad, but it’d be much worse to be without one. He cut a space around him. The frontier between army and army was dissolving. Kestrel must be several ranks behind him. The Valorians would soon reach her. Stay close, he’d said. His anxiety rose, making him vicious. Some part of him stared at what his hands and body did, but the larger part of him grew yet larger, and took satisfaction. There was plea sure and murder along with worry at his plea sure. Running through all of it: a sheer stream of fear. Stay close.

  He turned his horse back.

  And if he couldn’t find her?

  Farther back. Still farther.

  The Valorians had already eaten their way into the rank where she and Javelin had been.

  His lungs squeezed shut. Where? he demanded.

  The general? his god coyly answered. Allow me to point you the way . . .

  Arin’s nerves screamed.

  Open your eyes, death said.

  Look, my love, and see.

  Arin did. He saw, not far away, Javelin standing amid the boil of war. His rider was gone.

  Kestrel’s cheek was in the sand. Her mouth was full of it. She coughed and spat, her back and shoulders sinking into the beach, and pushed at the dead body heaped onto her. She tried to lever it off. Her arms gave out. She saw the misting sky. Her
horse, close. She pushed again at the officer. His armor made him heavier. She was soaked with his blood. She felt it still pumping, heard the chaos around her. Panic stitched down her spine.

  She shoved. The body didn’t budge. She tried harder, felt the weight press her chest. Finally, she screamed.

  Something slammed into Arin. He kept his seat, wheeled to see his attacker, saw the Valorian’s grin—and then, too late, the serrated steel along the length of the man’s boot. Arin noticed it right before the Valorian used his foot like a knife and slashed the exposed ribs of Arin’s horse.

  The animal’s cry pierced Arin’s ears. He was pitched to the ground.

  In war, her father sometimes said, you might live, you might die. But if you panic, death is the only outcome.

  She hated him for his coolness. His rules.

  But.

  The body crushed her.

  But . . . the sand.

  She tried to see if she could turn onto her belly. Wriggling, she shifted beneath the body. As she strained to turn, she waited for someone to notice her, and attack. She waited for hooves to crush her skull. But Javelin stood solidly, right where he’d been the moment she’d fallen. Cavalry maneuvered around the harmless horse. No one was looking at the ground.

  Worming into the sand, she flipped onto her front and began to dig, sweeping the sand away from her as if swimming. She dug her elbows into the trough she’d made and pulled.

  She slipped free.

  Arin scrambled to his feet. Dodged—just in time—the kick of the serrated boot to his head. With both hands (where was his sword?), he seized the Valorian’s ankle and hauled the man off his horse.

  Kestrel’s shaking hands sifted through the sand for her dagger. Her dagger. She must find it. She could not lose it.

  When she found the ridge of it beneath a veil of red sand, tears pricked her eyes. She seized its hilt.

  Javelin was steady, waiting for her. She wanted to lean against him and press her face into his hide. She wanted to become a horse so that she could thank him in a way he would understand.

  She went to mount him—then saw, over the rise of her saddle, Arin.

  From the beach, Arin snatched a sword—his? didn’t matter—and was already swiping it down through the air toward the fallen Valorian’s neck when the man surged to his feet, struck Arin’s blade aside with his own, and drove its point toward Arin.