The Winner's Kiss

by Marie Rutkoski

  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.

  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 e
mpty 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.

  Softly, he said, “I could stop you so easily, right now.”

  “If you did, you’d hand your father yet another victory.”

  He sighed. “The awful thing is, part of me wants to please him, despite every thing.”

  “No. Please don’t. You can’t.”

  “But I do want to . . . and I hate myself for wanting to please him, and I can’t think of a way to do it without hurting you. Maybe you could think of a way, but would never tell me. You’d fall into my father’s hands again, and your father’s hands, and I’d never forgive myself.”

  Kestrel told him that she would miss him. She told him, quietly, as the sound of waves pushed and pulled at the night, that she wished he were her brother, that she was sorry, and grateful to know him.

  There was no sound other than the waves as she walked away.

  When she reached Arin, he released the parted bushes and lowered the eastern crossbow he’d held cranked at the ready.

  “You wouldn’t have,” she stated.

  Arin looked at her. He certainly would.

  “Verex is my friend.”

  Arin unloaded the crossbow. His fingers were trembling. “You greeted him like a friend,” he acknowledged. “But . . .”

  They both looked back toward the camp. The slender shadow of the Valorian prince slowly retraced his steps. He dissolved into the camp’s firelight, a good distance from the supply wagons.

  Kestrel untied the empty sack from her waist and dusted her hands, her clothes. “Matches, now.”

  Arin’s hands still weren’t sure of themselves. He fumbled with the box. She took it, struck a match, and touched it to the trail of black powder she’d left behind. It sparked, lit, and burned down the line.

  They ran.

  The explosion blossomed over the beach.

  They stayed off the road as they rode through the dark. Their pace was slow. Moonlight painted the land. They were silent, but Kestrel knew that it couldn’t be due to the same thing, because she hadn’t told Arin that she’d seen her father in the Valorian camp. The sight of him lingered with her. Her love for him closed within her like a fist. Nervous, bruised. She despised it. Wasn’t it the love of a beaten animal, slinking back to its master? Yet here was the truth: she missed her father.

  It seemed too awful to tell Arin.

  But finally, when they stopped to sleep, not bothering with a tent, just bedding down in a hollow they’d trampled in the tall grass with their boots, Arin spoke. He slid a hand under her tunic to touch her bare back, then stopped. “Is this all right?”

  She wanted to explain that she hadn’t thought she’d ever bear anyone’s touch on her scarred back, that it should revolt him and revolt her. Yet his touch made her feel soft and new. “Yes.”

  He pushed the shirt up, seeking the lash marks, tracing their length. She let herself feel it, and shivered, and thought of nothing. But a tension grew. He was still, but for his hand.

  Kestrel said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Your life would have been easier if you had married the Valorian prince.”

  She drew herself up so that she could face him. The scent of black powder clung to them both. His skin smelled like a blown-out candle. “But not better,” she said.

  It was the next day’s end when they caught up with Roshar’s army, which had stopped—oddly—at a time too early to make camp, and rather late for a moment’s rest. More than that, it was the uncertainty of the soldiers that gave the halt a strange feeling. They looked as if they’d had no orders at all. They held ranks, but loosely, and were murmuring among themselves, armor still buckled, horses saddled. Several remained mounted. A Herrani soldier toyed with her horse’s reins. A Dacran eyed her as if he wished his horse had reins, so that he could do something with his empty hands. When Arin and Kestrel rode up to the vanguard, all eyes lifted. Faces turned to Arin, seeking an explanation, relieved because here, at last, was an answer. But Arin didn’t even understand the question.

  “What has happened?” he asked the two nearest soldiers on their horses.

  “Someone came for our prince,” the Dacran said.

  Arin glanced at Kestrel, alert to the hesitation in the Dacran’s voice. Arin wondered if he needed to translate for her.

  “Someone took him away?” she asked the man in his language.

  The soldier clicked his teeth. No. “But I heard that his face became terrible, truly. That no one could look at it. Some worry that she—”

  “She?”

  “Brings news of the war’s end. That we’re to abandon the campaign and go home.” The soldier glanced sideways at Arin. “Some hope for it.”

  “Your queen?” Arin asked.

  But it was not, in fact, the queen who had come for her brother.

  Chapter 37

  Roshar was waiting alone outside his tent. Kestrel saw what the soldier had meant about Roshar’s face. She’d grown used to the prince’s mutilations; she rarely noticed them anymore. But now an emotion so scored his features that his face became pure in its damage: a mask of loss, twisted with anger and shame.

  Arin went to him, eyes wide with concern. He spoke swiftly in Dacran. What was wrong? What had happened?

  “My sister won’t speak with me.” Roshar cleared his throat. “Not without you.” His gaze flicked from Arin to Kestrel. “Both of you.”

  Then Kestrel remembered that Roshar had more than one sister.

  The three of them entered the tent, the prince last, shoulders tight, eyes roaming everywhere except to where Risha stood near the tent’s center, her Valorian braids gone. Her black hair was cut close to the skull in the eastern style, her eyes rimmed with royal colors, her limbs lithe. The air in the tent was hot and dense.

  “Sister,” Roshar began, then faltered.

  She ignored him. Her gaze went to Kestrel, who didn’t understand the young woman’s presence here, or the animosity toward her brother, whom Risha must not have seen since having been taken hostage by the empire as a child.

  “I’ve come to bargain,” Risha said.

  Visibly hurt, her brother said, “I would give you anything.”

  “Not with you.”

  “I am so sorry. Risha, little sister—”

  “I trust you,” she said to Arin. “As for this one”—she tipped her chin at Kestrel—“Verex holds her in high regard.”

  Roshar said, “I regret every day since I saw you last.”

  “What do you regret most? This?” She gestured at his mutilations.

  “No.”

  “How you let our older sister persuade you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or when you saw the Valorians take me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe it was when you explained to a child that she wouldn’t be gone long, that she must pretend to be surprised when she’s taken hostage. All she has to do is kill one man.”

  Kestrel felt Arin’s tension, the way he looked at the prince. Arin’s worry was plain, his hands still at his sides yet slightly open, as if his friend might shatter and Arin needed to be ready to catch the pieces.

  “Could it be so hard to kill a man?” Risha continued. “Especially when we consider her talent. Look at the little girl’s grace. Her skill with a blade. A prodigy, surely. Never before seen in one so young. Yes, the assassination of the Valorian emperor should be easy for her.”


  Then Kestrel understood.

  Roshar said, “I regret it all.”

  “I have wondered, over the years, whether you were weak to let my sister rule you, or simply stupid.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “About what would happen to me after I killed the emperor? Brother, I thought about it when I walked the halls of the imperial palace. When I learned their language. Played childhood games with their prince. I thought about what the Valorians would do to the little girl who murdered their emperor.”

  A pressure tightened Kestrel’s lungs. Her father, when he had refused to be her father anymore, had transformed into something else. A block of opaque glass, maybe. She wanted to heft the weight of his betrayal and show it to Risha, to ask if it looked and weighed the same as what the princess carried, if it ever got any lighter, or could diminish like ice.

  Yet Kestrel also saw the ruined expression in Roshar’s eyes. Maybe she shouldn’t pity him, yet she did.

  Arin said, “Name what you want.”

  Risha settled into a teak chair. “I will never kill Verex’s father. But”—she flipped her hand at the three of them—“you could, with my help. Get rid of the emperor, and you can win this war without open battle.”

  “Wait,” Kestrel said. Cautious, focused now, she said, “You’re not even supposed to be here. Verex said you were safe at court.”

  At the sound of Verex’s name, some of the anger left Risha. “Verex had left. There was nothing to hold me there. I escaped.”

  “And found your way here? So easily?”

  The princess shrugged. “It’s not hard to find safe passage if you’re willing to kill for it.”

  In Herrani, Arin asked Kestrel, “What are you thinking?”

  She noticed the switch in language and recognized that Arin believed it was safe to speak in Herrani, but she didn’t risk an answer in front of Risha. She didn’t say that General Trajan could have sent the embittered eastern princess with tempting bait. Kestrel feared a trap. “What kind of help are you offering?”