The Winner's Kiss (28 page)

A twig lay in her path. She paused, then deliberately stomped it.
Crack
.

“Pity.” The voice echoed in the quiet clearing. “You were doing so nicely.”

Roshar. Her eyes found him several paces away, leaning against a tree, watching her. She approached. There was blood on him.

“Sometimes, little ghost, you remind me of my sister,” he said.

Her brows shot up.

He laughed. “Not that one.”

Kestrel wasn't sure what connection he saw between her and Risha. Because his younger sister was a hostage in the imperial court? Maybe.

“Whose blood?” She tipped her chin in the direction of his spattered forearms.

“A Valorian scout. About your size. I came looking for you, thought you might like to try her armor. Stylish. Light.
Very
Valorian. Good condition. Nary a scratch in the leather.”

“What about the scout?”

“Hard to catch. Harder to subdue.”

She gave him a level look.

Roshar tugged a cropped ear. “She's alive.”

“When that scout doesn't report back, the general will know we're here.”

“All the more reason to find out what she knows.”

“Don't . . . press her.”

“Kestrel,” he said quietly, “the blood is from the fight when we captured her. Not torture.”

“So you won't?”

“Now, it would be nice if information fell out of the sky. Given that it doesn't, it is still nevertheless comforting that certain people do horrible things so that other people don't have to. We should be grateful to such people. Or we should at least not ask questions when we don't want answers.”

“She can't help us. Valorian scouts operate in relays. She doesn't report directly to the general's camp, but to a station between there and here. An officer remains at the station and sends hawks with coded messages back to the main camp, which keeps the scout from knowing too much: she won't know how the general's army might have shifted in formation, or what the conditions there are. She won't know the codes.”

Roshar tilted his head, regarding her. “Do
you
know the codes?”

Kestrel nudged her memory. It pushed back. “I might have,” she said slowly, “once.”

“
I'm sure the scout knows
something
useful.”

“There's no point torturing her for information she doesn't have. Let her be.”

His expression was difficult to read. “I'll do as you wish,” he said finally. “For now.”

“Thank you.”

He slouched against a tree. “Do you forgive me for earlier?”

“That piece of pageantry in the village? I'm not the one you should be asking.”

“It's good for Arin.”

“Good for you, too.”

His black eyes met hers. “You want to win?”

“Yes.”

“If Arin is admired and my people are trusted, does that help or hurt?”

“Help,” she acknowledged.

“Come try your armor. I think it'll fit.”

Arin came into Roshar's tent just as the prince tightened the last buckle on Kestrel's armor. Arin was shaven, his hair wet. What ever he was going to say died on his lips.

“Aren't you pleased?” Roshar said.

Arin immediately left, dropping the flap of the tent's opening behind him.

Kestrel found him by his fire at the edge of the camp. It had grown late. He'd pitched his tent on the outskirts. She
realized
that, at each day's end, he'd been setting his tent farther from every one else.

He fed the fire. She crouched beside him, the leather armor creaking. He flinched at the sound. “I'm sorry,” he said finally. “It's hard to look at you like that.”

“I'm still me,” she said, and was surprised at herself for trying to convince him that no matter how she seemed to change, she remained the same person. This wasn't her usual line of argument. As she thought about how she looked in Valorian armor, and whether she looked like herself or not, a germ of an idea began to grow.

“Promise me you'll stay out of harm's way,” he said. “I don't want you on the battlefield.”

“It's not fair of you to ask that when you'd never do the same.”

“The risk is different for you and me.”

She became angry. “Why, because you're god-touched? Because you're good with a sword and I'm not?”

“That's part of it.”

“That matters less than you think. People who are good at fighting die in war all the time, and people who aren't can find ways to win.” Her idea—the armor, the Valorian scout, a plan—took shape. Kestrel's anger carved its details and made it perfect.

“Yes,” Arin said, “but even so, the risk for you is still different—”

“Stop saying that.”

“It
is
.” His face was unhappy. “There
is
a difference between you and me. If I die, you'll survive. If you die, it will destroy me.”

Her
shoulders sagged. She couldn't bear his hollow expression. The anger drained from her.

“Please,” he said. “Promise me. You'll still play a role. Tell Roshar and me what to do, and we'll listen. But not the battlefield. You're to stay safe.”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Swear.”

“I won't be part of the battle. I give you my word.”

She moved to leave. She'd not gone two paces before he stood directly in her path. His eyes were narrow. “A trick.”

She spread her open hands. “You asked. I swore. We're done.”

“You swore
very specifically
. I need for you to promise. You'll stay off the battlefield
and
be safe. Say it. I beg you.”

“I'll make no promises to you that you won't make to me.”

She pushed past him.

Chapter 23

She entered Roshar's tent. “I need your help.”

Blinking, he propped himself up on his bed. He said groggily, “And I need a real door. With a lock.”

“I have an idea.”

“I don't know you all that well, and
still
hearing you say that makes me very, very worried.”

“Listen to me.”

“If I do, can I go back to sleep? Being a fearless leader is exhausting.”

“It's about the Valorian scout.”

“You said she was useless.”

“In terms of what she can
tell
us. But if we play things right, her capture will be to our advantage.”

Roshar was fully awake now. “Go on.”

“The general is in his position with his troops at the estate they captured. A scout station is set between his position and a target. An officer remains at that station with message hawks. Meanwhile, scouts run from the station to
evaluate
the enemy, then report back to the station. The officer sends a coded message by hawk to the general, so if a scout's captured, she can't share much with the enemy, and since scouts get close to the target,
they
can't launch a hawk. Too visible to us. We might shoot it down, then track and capture the scout. That Valorian you caught spying on us can't tell us any codes, and won't be able to say much about the general's forces. But she
will
know the location of the relay station and to whom she reports.”

“You want us to hunt down and extract information from the officer?”

She shook her head. “Something better.”

“Pray tell, little ghost.”

“Send me in her place.”

He stared.

Kestrel said, “I'll pretend to be her.”

“Please understand. When I look at you as if you're crazy, it's not that I judge you for your insanity.”

“I fit in her armor. I'm her size. I'm Valorian.”

“You don't look like her. Just because you're Valorian doesn't mean the officer at the relay station won't notice that you're a
completely different person
.”

“It's night. I can report to the officer while keeping my distance.”

“I'm going back to sleep. Wake me when you're sane.”

Impatiently, Kestrel said, “What color is her hair?”

“Different.”

“How different?”

“Brownish. All right, maybe not
that
different from yours in the dark, but—”

“
I'll braid my hair like hers, wear every thing she wore. Did you search her pockets? She'll have had a token. Sometimes the general sends an officer to relieve the one at the station. Then the new officer and a scout—and there are many of these scouts, not just this one reporting to a station—present a token to confirm their identity. We might get lucky. There might be a new officer at the station, one who's never seen the scout but knows her only by name. Roshar, no one would expect someone in your army to impersonate a Valorian scout. Normally, it wouldn't be possible. Not for an easterner. Not for a Herrani.”

“What if the Valorians know you're with us? That stationed officer might be aware of it.”

“If my father knows, he'll do his best to keep it hidden from as many people as possible.”

“Why?”

There was a lump in her throat. “He's ashamed of me. It would shame him, for others to know.”

Roshar settled back into the bed, arms folded. “What would we gain if you pretended to be the Valorian scout?”

“Misinformation. Let's assume the general knows of our presence here. If he doesn't, he will soon enough. The issue isn't whether he'll attack. It's
how
. I can influence that. I'll say you have a light force, which other Valorian scouts—if they're eyeing us—will confirm. But I'll also say that I overheard plans that you'll entrench yourselves in Errilith's manor.”

Roshar was already off the bed, leafing through the maps spread out on the table in the tent's center.

“He'd take the main road then,” Kestrel said. “He
wouldn't
expect resistance along the way—or at most he'd expect stealth attacks by small bands of soldiers. There to strike and run, to whittle away at him, like by burning the supply wagons. Nothing serious. Nothing he couldn't handle. Nothing that would stop him from taking the easiest—and most obvious way—to Errilith.”

“ There are hills along the main road outside the estate. I can set our forces on either side.”

“Use the guns. They have a longer range than crossbows. If you position the gunners far enough away, they can shoot without ever being touched by Valorian fire.”

“I'm sorry I said you were crazy, little ghost.”

Kestrel remembered how it felt to lose to her father at Bite and Sting, at Borderlands, at anything he chose to play. The dig at her pride. A hurt certainty that she'd never be able to prove herself to him. Embarrassment for
wanting
to prove herself.

She remembered her hands clinging to his jacket, her whole self reduced to two claws as she pleaded with him.

War wasn't a game, but she wanted badly to make her father know how it felt to lose.

Roshar said, “Tell me what you need.”

“A horse. Javelin might be recognized. Prob ably not—I don't intend for the horse to be seen—but better not risk it, and I want to get there while it's still dark. Scouts run on foot, so I'll have to tether the horse at a distance from the station. As for the station . . .”

“You need the location.”

“And the scout's gear.”

Roshar clicked his teeth; a chastising sort of sound. “The
gear
is easy. If you want the location of the scout's camp, we need to revisit our conversation this after noon about not-so-nice means of extracting valuable information.”

“Don't.”

“I don't enjoy it. But she's not likely to tell us just because we ask nicely.”

“You can't.”

He drew an impatient breath, and she knew what he'd say, knew the arguments, the costs and benefits. She knew that Roshar, with his mutilated face, understood what it was like to be subjected to pain. She wanted to say all this before he did, and to find a convincing reason that he was wrong. There was no reason she thought he'd accept. She couldn't think of another way.

Then she did. “Don't do it. Trick her instead.”

Roshar squinted. “Explain.”

“When Valorians enlist, they do so partly because of friendships. There are lovers in a camp. Even without that, there's a sense of belonging. People you'd die for, and do anything to protect. She'll have someone she cares about among the scouts. Take her token. Cast it with a mold. A bit of soap, maybe, or wax. Melt down metal to match the token and make a new one. Return hers, show her the other one. Say you found its mate on another scout who claims to be her friend. Promise to torture her fellow scout if she doesn't give up the location of the officer.”

“She might care more about the officer than this other scout.”

“Try.”

He
shrugged, then nodded. “I hope that in your bag of delightful schemes, you have one for how to deal with Arin.”

“No.”

“Dear ghost, he will tie you and me up and dump us both into a very deep hole before he allows you to do what you plan to do.”

“No more
allowing
,” Kestrel said, “and no more lies.”

Chapter 24

Arin woke to the sound of screams.

He shoved out of his tent and into the night. But the camp was calm, undisturbed—though soldiers near their fires seemed to have stopped in midconversation to eye the tent from which the screams came and then choked off into a sob.

Arin asked the whereabouts of the prince and was directed to a nearby tree, where Roshar leaned over the bound Valorian scout, hissing a threat too low for Arin to understand. The Valorian girl—just a girl, Arin saw, younger than Kestrel—had her eyes squeezed shut. She strained back against the tree, bare heels digging into the dirt and moss. She wore an eastern tunic and trousers. A bandage on her arm was rusted with blood. She opened her eyes: glazed with fear, darting all over, skittering across Arin's face as he froze. How wide they were, how dark, how like the eyes of the woman he'd killed on the ship.