The Winner's Kiss

by Marie Rutkoski

  And now: the clatter of hooves. A cream of sweat on the horse’s neck. Wan moonlight. Hard to see pits and cracks in the road. If the horse stumbled at this pace, it’d shatter a bone. Toss its rider. Kestrel would break her neck on the paving stones.

  She dug her heels in. She had mere hours before the sky blued and lightened. There’d be no chance then to pretend to be the scout.

  Black trees jolted and wavered on either side of the road. Her throat was dry. Sweat salted her lips.

  She remembered Arin’s hand slipping down the length of her braid, letting go. The way he’d looked at her.

  The trees gave way abruptly to grass and seemed to topple back, crash noiselessly behind her as she sped forward. The horse’s stride lengthened along the meadow. It felt like she rode over a black sea.

  A smudge of trees in the distance. West.

  Off the road now. Slower. Cantering over the meadow toward the western forest. She let the horse walk, felt its sides bellow and heave against her legs.

  Low branches to duck under. Watch the knees. The trees grew close together; no path here. Straining to see through different shades of shadow, Kestrel picked a way through the woods until it didn’t make sense anymore to ride.

  It was when she tethered the horse (there was no sound of fresh water, and that was cruel, she hated to leave the horse like that, neck drooping, coat furred with sweat) that Kestrel first felt it. A slow fear, heavy, like sadness . . . which made her realize that her fear was a kind of sadness, because she couldn’t be better than her fear. She had believed that she could be better when she’d stood before Arin and demanded that he trust her. When she felt, finally, the truth of his trust, warm and solid in his long limbs.

  But this was how it ended: her, alone, stepping through the woods, afraid.

  She paused, tipped her head back, and glanced up at the sharp stars.

  See how brave they are, whispered the memory of her father’s voice. She’d been very young when he’d said this. Bright and still. Those stars are the kind of soldiers who stand and fight.

  A rush of anger.

  Even the stars.

  Don’t just stand there, she told herself. Run.

  She jogged through the trees. Her breath rasped. She abandoned what she’d been feeling and thought only of the mark on the map and reaching it while it was still dark.

  It was the owl’s hour. One last loop of the night, a final hunt before dawn crept in.

  Kestrel slowed. Her legs were jelly. She drank from the canteen strapped over one shoulder and across her chest. Swished and spat. Her bad knee throbbed a little, but she realized—distantly, curiously—that her body had grown strong. The days of riding had hardened her legs. It felt good to run.

  But her strength also reminded her of her weakness, of how easily her body had given out on the tundra. The unlocking of the prison gate. Relief, joy. Then the chase. Legs collapsing, mud, rope. The dress ripped open along her spine.

  Kestrel capped the canteen, screwed it.

  She ran again.

  The sky was dark blue when she saw a flicker of orange in the trees. An oil lamp.

  Her heart hit her ribs. She slowed her run, moving toward the clearing. The lamplight swung. She’d been heard.

  “Hail,” she tried to call as she threaded through the last copse of trees, her sides heaving. She had no breath. She coughed and tried again. “Hail Emperor Lycian, General of Wolves, father of a hundred thousand children.” It was his military title as well as his political one. Though the emperor hadn’t fought in a war since the conquest of Herran, he retained his rank as first general, the only person to whom her father must answer.

  “Alis?” called the voice behind the uplifted lamp.

  “Stay back. Sir.”

  “You sound strange.”

  Kestrel dug out the token. “Catch.” She flipped it into the air and heard the man snag it—or heard, rather, the nothingness of the coin not hitting earth.

  The lamp moved closer. Kestrel couldn’t see the features of the man who held it, only his tall broad form as he approached.

  Kestrel coughed. “No, please stay where you are, sir. I’m sick.”

  “Come to my tent, then, and report there. Rest.”

  “It’s a disease, something eastern. The barbarians brought it. I might infect you.”

  The officer’s boots came to a gritty halt. “What kind of disease?”

  “It starts with a cough.” Kestrel hoped it’d explain any difference in voice. “Then pustules. The sores weep. I hadn’t realized that one of the wagons held bodies. I’d crept close to their camp and looked inside the supplies to see how well fortified they were.” It felt strange to speak in Valorian again. “The rebels mean to withstand a siege. They have plague bodies to launch over the walls of Errilith manor. They’ll infect us when we attack. They seem to be immune.”

  “You need a physician.” He sounded genuinely concerned. “We can quarantine you.”

  “Please, let me continue to do what I can for our victory.” Kestrel conjured the ghost of her very young self as she spoke. She remembered that little girl, so eager to be her father’s warrior. She spoke with that girl’s voice. “As long as I can stay on my feet, I can still scout. I want to. Let me bring glory to the empire.”

  He hesitated, then said, “The glory is yours,” which were the traditional words offered when a soldier accepted a mission almost certain to end in death.

  The Valorian officer shifted in the shadows and was quiet. The sky appeared to grow a little lighter, but Kestrel told herself that it was her imagination, that the sky couldn’t possibly do that in the span of two heartbeats. She was letting anxiety rule her.

  “Your report, then,” the officer said. “Tell me their numbers.”

  “One thousand soldiers. Maybe fifteen hundred.” Roshar’s force near Errilith numbered nearly twice that amount.

  “Components?”

  “Little cavalry, mostly infantry.” True. “From the looks of it, young.” True. “Inexperienced.” Not true. “Light cannon, and not many of them.” True, unfortunately. “Some tension between the Dacran and Herrani factions.” Less than she’d expect. “Tension over who should command.” Not true. Not exactly. Sometimes, though, she caught the way the prince eyed Arin with pensive hesitancy, as if he secretly believed Arin to be a wholly other creature than human, that a day would come when Arin’s skin would split and whatever was lurking inside him would climb out.

  In fact, most people looked at him that way.

  “Position?” the officer asked.

  “By now they’ll have reached the manor.”

  “Tell me about the formation of their units, their positions within the army.”

  Kestrel answered, relieved. He seemed to believe her. This was easier than she’d thought. She mixed her lies and truths, setting them down like planks of joined wood, sturdy enough to bear the weight of this man’s trust.

  But when she stopped speaking, the silence lasted longer than it should have.

  “Alis,” said the officer, “where are you from?”

  She pretended to misunderstand the question. “Sir, I came from the rebels’ camp.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Where are you from?”

  Her confidence vanished. He suspected her. She didn’t know anything of the scout’s history. Kestrel had taken the token and the map and had left as quickly as she could.

  Carefully, Kestrel told the officer, “I thought you already knew.”

  “Remind me.”

  The lamplight was strong enough that he’d see if she began to inch a hand toward her dagger. She stayed still. Gambling, she told him, “I’m a colonial girl.” The odds were with her; almost all of Valoria was a colony.

  “But from where, exactly?”

  She coughed again, making the sound murky and wet, and tried to think. “From here.” Scouts deployed in Herran would have to know the language. Ideally the terrain, too. The scout—Alis—had been youn
g, Roshar had said. Green, to be so easily caught. If the general chose someone with little experience to gather intelligence on the enemy, it must be because she had advantages that outweighed her inexperience, such as familiarity with the country.

  “I’m from here, too,” the officer said softly.

  “Yes, sir.” Her heart sped.

  “I spent my youth on a farm west of here.” He took a step closer. She held her ground. He wasn’t close enough yet to see her clearly; she couldn’t see him clearly. But she caught, now, the slight accent in his voice. She would have had a colonial accent, too, if her father hadn’t ordered her tutors to hammer any sign of it from her voice. In Valorian, she possessed the voice of a capital courtier, polished and pure.

  “I want my home back,” the officer said.

  “So do I.” She kept her voice low, rough from coughing, but added a subtle lilt—just enough that he might think the accent had been there all along, and that he’d somehow missed it. “What are my orders?” She tried to keep the question steady. Her pulse was relentless.

  “Return to your post. I’ll inform the general of your report.”

  “Yes, sir.” The words came out in a relieved rush.

  “Not quite yet.” The officer set the lamp down on the forest floor and backed away. “Pick up the lamp.”

  Dread mounted in her throat. “Sir?”

  “Pick up the lamp and show me your face.”

  “But.” She swallowed. “The infection.”

  “I want to see it. I’ll keep my distance.”

  “The risk—”

  “Soldier. Pick up the lamp. Show me your face.”

  Trust me, she’d told Arin. She remembered the strength in her voice and tried to summon that strength again. She thought, fleetingly, that this must be what memory was for: to rebuild yourself when you lose the pieces.

  Slowly, Kestrel walked toward the lamp. She kept her head down, though she didn’t think he could see her face yet—she’d seen nothing of his during the moment after he’d set the lamp at his feet, just before he’d backed away. She closed one eye: an old trick her father had taught her for night-fighting that involved torches or lamps. One eye adjusted to see by torchlight. One eye kept in reserve, to see in total darkness if the light went out.

  “I don’t want anyone to see me,” she told the officer. “The disease has ruined my face.”

  “Show me. Now.”

  She grabbed the lamp and smashed it against a boulder.

  He swore. Her dagger was in her hand. She heard him draw his sword.

  I don’t want to kill, she’d told Arin long ago. Even if she’d wanted to, she’d fail. She felt the memory of failure, of her father watching while she couldn’t fight back, her arm sagging beneath the pressure of someone else’s sword.

  “Who are you?” He advanced, his blade probing the shadows: darting, cautious, blind. His sight hadn’t yet adjusted.

  But it would.

  The officer would capture her and bring her to the general’s camp.

  There’d be questions. She’d be made to answer. Pressed, split open along her weakest lines. She thought of the prison, her twilight drug, mud and agony. She imagined her father’s face as she was brought before him. She saw it in her memory. Her future. She saw it right now.

  Pulse wild, stomach tight, she crouched to grasp a handful of soil. He heard her and turned. She flung the grit into his face.

  A dirty trick, she heard her father say. Dishonorable.

  But dirty tricks were her specialty.

  She darted around the man, came up behind him, and slid the dagger’s tip into his back, just below the ribs. “Which code do you use to communicate with the general? Tell me.”

  “Never.”

  She dug a little harder. “I’ll kill you.”

  He hooked a leg around hers and jerked hard. She toppled. Hit the ground. She scrambled to get up, and found a sword’s point at her throat.

  “My turn to ask questions.” The officer kicked the dagger from her hand.

  A bird sang. Morning was coming. Kestrel was dimly aware of this, and of the horse she had tethered and now would never untether. She imagined Arin, who wouldn’t be sleeping. He’d be watching the sky and the road. She felt the grass beneath his hand, damp with summer dew.

  Half sitting, half crouching, she backed shakily away from the sword.

  It followed. An axinax sword. She recognized the shorter blade, favored for fighting in forests. She shrank from it, felt a sharp rock dig into her back, and thought, oddly, of the piano. A whole passage burst into her mind, one that she hadn’t played in years but had loved for its dramatic swings from high to low registers. She had liked to cross her right hand over and drive the sound down into darkness. She didn’t have to stretch hard. Although Kestrel was small, she had long hands. Long arms.

  Very good reach.

  She groped the forest floor behind her and curled her fingers around the jagged rock that poked into her back. She swung it, smashing the man’s hand where he held the sword’s hilt.

  He made a terrible sound. The sword fell. Its tip glanced off her thigh, slicing through her trousers. It struck the earth. Pain seared down her leg.

  But she was up. Her fisted rock crunched into the man’s face. His head dented. Her fingers were greasy and warm. Liquid ran under the leather of her forearm guard.

  He thudded down. She dropped the rock.

  The birds were mad. There was a whole chorus of them now. Her thigh was hot, sticky. There was something meaty on her fingernails. Her hand was a glove of blood.

  I don’t want to kill, she had told Arin. She slid into the memory and saw herself sitting in her music room across from Arin. An open window sighed on its hinges. Warm autumn air. Bite and Sting tiles, all faceup.

  Her hands were shaking. She was going to come apart.

  And if you do?

  Her plan was already in near ruins.

  Salvage the situation, then.

  Look at the body. Go on. Make certain he’s dead.

  He was.

  Now yourself. Look.

  Kestrel peeled back the torn flap of cloth at her thigh. Blood seeped, it hurt, but she thought that maybe it wasn’t too bad. Her leg could bear her weight.

  She wiped her bloody hand in the dirt.

  The tent, she told herself. Go.

  She walked unsteadily to the officer’s small tent and entered.

  A pallet. A caged messenger hawk, hooded, sleeping. A stool, set before a table that bore papers, a pen, an inkstand, and a set of counters.

  The papers.

  She went for them, snatching a page. Then she dropped it, her stomach roiling when she realized that it was a letter the dead man had been writing to his mother.

  Keep looking, she told herself. Forget his broken face.

  She examined each page in the small pile, searching for any scrap of a coded message between the officer and her father. Since the military used several different codes, she had to find evidence of which one the officer had been using. Maybe she’d recognize it. Remember. Decode it.

  But there was no evidence, only the letter to his mother and blank pages.

  She limped back outside and saw, in the rising dawn, the man’s crushed brow, the jelly of one eye. She swallowed hard, then searched the man and found his seal.

  Relief. The seal could be useful. But there was no coded message. She had hoped to try to fake a report from the officer to her father.

  An impossible thought.

  A stupid one.

  She didn’t know the code, didn’t even know the dead man’s name. She wanted to bury her face in her hands.

  She returned to the tent and sank down onto the stool. Blood leaked from the cut on her leg. She should bandage it. She had no bandage.

  The hawk flexed its claws around its perch, shifting its weight with a scratchy, rustling sound. She glanced at it, feeling close to frustrated despair. Then her gaze fell to the counters. Beads of wood that
slid along skinny steel rods in their wooden frame. Used for accounting.

  Kestrel touched a bead. A memory unfolded inside her.

  She unscrewed the pot of ink and found a blank sheet of paper. Glancing at the officer’s letter to his mother, Kestrel got a feel for how to imitate the man’s handwriting. She inked her pen and composed the first line of code.

  Chapter 26

  The horse trudged up the hill to the camp, its head hanging. The sun had climbed; it was near noon, and the day promised to be hot. It squeezed Kestrel’s heart to hear the horse’s breath. She’d ridden him too hard. But her left leg . . .

  The wound had stopped bleeding. The flap of her sliced trouser leg stuck to it, hardened with clotted blood. The cut stung and the skin around it felt fiery. She was going to have to peel the fabric away to see what was under neath.

  The horse slowed and sighed. Kestrel didn’t have it in her to force him forward. She shifted to dismount, then winced and stopped when the movement opened the cut along its edges.

  Thirsty. The sun made her queasy. At the scout’s station, she’d splashed water from her canteen onto the wound. In the forest, when she’d untied the horse, she’d poured water into her palm for the animal to drink, and did it again until there was nothing left.

  Now she could see the pale peaks of tents along the rise of the hills. She was close. And really, her poor horse. She’d moved again to dismount when she heard her name.

  Arin was coming down the steep hill, skidding on the grass in his haste yet keeping his balance. A breeze tore through his hair, kited his shirt. His descent became a breakneck run, and Kestrel wondered wryly whether the god of death watched over him after all, or maybe the god of grace, or heights, or goats, or what ever god might allow Arin to run like that and not trip over a hillock and come tumbling down. It seemed a little unfair.

  He jogged up to her, his hair heavy with sweat. His skin had darkened on the trek south, but he seemed paler now as he looked up at her, shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t slept.

  He noticed her hand first. Her left side was hidden from his view. It touched her how his gaze went straight to her bloody right hand, his eyes flashing with the same thing she’d feel if her fingers were damaged, if she couldn’t play, and had to hobble along the piano keys when she wanted to fly.