Page 115 of The Winner's Kiss
“Even if I’m not wrong, and we arrive before the Valorians land, it’s a mixed blessing. Him landing late means he’s landing with a larger force. A robust artillery. More people and more cannon take longer to mobilize. They’re also harder to defeat.”
Javelin knocked his nose against her shoulder. Arin saw her smile. A quiet, lost feeling stole over him like sleep or a farewell.
“I told my father I loved him.” Her words were abrupt. “It was the last thing I said to him.”
Arin didn’t look at her. He didn’t want her to see his face just then.
“I saw a basket when we were in the wheatlands,” she said. “It had lost its shape entirely. You couldn’t hold anything in it. You couldn’t hold it.”
“Kestrel, you are not a basket.”
“I think—” She stopped.
He wondered if something can be so hard to say that it becomes hard even to say that it is hard. “You can’t tell me what you think?”
“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.”
