Page 32 of The Winner's Kiss
Her reply was blunt. “No one would believe the things you say. Do you think having no memory makes me a fool?”
“No.”
“You say that I was your spy, which means that I worked for you. You say that I own you, which means that you work for me. You say that we are friends. Masters and slaves are not friends. And then there is this—” she broke off, unwilling to go any further. She was too aware of his heat next to her. “You say impossible things. I don’t believe you.”
His ribs expanded: hard wings against her back. “If you let me explain—”
“Stop talking. Stop talking. I don’t want to hear your voice.”
He fell silent. She lay rigid against him, wishing that she could make herself pull away.
At an uncertain hour of the night, she felt him draw breath. He was going to try again to explain, she thought. She went stony with panic. Again, she had that sense of falling, hurtling toward what she didn’t remember. The skull-crushing impact.
She didn’t want him to speak, she was suddenly not even sure he meant to speak. It occurred to her, strangely, that he might sing.
“Don’t.” Her command was sharp.
He didn’t.
Later, she woke because she was shaking again. He was gone.
It was still nighttime. He should not be gone.
She pushed out of the tent and saw him standing beneath an imaginary sky. Above the darkness, beyond the needlepoint stars, were swirls of green and pink edged with violet. She was sure she’d never seen anything like it.
He turned to meet her gaze, which had lowered from the sky to him. She didn’t understand how he wasn’t freezing. Then she saw the way his shoulders hunched and realized that he was. He looked back up at the night’s gauzy colors.
“What is that?” she asked.
“The gods.”
“They don’t exist.” She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew that she believed it.
“They do. They’ve come to punish me.”
“It was you,” she said, giving voice to her lurking suspicion, and knowing, as his face twisted, that she was right. “You’re the reason I was in that prison.”
He met her eyes. “Yes.”
Chapter 10
Arin wasn’t sure how they made it home.
Kestrel had worsened. She was sick during the day. At night her body became a silently keening thing. He would hold her, worried that it was wrong of him, even (sometimes, especially) when she seemed to welcome it. Then it was as if a wave washed through her and pushed her out into sleep. He felt her go, and became wrenchingly grateful, while knowing that what ever comfort he could offer was something she didn’t actually want.
She refused to let him help her inside his house. The glowing summer day did little to warm her. She huddled inside his dirty coat, and their progress up the path to the house was slow enough that by the time they reached the main entrance, the entire house hold had gathered to see them. Kestrel kept her eyes on her unsteady feet, but Arin knew that she was aware of the crowd; her mouth had set into a grim line.
Roshar came to them first, boots crunching on the gravel. He was uncharacteristically silent. Appalled, when he wasn’t someone given to being appalled by the appearance of others.
“I want Sarsine,” Arin told him, but Sarsine was already there. Kestrel eyed her: a moment’s worth of hesitation. Then she accepted Sarsine’s arm, and Arin had to hide the sting of what could be nothing other than hurt jealousy, after which he had to hide his shame at such a petty feeling. He trailed after them, hands upsettingly empty. He wasn’t ready to be useless. He had at least been useful on the tundra.
Arin followed them up the stairs to the east wing, where Sarsine opened the door to the suite where Kestrel had once stayed. When they entered, Arin searched Kestrel’s face for some sign of recognition. She kept her gaze averted from his in a way that showed that she knew she was being scrutinized, and why.
Sarsine settled Kestrel onto the nearest soft chair and knelt before her, removing the battered shoes that were barely recognizable as having once been a lady’s slippers.
Her expression flickering, Kestrel studied Sarsine’s dark, bent head. Kestrel’s voice, which she’d used less and less in the past few days, was hoarse. “Are you my maid?”
His cousin flinched. He saw Kestrel realize that she’d said something wrong. Sarsine looked to him. He leaned and whispered in her ear.
