Page 90 of The Winner's Kiss
“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.
Another scream broke the night. It came again from the tent.
Arin strode to the prince. “Roshar. A word?”
“I was wondering when you’d join the fun,” the prince answered in Valorian. He grinned at the girl. “I’ll be back.”
When they were out of earshot of the scout, Roshar dropped his smile. “To be clear, this was Kestrel’s idea.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Faking a torture.”
Arin thought he understood, and calmed down a little. “Is it working?”
“It might, if you don’t interrupt again.”
“Let me know if you learn something.”
“Of course.”
“Where’s Kestrel?”
“She wants to be alone right now,” Roshar said after a slight pause. “Better let her be.”
But Roshar’s tone made Arin remember how the prince had smiled at him, the reins of two horses in his hands on the grounds of Arin’s home. This made him think of Kestrel’s refusal earlier, before nightfall, to make him any promises. Ever since the sun had gone down, Arin’s nerves had tightened with anxiety even as he’d warned himself not to push things, to be different from how he usually was, to not overreact or feel too much or say too much. Let her be, he’d told himself, exactly as Roshar was telling him now. But another scream rose in the distance, and even though Arin knew that this was a trick, it was Kestrel’s trick. Her tricks tended to be shaped like a nest, each twig and straw in place, hiding a dangerous creature Arin never saw until it was too late.
