Page 104 of The Winner's Kiss
The sun poured down. The gunners had loaded their weapons. Kestrel watched the road, dagger ready.
Cicadas. The flit of birdwings.
Maybe her father had recognized that the coded letter was false.
Maybe he wouldn’t take the bait.
A breath of wind. Hours passed, slow as the sweat traveling down Kestrel’s back.
Her limbs ached from being in the same position. She felt a strange energy slip over her and the gunners, an elastic tension that went tight at the smallest sound, then slackened in the heat, the waiting.
Dream, wait, startle, wait, dream.
The gunners, like her, crouched among ferns and saplings. Guns angled down. Small eastern crossbows were at the ready. A sirrin tree dripped orange sap, its spindly branches low and sticky.
Kestrel watched the road.
The rapid toc toc toc of a bird’s beak against bark. The brush of leaves. Then—faintly, stronger . . . the rhythm of thousands of boots on the paved road.
Chapter 28
Arin heard the valorians marching toward him. The sound made his chest harden with anticipation.
The Valorians neared. Still hidden behind the bend in the road, Arin turned to catch the eyes of his soldiers, no more than fifty of them, men and women, Herrani and Dacran both. All of them on foot, for stealth and to appear more vulnerable to the Valorian front lines. Some of the Herrani soldiers had lined their eyes in orange and red like Dacran warriors.
The sound of the Valorian army became deafening. Boots and hooves and wagon wheels. Heavy armor. Metal on metal.
His gaze on his soldiers, theirs on him. Arin lifted his hand: wait.
He edged around a tree to look down the road.
The Valorian cavalry. Enormous war horses. Officers in black and gold.
Close.
And one Valorian in particular, leading them, looking no different than he had eleven years ago. Large and armored, his insignia painted across the chest. A woven baldric over his chest, knotted at the shoulder. Helmet simple, made to show his face. That face.
Good, to have a little distance, to not quite see the general’s light brown eyes—too much like his daughter’s.
Better, to have this man move his horse nearer to Arin. Almost within his reach.
Do you want him? Arin’s god whispered.
Do you want to crush him between your hands?
Arin glanced back at his company. “Ready,” he whispered, then whispered it again in Dacran. His sword was drawn. His blood was hot.
Sweet child.
Mine own.
Go.
Kestrel saw the clash from above. Through a spyglass, she watched Valorian war horses rear. Not the general’s. He became motionless: a metal statue. His face was far away, his features a blur. Her stomach clenched.
And Arin?
Trees obscured her view. She couldn’t find him. She couldn’t see anything below the horses’ shoulders.
