Page 125 of The Winner's Kiss
“We can’t face them in open battle. Not the entire Valorian force. Lerralen proved that.”
“Inviting them to lay siege to the city is no answer. I already tried once to hold the city against the general. He made short work of its defenses. He breached the wall.”
“It’s repaired. This time, you have the east as an ally.”
“If you weren’t trying to protect me right now with false optimism, what would you really say?”
The sky had lightened. She heard the camp begin to stir.
“Be honest, Kestrel.”
“About the war.” Her voice was flat.
His expression shifted slightly. He set his thumb against his jaw, fanning dirty fingers over his scarred cheek. “Is there something else?”
His fatigue. His bruises. The pain he was trying to hide. The way her heart had grown scales. But inside: hot as a live coal.
He said, “We both know what will happen if we retreat to the city.”
So she said it. “The east might look at its losses, see a likely defeat, and leave . . . even if Roshar wants to stay.”
“And then it’s over.” Arin’s gray eyes were naked. “I can’t lose. There’ll be nothing left for me if I do.”
“That’s not true.”
But he had stood. The camp was awake. His small fire had gone out. The tea, forgotten, had cooled.
She kept her head bowed. “We must retreat inland until I think of something better.”
Arin stepped close to her, his footfalls hushed by the pale, sandy earth with its wisps of grass. He touched the nape of her neck, fingertips brushing down to the first bones of her back. He gently hooked the collar of her shirt.
Her skin sang so loud that she couldn’t think of any words, let alone the right ones, and by the time she knew that she should, that it was now, that it wouldn’t hurt to say what she felt, that she could give her love to someone without being broken for it, Arin had already gone.
Roshar had a litter brought to Arin, who glanced at it and the men assigned to carry it. “No,” said Arin.
“Idiot,” the prince sneered. “You were knocked unconscious. You look like hell. Get in the litter.”
“I’ll go in a cart,” Arin said, referring to wagons that carried the wounded. “I don’t need special treatment.”
“Oh yes, you do.”
Kestrel had never seen Roshar so angry.
“Why?” Arin squinted at him. “Because of your concern or because you want to send a message to the army?”
Kestrel could think of two messages: to show the Dacrans that the supposedly god-touched Herrani leader was weak, or to show the Herrani that the eastern prince valued Arin. Maybe both.
Roshar’s mouth twitched into an unhappy smile.
“Then I’ll ride,” Arin said.
When the day ended and the army set camp on a low hill whose bushes bore thick, oily green leaves, Roshar stood near his tent as an officer set it up. The prince’s fingers drummed the muscles of his crossed arms.
Kestrel didn’t know where Arin was. She thought he’d gone to water his new horse at a stream near camp, but when Roshar’s tent was up and the sun down, and Arin hadn’t returned, an icy mist of anxiety stole over her.
“He’ll be more comfortable there.” Roshar jerked his chin at his tent.
“And you?” she asked.
