Her hand dropped from her dagger’s hilt. “Verex.”
He stood awkwardly in the moonlight: long and slopey, shoulders narrow, eyes large, his fair hair ruffled and feathery. When he met her gaze, he let out such a large breath that his chest seemed to cave in. “I was so worried for you,” he said.
Kestrel crossed the sand and flung herself into his open arms.
“I tried to help,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“I sent a key to the prison camp.”
“I got it.”
“I’m ashamed of myself.”
“Verex.”
“I couldn’t do more. I wanted to. I should have.”
She pulled back, stared at him. “That key was everything to me.”
“Not enough. My father—”
“Did he find out?” Her blood went cold. “Did he punish you?”
“He talked as if he knew it was me. ‘Well, dear boy, have you heard? A prisoner tried to escape the north. Somehow—how, do you think?—she laid her filthy little hands on a key.’ Never acknowledging that the prisoner was you. Never accusing me of having sent the key. Just watching and smiling. He said—he told me that the prisoner was tortured. Killed. And I—” Verex’s face twisted.
“I’m all right, I’m here.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“What did he do to you?”
Verex flopped one hand. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“Nothing that mattered. I think he enjoyed it: that I knew, that I tried. Failed. I have my spies in the court—I must—and when you disappeared I found out too quickly what had happened to you. He wanted me to know. All the while, he said nothing of your absence, only informed me of the story he’d tell the court, and that I’d be sailing to the southern isles. He said he’d watch over Risha while I was away.” Verex thrust his hands in his pockets, slumped his shoulders. “He said, ‘I know how you care for the eastern princess.’”
“Did he—?”
“No.” His voice went hard. “He knows that if he did anything to her I’d kill him. She’s safe in the capital.”
“What are you doing here? Verex, you’re no fighter.”
He laughed a little. “I’d have said the same of you. Yet look at you.”
“You knew it was me.”
“You have this way when you walk. You stride.”
“I didn’t expect to see the emperor here, let alone you.”
“I’m mostly here to be looked at. The emperor came with me in tow for the morale of the troops. There’ve been a few military setbacks in this campaign.” He peered at her. “Your doing?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer. For the first time, it occurred to her that it might not matter that Verex was her friend. Maybe he would seize her anyway.
Maybe he’d cry an alarm.
Maybe he couldn’t be her friend when it seemed so obvious that she was his people’s enemy.
She took a step back, then stopped when hurt flickered across his face.
“I think,” Verex said gently, “that your father knows it’s your doing.”
“My father?”
“I didn’t make much of it before, but after the Valorian victory on the beach, an officer mentioned the ambush along the road near Errilith. Said things about Arin. What would be done to him, if caught alive.”
Kestrel’s stomach twisted.
“Said something about that … slave with the clever tricks.”
In Verex’s pause, she could hear the foulness of what he didn’t repeat.
“Your father made no reply at first. Then: ‘Not his tricks. Not his alone.’ And the officer smirked and said, ‘You mean the no-nosed barbarian.’ But I don’t think, now, that the general did mean the eastern prince. After the battle on the beach, I saw him searching … he went among the prisoners taken. He turned over bodies in the sand. The way he looked…”
“Don’t tell him you saw me.”
“Maybe he should know.”
“Verex, don’t. Swear.”
Worriedly, he scanned her face. “You have my word. But…” He raked a hand through his fine hair, then peered at her through narrowed eyes. He lifted the empty bag at her hip, dropped it, rubbed his fingers and thumb together, and sniffed the unmistakable odor of black powder. A slow horror stole over his face. “What exactly are you doing here?”
“Just let me walk away. Forget you saw me, please.”
“I can’t do that. You’d make me responsible for whatever you’re going to do.”
“No one will get hurt if you keep people away from the supply wagons. Make up some excuse. No one will die.”
“Tonight, maybe. What about tomorrow, when we need what you plan to destroy? You’re after the black powder, aren’t you?”
She said nothing.
Softly, he said, “I could stop you so easily, right now.”
“If you did, you’d hand your father yet another victory.”
He sighed. “The awful thing is, part of me wants to please him, despite everything.”
“No. Please don’t. You can’t.”
“But I do want to … and I hate myself for wanting to please him, and I can’t think of a way to do it without hurting you. Maybe you could think of a way, but would never tell me. You’d fall into my father’s hands again, and your father’s hands, and I’d never forgive myself.”
Kestrel told him that she would miss him. She told him, quietly, as the sound of waves pushed and pulled at the night, that she wished he were her brother, that she was sorry, and grateful to know him.
There was no sound other than the waves as she walked away.
When she reached Arin, he released the parted bushes and lowered the eastern crossbow he’d held cranked at the ready.
“You wouldn’t have,” she stated.
Arin looked at her. He certainly would.
“Verex is my friend.”
Arin unloaded the crossbow. His fingers were trembling. “You greeted him like a friend,” he acknowledged. “But…”
They both looked back toward the camp. The slender shadow of the Valorian prince slowly retraced his steps. He dissolved into the camp’s firelight, a good distance from the supply wagons.
Kestrel untied the empty sack from her waist and dusted her hands, her clothes. “Matches, now.”
Arin’s hands still weren’t sure of themselves. He fumbled with the box. She took it, struck a match, and touched it to the trail of black powder she’d left behind. It sparked, lit, and burned down the line.
They ran.
The explosion blossomed over the beach.
* * *
They stayed off the road as they rode through the dark. Their pace was slow. Moonlight painted the land. They were silent, but Kestrel knew that it couldn’t be due to the same thing, because she hadn’t told Arin that she’d seen her father in the Valorian camp. The sight of him lingered with her. Her love for him closed within her like a fist. Nervous, bruised. She despised it. Wasn’t it the love of a beaten animal, slinking back to its master? Yet here was the truth: she missed her father.
It seemed too awful to tell Arin.
But finally, when they stopped to sleep, not bothering with a tent, just bedding down in a hollow they’d trampled in the tall grass with their boots, Arin spoke. He slid a hand under her tunic to touch her bare back, then stopped. “Is this all right?”
She wanted to explain that she hadn’t thought she’d ever bear anyone’s touch on her scarred back, that it should revolt him and revolt her. Yet his touch made her feel soft and new. “Yes.”
He pushed the shirt up, seeking the lash marks, tracing their length. She let herself feel it, and shivered, and thought of nothing. But a tension grew. He was still, but for his hand.
Kestrel said, “What’s wrong?”
“Your life would have been easier if you had married the Valorian prince.”
She drew herself up so that she could face him. The scent of black powder clung to them both. His skin smelled like a blown-out candle. “But not better,” she said.
* * *
It was the next day’s end when they caught up with Roshar’s army, which had stopped—oddly—at a time too early to make camp, and rather late for a moment’s rest. More than that, it was the uncertainty of the soldiers that gave the halt a strange feeling. They looked as if they’d had no orders at all. They held ranks, but loosely, and were murmuring among themselves, armor still buckled, horses saddled. Several remained mounted. A Herrani soldier toyed with her horse’s reins. A Dacran eyed her as if he wished his horse had reins, so that he could do something with his empty hands. When Arin and Kestrel rode up to the vanguard, all eyes lifted. Faces turned to Arin, seeking an explanation, relieved because here, at last, was an answer. But Arin didn’t even understand the question.
“What has happened?” he asked the two nearest soldiers on their horses.
“Someone came for our prince,” the Dacran said.
Arin glanced at Kestrel, alert to the hesitation in the Dacran’s voice. Arin wondered if he needed to translate for her.
“Someone took him away?” she asked the man in his language.
The soldier clicked his teeth. No. “But I heard that his face became terrible, truly. That no one could look at it. Some worry that she—”
“She?”
“Brings news of the war’s end. That we’re to abandon the campaign and go home.” The soldier glanced sideways at Arin. “Some hope for it.”
“Your queen?” Arin asked.
But it was not, in fact, the queen who had come for her brother.