In the rosy light of morning, Arin raked a fistful of dry grass and scattered the thin yellow blades. Again.
Kestrel, who sat near him, glanced up from what she was doing. She lifted one brow.
So he stopped, he knew it was pure anxiety, that if he didn’t do something with his hands they’d tremble.
Her hands were steady. She dipped a skinny paintbrush she’d made from horsehair, a twig, and twine into the small vial resting on a wide board that had become an impromptu table. A Bite and Sting set lay spread across the board, the tiles all faceup. She flipped four of them and painted their blank backs. The liquid went on clear.
“Kestrel.”
“Almost done.”
“I worry the emperor won’t agree.”
“I think he will.”
“But the stakes—”
“Will amuse him.”
“He’d gamble the outcome of a war?”
“Maybe, for the pleasure of beating me.” She laid the paintbrush on the board. “But he won’t win.” She turned a snake tile onto its face and moved it close to one that she’d painted. She studied the two blank ivory backs. They looked nearly identical, save that the painted one had a slight shine. She lightly tapped the paintbrush’s wooden end against the painted tile. It left no trace. The tile had dried.
Arin’s stomach was a wormy knot. “This game could go badly.”
“That’s why I’m cheating.”
“Even with the marked tiles.”
“It’s a good plan.”
“Yes, but he’ll agree to play only if he believes the outcome won’t matter, even if you win. That is what will amuse him: your expectation that he’ll keep his word. He won’t.”
“All part of the game.”
“If anything goes wrong, he’ll hurt you.”
Kestrel turned away from the board, saw him rake another fistful of grass. It sounded like cloth being ripped apart.
“Not this time,” she said.
* * *
Arin smelled smoke from Roshar’s pipe before he heard the prince approach from behind. The sun was going down. The sky looked candied.
“Pretty,” the prince commented.
“Storm colors. One’s coming.”
“I was thinking…”
Arin turned to glance at the prince, alert to his quiet tone. Roshar avoided his gaze, but his black eyes were large. Glassy. Arin was about to speak when Roshar cleared his throat and said, “Now is a good time to remind you how generous I am.”
Arin refused to be distracted into a meaningless conversation where Roshar simultaneously praised and mocked himself. He knew what troubled the prince. “Give Risha time. She’ll forgive you.”
Roshar continued as if he hadn’t heard. “The very soul of generosity. You ask for an ally in war, and lo, here I am. I dole out favors. Even to your ghost. She asks, I give. What’s more, I’ve selected five elite fighters to accompany her and my little sister to Sythiah’s manor. Truly, I’m confident that Risha would be enough to keep Kestrel safe, but I thought you’d appreciate the extra protection.”
Arin realized where this conversation was going, and it was as if the storm he’d predicted had already arrived. “No. Wait—”
“A small team is best for infiltrating the manor. Silently. Efficiently. No more than seven people.”
“Eight.”
“Sorry, Arin. You must remain with the army.”
“You can’t compel me to stay.”
“Am I not your commander?”
The sky deepened. Its oranges and reds were resinous. Arin’s pulse leaped with anger.
But this time Roshar’s voice came low. “I need you.”
“What?” The air whooshed out of him.
“The emperor might be in Sythiah. He might not. What we know for certain is that an entire Valorian army whose forces vastly outnumber ours will be traveling up that road with a general who will probably continue to fight regardless of what happens at Sythiah. Are we to bet everything on Kestrel’s game? I say, we deal with the Valorians. I say, no retreat.”
“You don’t need me to fight a battle.”
Roshar tipped his head to one side, his shoulders shrugging, and opened his hands as if scattering seeds. The gesture—a Herrani one, used to indicate doubt—made Arin angrier. “You don’t,” Arin insisted. “You’d be fine without me. You’re good at war.”
Roshar met his gaze. The green paint around the prince’s eyes was fresh, his expression sober. “You’re better.”
* * *
He didn’t like to tell her what Roshar had asked. But he did, focused on adjusting the small lamp they’d set on the canvas tarp that covered the dirt floor of his tent. The lamp didn’t burn well. Its oil was bad. It smoked. As he talked, he tinkered with the burner, the chimney. Then Arin stopped, realizing that he was close to destroying the thing between his hands.
Kestrel sat up in the bedroll, unbound hair spilling over her bare shoulders. It was the color of candlelight. She said, “Roshar’s right.”
Arin struggled with his unease, didn’t know what to say, dreaded blurting out the wrong thing. Finally he settled on blunt truth. “You’re taking a big risk. I don’t want you to have to do it alone.”
She sat in profile to him. Her hair had slid to curtain most of her face, but she shoved it back, meeting his gaze with her own firm one. “It will work.”
He thought of the Bite and Sting tiles carefully stowed in a velvet bag. He scrubbed the heel of his hand against his scarred cheek, saw Kestrel’s quiet regard, how her expression changed the way a story does: subtle, with shifts of detail. Revealing. It calmed him a little to see her intelligence, vivid and clear.
“I believe you,” he said. “I’ll stay with the army. But it’s strange to me that Roshar changed his mind. He was ready to retreat to the city.”
“Seeing Risha changed him.”
“Even so. It’s hard to know what he really wants.” Arin explained how Roshar could lay claim to Herran, and in the eyes of his people he’d only be taking what was legally his.
Kestrel said nothing at first. Then: “It’s not like you to question someone’s friendship.”
With a nauseated jolt, Arin thought of Cheat, who’d been his first friend after the invasion. “Maybe I should.”
“Maybe it would make you less yourself, if you did.”
“And you? Do you trust Roshar?”
She considered it. “Yes.”
Arin let out a resigned sigh. “I do, too … even if I shouldn’t.”
“Let the morning keep what belongs to the morning,” Kestrel said, but as if she wasn’t paying attention to what she said. Then she blinked. Her jaw tightened. She blew out the lamp.
He drew her to him. “What is it?” he murmured. Her heart beat against his palm.
“It just means that you shouldn’t borrow tomorrow’s problems. Deal with today’s.”
“But why does it upset you?”
“It was something my father would say.” She grew smaller in Arin’s arms. “I can’t face him.”
“You won’t have to,” he promised. This, he could do. Arin sensed his god listening. He felt the god’s assent fall on him, light and warm, like ash.
Give him to me, said death.
As Kestrel neared sleep, it occurred to Arin that the emotion that spread through him—delicate, and unable to be named at first, because so unfamiliar—was peace.
He held the feeling close before it could be lost.