The Winner's Kiss

She appeared to understand his relief that pain, if it had to come, came this time without malice. Just an accident. Done by no one. The luck, sometimes, of life. A bad slip that ends with bread, and someone to bind you.

I don’t want you to go.” waves rocked against the pier. The sun was too bright. Weathered boards creaked beneath Arin’s feet.

“Only because you enjoy a good bully. Someone to make you behave as you ought.”

“No, Roshar.”

“You know well enough what to do now. You’ll be fine.”

“That’s not why.”

“Why you’ll miss me? I admit that the impending absence of my keen wit would make anyone sad.”

“Not exactly.”

“Now I’m getting sad, just thinking about how it would feel to be parted from my sweet self. Lucky me: I will always have my own company.”

“What you said at the banquet was true.”

“Every thing I say is true.”

“That I love you.”

Roshar’s face went still. “I said that?”

“You know that you did.”

“That was more for the drama of the moment.”

“Liar.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Roshar said slowly. “I really am. Arin.” His voice roughened. “You’ll see me again.”

“Soon,” Arin told him, and embraced him. Then they broke away and maybe some would have thought that the sun was a little cruel, for how its brightness allowed no subterfuge in their expressions, and every thing that could be seen was shown. But Arin thought that it was a kindness. He wanted to be a mirror, to reflect what Roshar was to him.

“I have fought for Arin, bled for him. I hold him in my heart. I have even named my tiger after him—no small honor. And yet, we have a problem. Arin of Herran was not always my friend, and once committed an offense against me that caused my queen to award me control over all he owns: his life, his belongings, and—since you say he possesses it—his country. I’ve been told to take from Arin what is due to me. I’ve been told it is mine by law. Must I? Yes. Will my people support my claim, with force if necessary? They will. Will my queen rise in admiration of me? Oh, indeed. And so I must.

“No, Arin. Sit down. Other wise you’ll make an ass out of yourself, and that role is mine. I see my tiger’s meal is here. You, there. Yes, you. With the platter. Bear it forth.”

Kestrel laughed. Arin felt rather than saw that she had relaxed beside him, aglow with mirth. He sank back into his chair, because now he too understood Roshar’s game. He wanted to sag with relief. He wanted to strangle the prince.

And thank him.

“There.” Roshar flourished a hand at the platter. “Arin the tiger’s meal. Since I’ve been ordered to take from Arin what belongs to Arin, I shall.” Roshar returned to his seat, platter in hand, and commenced cutting the meat. He took a bite. “Mmm. This is excellent. So well done. Now, as for what belongs to Arin the human, I relinquish any claim to it. Nothing of his was ever mine to take, nor will ever be. What belongs to him, I defend his right to keep, out of my love for him, and his for me.” He looked directly at the queen as he ate. “This is delicious. Exactly the way I like it.”

The queen forced a smile.

“Oh, and would someone bring another slice of loin? Raw, please. My tiger is hungry.”

It’s very important. You must impress this importance upon your cook here. The fate of political relations between my country and yours hangs in the balance.”

“Because of meat.”

“It’s for his tiger,” said the cook.

Arin palmed his face, eyes squeezed shut. “Your tiger.”

“He’s very particular,” said Roshar.

“You can’t bring the tiger to the banquet.”

“Little Arin has missed me. I will not be parted from him.”

“Would you consider changing his name?”

“No.”

“What if I begged?”

“Not a chance.”

“Roshar, the tiger has grown.”

“And what a sweet big boy he is.”

“You can’t bring him into a dining hall filled with hundreds of people.”

“He’ll behave. He has the mien and manners of a prince.”

“Oh, like you?”

“I resent your tone.”

“I’m not sure you can control him.”

“Has he ever been aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you’ll get married, and make babies—”

“Gods, Roshar, shut up.”

Don’t worry. They’ll find the right words to describe you.”

“And you.”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

“It is?” It seemed impossible to name every thing she was to him.

Kestrel’s expression was serious, luminous. He loved to see her like this. “They’ll say that I’m yours,” she told him, “just as you are mine.”

ving that the sound meant danger. Then he saw the glowing faces of people thronging the streets and thought, Ah, happy. Which made him happy, and as Kestrel smiled at him from her seat on Javelin, a pink petal clinging to her cheek, it occurred to him that he might have to grow comfortable with happiness, because it might not abandon him this time.

She said, “How can you not even ask for forgiveness?”

“Impossible.”

“Ask.”

For a long time, he said nothing. “I can’t ask for something no one could give. I ask for mercy.”

Her vision blurred, and Kestrel knew that forgiveness and mercy would take years for them both, and that she needed every single minute of that time.

She said that she still loved him, because it was true. He owed her better answers than the ones he had given, and even if he never had them, it was her right to keep asking. She would never give him her dagger. “I tried so hard to live in your world,” she told him. “Now it’s your turn to live in mine.”

He no longer looked at her.

“Why did you keep my letter?” she asked yet again.

“You know why.”

“What, regret?”

“That’s not the right word.”

“Then what?”

“There are no words.”

“Find some.”

“I can’t.”

“Now.”

He swallowed. “I want to. I didn’t know . . . how everything would become impossible. This is what happens when you destroy the thing most precious to you.”

“You chose to do it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He didn’t say, but his eyes became clear hard shells, and she knew that it hadn’t been only his code of honor that had made him tell the emperor of her treason. Her father had wanted to hurt her, because she had hurt him.

Kestrel thought that maybe she had been wrong, and Risha had been wrong, about forgiveness, that it was neither mud nor stone, but resembled more the drifting white spores. They came loose from the trees when they were ready. Soft to the touch, but made to be let go, so that they could find a place to plant and grow.

She kept asking until she heard her voice crumbling and thought that Risha had been wrong when she’d said that forgiveness was like mud, as if it could take what ever shape you needed.

It was hard; it was stone.