Arin said, “That’s what you want from me?”

Roshar lowered his arms.

“Do you really want me to do every thing you say?”

No answer.

“Doesn’t it matter that I was right about the cliffs?”

Roshar winced. “Honestly, that makes it worse.”

“I’m not going to obey you. You’re my friend, not my master.”

Roshar looked away, his mutilated nose blunting his profile. He studied the tent’s blank canvas wall, which glowed in the sun. Roshar sighed, tugging on one cropped ear. Then he turned back and faced Arin squarely. His mouth was a long, tired line. “Here.” He jerked at Arin’s armor and began unbuckling it. “Stop bleeding. Oh, just look at you. Arin, you’re a mess.”

“I didn’t need you anyway,” Roshar told him as they rode back to the city, having left behind several battalions to keep the beach secure. “I happen to be very good at war. It’s because I’m so handsome. Like one of your gods. People see me and their minds go blank. I run my sword right through them.”

Arin tchicked at Javelin, urging him ahead of Roshar’s horse.

Roshar caught up. Like most easterners, he rode without reins, guiding his horse solely through knees, heels, and the shifting of his weight. This left him free to gesture expansively as he talked. “Are you listening?” He leaned to poke Arin in the shoulder. “I’m not sure you appreciate the magnitude of having a god in your midst.”

“Can I pray for you to go away?”

Roshar grinned. “We took a few Valorians prisoner.”

“Why?”

“For information, obviously. Not much has come out of Valoria lately. Our spies have been quiet. Yours?”

Arin hadn’t heard anything from Tensen or his Moth. He shook his head.

“Well.” Roshar rubbed his palms together. “Let’s see what a little questioning reveals. I’m sure the prisoners will be happy to talk.”

Arin shot him a sidelong look.

“Arin, you injure me. Torture is the furthest thing from my mind, I assure you. People love talking to me. I promise I’ll ask my questions very, very nicely.”

Arin held his breath underwater until his lungs ached, then broke the surface of the bath. His bathing room echoed with the sound of splashed water. Dirty lather lapped around his knees. He touched his side, and his fingers came away pink. The cut along his ribs was bleeding again. It was too shallow to stitch.

He found himself wondering how many scars the general had. Arin’s lungs burned as if he was still holding his breath, which made him realize that he was, and that it hurt to feel such hatred and know that no scar could be enough, that the general could suffer no pain that would ever make Arin feel better.

The general and his daughter didn’t look alike. Arin remembered how he’d hated to notice this during his first months as Kestrel’s slave. He’d wanted to see the traces of that man in her, and it had unnerved him that he couldn’t. There was something similar about the eyes . . . but hers were a much paler brown. Arin wasn’t even sure he could call them brown. Honey wasn’t brown. And the shape. Different, too. Slightly tipped up at the corners. Arin remembered making such comparisons, and how his desire to see something in her that he could hate shifted into self-disgust at far too much attention paid. Then, slowly, a curiosity to find her so different. And then came another emotion, one both softer and harder . . .

Arin got out of the bath. He got dressed, and got out of his rooms.

Sarsine stopped him on the stairway that ran down from the west wing. He smiled. “You look better.”

She crossed her arms. “It’s been a week.”

His brow crinkled. “Since what?”

“Since that messenger came.”

“Oh. I forgot.”

“You’ve been busy.” Her tone was dangerously even.

“I’ll talk with him now.”

“You’ve been busy,” she repeated, “throwing people off cliffs.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“So it’s not true?”

“What do you want from me, Sarsine?”

“You blamed Kestrel for changing, but you’ve changed, too.”

His voice was hard. “This is not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

He turned his back on her. He jogged down the stairs, the tempo of his boots beating fast and sure.

“I tried to get here as soon as I could,” said the messenger. He was a short man, all knobby wrists and elbows and knees. An oddly tiny nose. There were bags under his eyes. The irises were greenish, which reminded Arin of Tensen.