kestrel

The sky was a feather blanket of clouds, save for one blue hole in the fabric. A blue cloud in a white sky.

She said, I'm going to miss you when you when I wake up.Don't wake up, he answered.But he did.Kestrel, beside him on the grass, said. "Did I wake you? I didn't mean to.

Nothing is ever black and white, Nila. You should know that bu now. Its all how you survive the grey." -Kes

She had dreams that shamed her in the morning, dreams where Ronan gave her a white powdered cake, yet spoke in Arin's voice. I made this for you, he said. Do you like it?The powder was so fine that she inhaled its sweetness, but always woke before she could taste.

Something tugged inside him. A flutter of unease.Do you sing? Those had been her first words to him, the day she had bought him. A band of nausea circled Arin__ throat, just as it had when she had asked him that question, in part for the same reason. She__ had no trace of an accent. She had spoken in perfect, natural, mother-taught Herrani.

Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time."Her words silenced him, steadied him.Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the keys. "Ready?"He smiled. "Play.

She said, I'm going to miss you when you when I wake up.Don't wake up, he answered.But he did.Kestrel, beside him on the grass, said. "Did I wake you? I didn't mean to."It took him a velvety moment to understand that this was real. The air was quiet. An insect beat it's clear wings. She brushed hair from his brow. Now he was very awake."You were sleeping so sweetly," she said."Dreaming" He touched her tender mouth."About what?""Come closer, and I will tell you."But he forgot. He kissed her, and became lost in the exquisite sensation of his skin becoming too tight for his body. He murmured other things instead. A secret, a want, a promise. A story, in its own way.She curled her fingers into the green earth

She focused on that nothingness, imagined it as ink spilling over everything she could possibly think or feel.

Her innocence was maddening. She should know. She should know what her steward had done. She should know it to be her fault whether she__ given the order or not__nd whether she knew or not. Innocent? Her? Never.He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. But:Look at me, he found himself thinking furiously at her. Look at me. She lifted her eyes, and did.

Will you come with me?""Ah, Kestrel, that's something you never need to ask.

The guard hit Kestrel across the face. __ said, what did you give him?__ou had a warrior__ heart, even then.Kestrel spat blood. __othing,_ she told the guard. She thought of her father, she thought of Arin. She told her final lie. __ gave him nothing.

Kestrel's cruel calculation appalled her. This was part of what had made her resist the military: the fact that she could make decisions like this, that she did have a mind for strategy, that people could be so easily become pieces in a game she was determined to win...

Little Fists, what's wrong?

Ultimately, when he held your treasonous letter in his hand and saw how you had lied to him, the choice between me and you was the choice between someone who loves him and someone who didn't.

She'd betrayed her country because she'd believed it was the right thing to do. Yet would she have done this, if not for Arin?He knew none of it. Had never asked for it. Kestrel had made her own choices. It was unfair to blame him.But she wanted to.

Arin, you__e not listening. You__e not thinking clearly.___ou__e right. I haven__ been thinking clearly, not for a long time. But I understand now._ Arin pushed his tiles away. His winning hand scattered out of line. __ou have changed, Kestrel. I don__ know who you are anymore. And I don__ want to.

A dagger wants flesh, her father would say. Find it.

Someone was coming through the velvet.He was pulling it wide, he was stepping onto Kestrel__ balcony__lose, closer still as she turned and the curtain swayed, then stopped. He pinned the velvet against frame. He held the sweep of it high, at the level of his gray eyes, which were silver in the shadows.He was here. He had come.Arin.