Chapter 23
AUREN
There’s still a bruise on my cheek.
Bright side? Midas hasn’t bothered me for three blessed days since he struck me. He hasn’t summoned me to gild anything, hasn’t made me attend any more royal feasts.
But this reprieve is a gift of guilt. Midas doesn’t want to see the proof of his loss of control darkening my face. Out of sight, out of fault.
Still, I enjoy the break, because it’s given me time to myself.
All three days, from the moment I wake up in the morning until the sun goes down, I’ve stayed in my room and trained. Simple exercises like lunges and curls, and I also turned a pair of shoes solid gold so I could lift them and build up my arm muscles. I also run through the few things I remember that the Wrath managed to show me when I was with them. When my body is shaking with exertion, which, granted, doesn’t take long, I switch off to work my ribbons.
I focus on learning how to move them one at a time and then together too. It’s a bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time, or trying to write two separate words with either hand simultaneously. It takes concentration and a lot of time. When I’m sick of doing that, I practice lifting things with them and moving them around. Back and forth I go, from practicing with my ribbons to working out my body.
I’m pathetically weak, but I’ve decided to fix that by doing what I can on my own.
As soon as the sun goes down, servants come in to feed my fire, draw my bath, and bring me food. By then I’m a sweating, shaking, cranky mess. Even my ribbons are getting snappish from all the hard work. But...I also feel good. Like I’m doing something productive. It satisfies the creature pecking at my chest.
For now.
True to his word, Midas has allowed me to wander the castle at night with a guard. So after a bath where I soak my tired muscles, I leave my rooms like I have for the past few nights. I’ve been visiting Rissa, sneaking her one gilded item at a time.
I also have the guards take me up to the forgotten entrance of the library that no one seems to use or really care about. I lie and say that the scribes gave me special permission to enter that way since it’s more private. They didn’t question it. Scofield and Lowe wait there in the cold antechamber while I pretend to be reading up on Fifth Kingdom’s history to kill the time.
I already broke into the other locked doors in the antechamber the night after Midas hit me. I’d hoped one of them would bring me to the dungeons or a secret passage, but they didn’t. They led to the cellar, the kitchens, an exit near the stables, a couple of random corridors, and what I think must’ve been King Fulke’s rooms. All fruitless.
So tonight after I visit Rissa, I’ll go back to the library and try to search again for blueprints of the castle. I’m hoping I can figure out where Digby might be kept, or find secret passages that might help us get out of Ranhold undetected.
It’s going to be another long night, no doubt.
Every night that I don’t find anything, I grow more worried. Rissa is becoming antsy. With every visit, her eyes seem to darken like the shade of a sundial counting down the time.
So it’s almost funny that my conflicted thoughts of her impatience have me so engrossed that I bowl right into her in the corridor on my way to the saddle wing.
“Shit.” I stagger back, shoulder hitting the corner I just rounded, while Rissa barely manages to catch herself on the wall.
“My lady?” Scofield blurts, eyes wide, though he doesn’t move closer to me or try to help. He knows better.
“Watch where you’re going!” Rissa snaps, hands going to smooth her blonde hair.
I straighten up, cringing. “Sorry.”
Thank the Divine it’s nighttime.
She puffs out a breath, her tone and expression losing their hard edges as she looks me over. “It’s fine. I didn’t know it was you.”
Her hands fiddle with the low-cut bodice of her dress, and I notice the guard behind her. He doesn’t look at all concerned that the two of us nearly butted heads coming around the corner. In fact, he doesn’t do much other than let his eyes stray to Rissa’s cleavage. At least Scofield and Lowe don’t ogle me that way. Granted, I do break my corsets every time I put one on, so my boobs don’t look nearly as perky and full as hers, but still.
Rissa’s cool assessment crawls over my face. “You’re looking better.”
I brush a palm over my cheek that’s still slightly bruised and swollen. “Yeah,” I say simply. She never asked what happened, and I didn’t offer up the information. But she knows. Women always do.
“Come to visit again?” she asks as she continues to walk in the direction away from the saddles’ rooms.
The presence of the guards makes my words careful. “Yes, I was hoping we could chat.”
“Well, I’m not in the saddle wing as you can see, but you’re welcome to join me.”
I shoot a look over at the guard before facing forward again, the sound of Rissa’s heels clicking against the marble. “Oh, are you...umm. You’re not going to an appointment, are you?”
She snorts and shoots me a derisive look. “No, I haven’t been called to go fuck someone, Auren,” she replies dryly.
“Well, I thought it prudent to check...”
I can practically hear Rissa’s blue eyes roll in their sockets. “Do you think I would really invite you to watch me get ridden?”
“Wouldn’t be my first offer.”
A reluctant laugh trundles out of her. “True. I used to hate when he made you watch.”
This surprises me. “Really?”
“Of course,” she says as we turn another corner, heading to a part of the castle I haven’t been to yet. “Do you think any of us enjoyed it?”
“Polly did,” I answer without hesitation. “She liked that I was stuck behind bars while the king...well. Just believe me when I say it amused her.”
“Maybe, but not me. Having the king’s gold-touched favored watching, judging, seeing everything...” She shakes her head. “I hated it. Hated you.”
She says it without venom, just stating facts.
“And now?”
Rissa looks over at me. “Now what?”
“You don’t hate me now.”
There’s a narrowing of her eyes. “I tolerate you.”
“You’re so warm and fuzzy.”
I catch the slightest quirk of her lips as she smiles. Just a flash, and then it’s gone, but it makes my distracted, weary soul feel lighter.
“We’re here.” She stops in front of a door where a second guard is stationed just outside, sitting on a stool with a toothpick balanced on his bottom lip.
“Where’s here?” I ask, looking at the unfamiliar door. “What are you doing?”
Rissa arches a blonde brow and smirks at me. “I’m here to visit Mist.”
Mist.
As in, the saddle who has tried to claw my eyes out on more than one occasion. The woman who publicly cuts me down with verbal hate. The woman who’s pregnant with Midas’s illegitimate child.
I actually back up a step, eyes gone wide as saucers. “What? You know I can’t go in there!” I hiss.
“That’s too bad. If you don’t come in there with me, we won’t be able to chat, and believe me, I have some very juicy gossip,” she says pointedly.
I look around the corridor like I’m hoping a trap door will appear, but the gossip bit is her telling me that she has news. I also need to get rid of this gold leaf that’s currently burning a hole in my pocket.
A sigh ripples from my chest. “Are you sure you don’t hate me anymore? Because it seems like you do.”
Rissa’s grin widens, like my reaction is thoroughly amusing her. “You’re going to want to hear my gossip, Auren.”
Dammit, she has me. She has me, and she knows it. “You know, I have the sudden urge to throw a book.”
Melodic laughter lifts from her, and she finally
seems to lose her weighed-down shoulders, her eyes sparkling for a second. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’ve just come for a quick visit. One of us saddles comes each day, and today is my turn.”
I debate for another second but then give in. “Fine. But I feel like I need a safe word.”
With a sly grin, she knocks on the door, and at the call to enter, we both go inside while the guards stay in the hall, the door closing securely behind us. I look around at the periwinkle room, noting the feminine bedding, the matching sitting area near the fire complete with a dainty table already set up for tea time.
That’s where Mist is now, the profile of her round face visible beneath a neat coif of black hair. Rissa rounds the chaise and plops down on the single chair, her body sinking into the plush purple cushions.
“Oh. It’s you,” Mist says, glancing up at her.
Well, shit, if that’s the sort of welcome Rissa gets, mine is going to be positively peachy.
“Nice to see you too, Mist,” Rissa replies with a smile as she plucks up a teacup from the table and helps herself.
I assumed the two of them were friends, so this exchange surprises me. Then again, I usually only saw the saddles when they were...visiting Midas. They always seemed very friendly then, but that was an act—their job.
I hang back awkwardly. “Nice room.”
Mist’s head whips around so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t crack her neck. “What are you doing here?”
“No idea, to be honest,” I mutter as I lean against the door. I don’t want to come any closer. Mist has claws, and I don’t trust that feathery creature that’s taken up residence beneath my ribcage.
Her dark eyes flash over to Rissa. “You brought her here?”
Rissa takes a dainty sip of her tea, as if she’s not at all affected by the tension. “You’re the one who requested to have company every day. Now you have two people at once.”
Mist jabs her finger in my direction. “She doesn’t count as a person.”
I blink at the insult, and my ire flares, but Rissa cuts in before I can reply. “Your pregnancy hormones certainly haven’t improved your manners, Mist.”
“Why should I have manners in front of her? She gets doted on enough.”
Rissa levels cold blue eyes on her. “Yes, and now here you are, getting doted on too. Your own suite, servants at your beck and call, a nine-month break from working on your back. Should the rest of the saddles act like bitches toward you?”
Mist’s cheeks darken, and for a second, I think she’s about to tell us both to get out, but instead, she pins me with a glare and says, “Well? Don’t just lean there like a stick,” she snaps. “Sit down.”
So pleasant.
I give her a wide berth, taking a seat on the chair beside Rissa’s. I don’t help myself to the tea or tray of cookies, though. I can tell Mist’s tolerance only reaches as far as the cushion beneath me.
We regard each other across the table, while a cheery fire flickers beside us, like it’s trying to burn through the incivility. The three of us sit there in stiff silence, years of watching each other from opposite sides of my cage somehow compiling into this moment.
Mist lays a hand on her slightly protruding belly, and my eyes fall to the touch. When I first found out about her pregnancy, it gutted me. But now...
What do I feel now?
I was expecting some echoes of jealousy to knock against the hollow spaces inside of me. But it doesn’t.
She’s showing now. Just a small bump, but it’s enough behind her form-fitting dress. Funny how the proof of Midas is in her burgeoning belly, while for me, it’s on my darkened cheek.
And just like that, my mood shifts.
Mist is jealous of what she thinks my status is in Midas’s life. I know that now, and I knew that before, but seeing her belly puts things in perspective. Because...how would I feel if I were in her shoes?
This isn’t a normal pregnancy. Mist is going to be giving birth to the child of a king. A king, who, other than keeping her as his royal saddle, doesn’t hold any real care for her.
She’s probably afraid. Of pregnancy in general, of giving birth, of what will happen to her afterward. She will have no control, and I, more than anyone else in the world, understand that.
Mist is going to have Midas’s baby. The man who just struck me, hurt me, left bruises over my body. Sympathy, like a heavy, wet raincloud, drizzles over my mood, saturating it in sorrow for the woman sitting across from me.
It could’ve been me. I could’ve been the one carrying his child, and then what would I have done?
I’d never have been able to get away from him.
Mist’s life has been irrevocably changed forever. She’s now shackled with the master manipulator and reigning narcissist, a man who just showed me he’s not above hurting someone physically.
She thinks Midas’s attention is a good thing. It’s not. It’s more toxic than the jealousy she’s stewing in.
I don’t mean to be staring at her belly all this time while these thoughts flood through me, but I’m so in my head that I don’t notice her glare until Mist slams her teacup down. I drop my gaze to my lap.
“When is Polly coming to visit me next?” Mist asks, clearly unimpressed with her current company.
“You’re lucky she was here a couple of days ago. She can’t be bothered to get out of bed most days.”
I look over at the sudden quiet and notice something passing between the two of them, the irritation from earlier seeming to lessen just a bit. “She needs to stop taking dew.”
“Why don’t you try telling her that?” Rissa lobs back.
Mist grits her teeth before her hand moves to grab a lump of yarn I hadn’t noticed. She puts it on her lap and starts to fiddle with it while shaking her head. “I know dew is a delicacy here in Fifth, but I don’t like it. It makes her...”
Rissa fills in the gap. “Sloppy. Uncaring. Addicted to fucking and nothing else, while emptied of every single thought from her head.”
Mist’s lips pinch, fingers digging harder into the yarn. “Yes.”
I’m certainly not a big fan of Polly, but I don’t like the thought of her or any of the other saddles being addicted to that stuff.
“It’s disgusting how they treat saddles here,” Rissa says, pink growing in her cheeks as though anger is blooming there. “And that drug is just making everyone worse.”
Weighty silence descends between them, only disturbed when Mist begins to knit. The click click click of the needles tapping against each other is the only noise in the room for a few minutes until Rissa sets down her teacup and says, “Polly did mention you were still getting sick in the mornings.”
Mist shrugs. “The servants bring me ginger tea. I’m managing.” She curses under her breath, yanking out the loops she made, a line of frustration drawn between her black brows.
She struggles for a minute before I say, “I could help you knit that.”
Her dark brown eyes surge up, fingers pausing. “Excuse me?”
I tip my head at the yarn she’s currently tangling. “Knitting. I could help if you’d like.”
Disdain drips from her expression. “I don’t want you touching any of my baby’s things.”
The offer drops like a lead weight, and I swallow uncomfortably. “Alright.”
She keeps at it, practically stabbing with the needles, getting more and more frustrated with every sloppy loop. “How do you even know how to knit?” she demands.
“You learn a lot of things to occupy yourself when you’re forced to be sequestered every day of your life.” I speak with more sadness than I mean to, but I can’t help it.
Knitting, sewing, embroidering, harping, reading, napping, drinking. Mindless, pointless things to take up my time. So many days spent without purpose, without joy or heart or life. I may as well have been a statue, should’ve turned myself solid gold and saved Midas the trouble.
“What happened to your face?”
I get yanked off my troubled trail of thoughts, gaze springing back up to see Mist studying my fading bruise. It’s just getting all sorts of unwanted attention tonight. I consider lying for a moment or brushing her off, but...a part of me wants to warn her. To get through to her.
Because I’m not her enemy, despite the hurt that’s telling her I am. I’m not competition. I’m simply the woman who was on the other side of the bars.
My fingers press gently against my cheek. “This is what happens when King Midas loses his temper.”
Something skims across her almond-shaped eyes, but it’s gone in a flash, and then she sniffs and lifts her chin. “You shouldn’t displease him. He gives you so much.”
A laugh ruptures out of the clefts of my cynicism.
“What’s funny?” she snaps.
The bitter amusement slips off my face, and I feel my head shake, as if trying to displace the sadness that wants to settle in. “Nothing,” I tell her. “He has given me a lot, it’s true.”
But he’s taken so much more.
“Of course he has.” The bristling of her shoulders has raised them a notch, but she smooths them out as she plasters on a fake smile. “Now me, I’m grateful for everything he’s done. The moment he found out I was carrying his child, he removed me from the saddle wing and put me in here.” She looks around the room like it’s the best thing she’s ever seen—as if she can’t see the invisible bars.
I hesitate. “Has he spoken with you about what will happen after the baby is born?”
It’s the wrong thing to ask, because Mist’s face goes from syrupy to fuming. “That’s none of your damn business.”
My lips press together, wishing I could snip those words off and shove them back in my mouth.
“This room is very nice,” Rissa intervenes after taking another dainty sip of tea. “You must be very comfortable here.”
Mist glares at me for a moment longer before turning her attention on the blonde. She runs a hand down the armrest like she’s alleviating her own inner ruffling. “Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? The king is very thoughtful. It’s nice being so well cared for.”
Gleam (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 3) Page 24