Gleam (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 3)

by Raven Kennedy

  He tilts his head, like a cat considering whether it wants to pounce on a mouse. “Didn’t I ever tell you I lived in Third Kingdom for a time?” The question is a taunt pulled tight. A rope at my ankles to yank my feet out from under me.

  It succeeds.

  Something like gratification pulls at the skin around his eyes. “You never came to see me, pet.”

  Cold unease scampers up my spine. “What are you talking about, Midas?”

  He walks over to the pitcher of wine again, pours himself another glass, indulging in his moment. “You know, it’s easier than people think to get ahead in this world. You just need the drive to do it.” He takes a long gulp before turning around to face me again, a drip of wine staining his lip. “Even a bastard drifter without two coins to rub together can make a name for himself. A name you’ve heard of, actually.”

  Now it’s my face that has all the blood draining from it, the gold paling at my cheeks.

  “I worked my way up. Was a runner for a thief, but he didn’t realize the potential that was brewing in that port city. It only took two years before his territory became mine. Thieving, pirating, flesh trading. I did it all, controlled dozens of workers. It was a perfected operation,” he brags, pure pride shining through his voice. “People feared the name I made up. Wouldn’t even think of stepping foot on my side of the city without permission, because my name showed that I owned it.”

  My heart drops, shatters, a million shards of ice left to temper the heat of my anger.

  Something unfamiliar lifts behind his kingly mask, something insipid and seedy. I suddenly have the scent of iron and fish stuck in my nose, making my stomach roil as he fixes a glare on me. “You were the painted girl who cut into my profits, and then had the nerve to run.”

  Realization batters my chest and corrupts the air enough to make me choke on it. “Barden East,” I whisper in shocked horror. “You were Barden East.”

  His smile is an accumulation of every sharpened edge piled in my chest. “And you’re ten years too late.”

  Chapter 46

  AUREN

  No.

  His declaration quakes beneath my feet. It makes bells of alarm ring in my ears louder than Highbell’s ever did.

  Midas can’t be Barden East. He just can’t. Because that would mean that I ran right into the arms of the man I tried to escape. I willingly gave myself to someone who took others. Who used them, sold them, treated them like a commodity for his own selfish gain.

  My head is shaking with denial, even as my gut tells me it’s true. “You can’t have been.”

  “I was.”

  Something tears in my throat, a grievous noise spilling from a gaping mouth—a gaping soul.

  “How?”

  Midas swirls his wine around, taps the front of his collar six times. “It wasn’t too difficult to earn my place as the crime lord in Derfort. There were small-time criminals there who were in sore need of a true leader—which I became. I saw an opportunity, and I took it,” he adds with a shrug. “So many shipments came in and out of that port, and once I took over the territory, I had access to resources from nearly every kingdom. I accumulated a lot of wealth and notoriety, had people at my beck and call.”

  I’m hearing him, but his words are spoken into a hollow cave of my own emptying emotions. I’m numb, reeling, in too much shock to even react.

  “But after years of that, I grew bored. Plus, I was sick and tired of always smelling fish,” he admits, the slight lift of his lip belying his distaste. “I wanted more—more power, more wealth, more opportunity, and a more palatable territory.”

  All those years, all this time... I had confided in him. Told him about Derfort, about what I was made to do. He pretended not to know. Pretended to care, and yet all along, he was my owner’s competitor. The catalyst to the night I finally fled.

  My steps are rooted to the floor. There’s no turning away from the truth that he spews like a gloat.

  “In a way, you leaving was the offense I needed. I decided to follow you so I could drag you right back to Derfort, rub it in Zakir’s face, and set an example to others who’d run.”

  I stare at him, but I don’t even know this man standing in front of me. It’s like he’s peeled away a layer and exposed the infection within, something that has festered in its own corruption that I somehow overlooked.

  “You disappeared for a while, so it took some effort to catch your trail. But eventually, I heard curious talk amongst other vagabonds along the road. Talk of a raid finding a king’s fortune in a tiny village called Carnith...and of a girl who shone against the desert sands like a nugget of gold.”

  My breath gets knotted up like a rope stuck in my throat. “You followed me to Carnith?”

  “Of course I did. The gods smiled down on me, too, because that’s when your power manifested. That’s when it was clear that you weren’t just a painted girl perfect for the business of flesh trading. You were so much more.”

  Tears fill my eyes as his verbal jabs stab me through, hollow me out. All a lie. Right from the very beginning.

  He played the part of a crime lord, then a rescuer, then a king. I shared my body with him, when he used the bodies of others for profit. Just thinking of all the times he touched me and I touched him makes my skin crawl.

  “I’m a planner, Auren,” Midas says as he watches me drown in the shadows, my fingers snagging at my hair. “You were exactly what I needed to get more. To get ahead. It was fated by the great Divine.”

  He sets his wine glass down, and I whirl around, my world whirling with me.

  “I finally caught up to you when you were in that backwoods village after you’d fled Carnith,” he tells me offhandedly. “I made the men I’d brought split up, so some of them could pose as raiders. Half of us attacked, the other protected the villagers. I had them all kill each other after that, instigated in-fighting over the spoils,” he adds with a shrug. “Couldn’t have any of them speaking of your magic or connecting me to Derfort as Barden East. Not when I intended to shed that name. Not when I realized that Princess Malina was in possession of a throne and yet lacked magic to keep it. Sixth Kingdom was in debt and in need of a king, so I gave it one. It was meant to be. I’ve always been partial to the number six,” he adds with twisted arrogance.

  My head swims like I might pass out, but I manage to fall into the chair instead and pull in a choked breath. “You never rescued me.” I say it aloud, but it’s really just affirmation for myself, a crack that rents down the foundation of my life, splitting my past into something unrecognizable.

  Midas looks pleased with himself, and maybe that’s what bothers me the most. The smug look on his face. As if he’s been waiting ten years to shove it in mine.

  That moment of him rescuing me was what made me trust him. It created the base for my shaken footsteps. I viewed him as some sort of savior. But he orchestrated even that. He manipulated me right from the start, before we even spoke face-to-face.

  He made me trust him, love him. He made me think he was my hero, when all along, he was my villain.

  He walks nearer, standing over me like he’s relishing in this moment, like he wants to soak it up and wring me back out. “I owned half a shipping port and an incredibly lucrative business. But when I realized you had magic to go with that gold skin, I knew right then that I could own a whole damn kingdom.” Midas’s eyes gleam with the greed that consumes him. “And now...I don’t just own half of a city, I own half of Orea.”

  An ugly, twisting grip tightens around my stomach. “Not yet.”

  His eyes flash. “You won’t be saying that after tonight.”

  I have no idea what he means by that, and I don’t get a chance to ask. Midas leans over, head poised in front of mine as he looks me over with detached assessment. “You know, we could’ve kept going on as we were, you could’ve had your semblance of freedom, but you ruined it.”

  His tone is definitive, full of
the authority he’s stolen. Full of something cruel, too.

  “You won’t just be locked in a cage anymore, Auren, I’ll lock you up in your own mind. I’ll keep you on dew and drain your magic forever until the day you die, and even then, I’ll pluck every gilded hair from your head and scrape the gold from your skin, because you are mine to use as I will.” His exhale condenses against my face, the scent of wine heavy on his breath, and I wonder how I ever thought this evil man loved me.

  As if everything he’s saying and doing isn’t awful enough, Midas then straightens up and slips his hand into his pocket. When he pulls it out again, a thick strip of gold is bunched in his palm.

  My entire body freezes in place. A gush of tears well up in my eyes as I take in the sight of my mangled ribbon, at the little beads of golden blood stuck to one end like the cooled drips of candle wax from a jagged wick.

  A sob takes the place of my breath while I stare at its length, stare at the piece of me now ruined in Midas’s grasp. My eyes sting with a burn that seeps straight into my spine, and twinges of pain erupt down the length of my back as if each chopped root there can feel the pain of our separation all over again.

  I watch numbly as he wraps it around my wrists like I’m prey caught in his snare, and I can’t struggle, because it’s...me. It’s not just some meaningless strand he roped me with. It’s the ultimate mind game and perversion of control.

  He ties it off with a thick knot, the satin-like strand digging into my skin painfully like a penance for losing them in the first place. For not being strong enough to stay whole beneath the might of this man who has hacked away at me, drained me, stole every piece of me.

  How much more of me is he going to take?

  “Everything, Auren. I’m going to take everything.”

  My wet eyes look up at him, because I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken aloud.

  Midas straightens up, fixes the crown atop his head so it’s perfectly aligned as he gives an impassive inspection over the tears that land on the binds around my wrists.

  “Stay here, or I’ll drag your lover up from the dungeon and kill him in front of you,” he purrs, the threat kept soft in the lurk of his tone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a toast to make. Enjoy the show, Precious.”

  My gaze stays fixed on the ribbon after Midas leaves the mezzanine. There’s a ballad playing below, though I don’t hear it. I just stare and stare at the gold that Midas has used to ensnare me. As the truth of who he really is—then and now—builds in my head like the squall of a tempestuous force.

  When I fled Derfort Harbor and sailed across the Weywick Sea in the ship with cerulean sails, there was a single storm on the journey.

  Just one.

  It didn’t happen at night. There was no darkness that swallowed the sea and made it look like we were sailing on starlight and storm clouds.

  No, this was during the bold noon of day, when the sun shone milky and high, split down the middle with bulbous clouds that came to purge like a blister.

  I should’ve gone to the lower levels when it hit, but I didn’t. I’m not sure why. Maybe I couldn’t bear the thought of being sequestered below deck, stuck in a stagnant room no bigger than a closet with a hammock for a bed and a bucket for an upturned stomach.

  But really, I think the truth is that I wanted to feel the air as it raged.

  So I was up there on deck beneath a speckled sky that was neither dark nor light, but somehow both at the same time. With my feet planted beneath crouching knees, I kept my arms wrapped around the rough rail for dear life as my hair whipped at my face.

  The ship rocked back and forth like a cradle ready to tip, and waves came up to slap against the deck in the angry hit of a sea god. I could see the shouts being tossed back and forth between the small crew, but their voices were swallowed up. The thrashing wind tore the sounds from where they belonged and seemed to throw them clear across the water.

  But even as fear gripped me that I’d be tossed overboard or that the sea would break the ship in half and swallow it whole, I was in awe of the storm that seethed. In awe of the sudden change that took over the clear day and smooth waters and turned it into a violent surge.

  Whatever it was that drew me up there that day, it meant that I was there to watch the lightning strike the water. I was there to see what happens when a force of nature unleashes.

  The lightning was a jagged arrow shot from the bow of the cloud. It struck the choppy, maelstrom of waves, and a fissure of electric cracks erupted over the surface of the water like it had shattered the sea.

  And that’s what this is like.

  Like I’m hanging on for dear life as bulbous clouds form inside of me, fed by the fumes of Midas’s revelations. A heavy barrage has built within the frenzy of my kinetic thoughts, a thunderbolt ready to splinter the tumultuous waves within. Ready to land with a fatal strike.

  I’ve been drowned out by the force of the storm.

  My gaze plods over the ribbon one last time before I get to my feet, hands clasped together as if in prayer. I walk over to the balcony of the mezzanine and look below, seeing Midas at the dais with Queen Kaila and Prince Niven, Oreans dotting the floor like confetti.

  But there, cutting through the throng like the drive of an iron stake, is Slade.

  The moment my eyes latch onto him, he stops in his tracks and looks up, gaze meeting mine, as if he could feel me looking at him.

  A sob lodges in my throat. Even though he’s right there, he feels so very far away.

  Even from the distance between us, it’s as if he can see me right up close, because something fierce flashes in his face. Something furious on my behalf.

  With darkness looming over his brow, he starts stalking forward again, eyes not leaving my face.

  He’s coming for me.

  But his stride is suddenly interrupted when Midas’s voice cuts through the din. “Time for the royal toast! King Ravinger, if you would join us?”

  Slade stops in his tracks as the people turn to look at him, though they give him a wide berth. For a moment, he hesitates, and the crowd looks from him to Midas and back again.

  “King Ravinger?” Midas presses.

  Even from up here, I can see Slade grind his jaw. His eyes flash up to me again for a split second, and I give a tiny nod to urge him to go. Only then does he reluctantly turn around and head back.

  He comes to a stop with the other three monarchs on the raised dais. Midas stands in the middle with Queen Kaila on his left, Niven on his right, and Slade takes up his spot right beside the prince. A saddle hurries over to serve them each a gold goblet. Movement ripples through the rest of the room as the crowd hurries to grab drinks of their own.

  I back up, keeping to the shadowed corner of the mezzanine.

  Armed with their various cups, Midas announces, “Raise your glasses!” From up here, I can see everyone lift their arms up, drinks held aloft. “We toast tonight to the unity of our kingdoms!” he calls out with a proud smile. “To Orea!”

  “To Orea!” everyone else chants on cue, and then glasses are lifted to lips and wine gulped back before cheers and applause roam through the room.

  If it weren’t for the fact that my attention has stayed locked on Slade the whole time, I might have missed what happens next. Because of my homed gaze, I see the way Slade’s brow furrows right before he turns his head to look at Prince Niven. I follow his gaze, frown gathering between my own brows before I really even register that something is wrong.

  One moment, everyone is drinking and cheering, but then, the goblet slips from Niven’s hand and crashes to the ground.

  The people nearest him startle, but it becomes apparent very quickly that there’s more wrong than just a dropped cup.

  Prince Niven locks his hands around his throat, eyes gone wide in fear, just as someone in the crowd screams.

  The prince stumbles, and purple-cloaked Ranhold guards come rushing forward. With pure pa
nic, his fingers claw down his neck—a neck that’s now lined with black veins spreading up toward his cheeks.

  “Oh no...” My whisper is swallowed up by the eruption of shouts from below, as dark froth starts to bubble out from the young prince’s lips.

  “Poison! The prince has been poisoned!” someone screeches.

  I watch in horror as the prince falls to his knees too quick for the guards to catch him.

  “Mender! Where’s the royal mender?” Midas booms out.

  A gray-haired man in purple robes surges forward and falls to his knees in front of the prince, a red band tied around his arm. From up here, I have the perfect vantage point to see the mender’s hands skate shakily over Niven’s chest, head tilted against his mouth.

  Midas pushes past his own guards to kneel beside the mender too. Queen Kaila hangs back, her brother standing in front of her like a shield, while more men stand behind her.

  A frenzy of quieted confusion vibrates in the room, the crowd on edge between wanting to back away and wanting to get a closer look. But I see it the moment that Prince Niven’s body goes unnaturally still.

  Dismay knots in my shoulders and twists in my gut as the mender’s face goes grim, his head shaking up at Midas from behind the wall of Ranhold guards.

  When Midas stands up again, making the huddling guards part, the crowd gasps at the sight of Niven where he lays, and I don’t blame them. There’s gray skin now where the youth of vibrancy just was, his chest puffed up and unmoving, a foamed mouth like whipped mud. But worst of all are the veins, black as night, bleeding up from the skin of his neck.

  My hands shake where they grip the railing, dread filling the air like thick fog, and I know what the mender is going to say before he even gets to his feet.

  “The prince is dead!”

  Chapter 47

  AUREN

  The mender’s announcement makes the entire crowd gasp at the same moment. Ranhold guards hurry to pick up their prince carefully, his prone body gone stiff, his color unnatural, pain still laced through his unblinking eyes.