Glint (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 2)

by Raven Kennedy

  Rip’s eyes harden like inky steel, his spikes erupting from his sleeves and down his back. They seem to breathe, each sharp curve expanding like ribs.

  He glares down at me. “You can barely stand. You are ill.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  He takes a step forward, coming into my space, forcing my head to tilt back. “And I said don’t lie until you can do it better,” he replies quietly, his voice an even rumble, a saw dragging through wood. “Go to the tent. I’ll send for the mender.”

  I grit my teeth at his order, since that’s obviously what I was doing in the first place. My head hurts too much to think of a retort though, and I can’t breathe correctly with him so close.

  Cursing him under my breath, I turn and walk off, keeping my attention on my feet, feeling his eyes on my back until I duck into the tent.

  There’s a slight chill in the space since the burning coals haven’t had enough time to heat it up, but I kick my snowy boots off and strip out of my coat before I collapse onto the pallet on the right, burying myself beneath layers of blessed fur.

  I feel like I’ve just barely closed my eyes when I feel a hand pressing against my brow. My head swims, and for a moment, I think it’s my mother’s hand, her comforting touch come to say goodnight.

  But then I notice the calluses on the palm, the rough grit sliding against my forehead like sandpaper smoothing wood.

  It can’t be her—her hands were soft, dainty. Hers was a mother’s caressing touch, not this clinical, unfamiliar graze.

  I startle awake, blinking blearily as Hojat comes into focus above me. It takes a second, but once I realize that it’s his hand touching my forehead, blind panic comes roaring up.

  In a rush of alarmed horror, I jerk upright, my ribbons straightening out, acting on pure instinct. They shove him away hard, curled edges of satin slamming into his chest with a furor.

  With wide, surprised eyes and a grunt from the force of my push, Hojat’s body goes flying back. It happens almost in slow motion, while I watch in horrified shock.

  A strangled yelp chokes out of me as his body barely misses hitting the burning hot coals. His momentum keeps him going, my hit far too hard, and I suck in a breath as I watch his trajectory head for the poles of the tent.

  A second before he would’ve crashed into them, Rip is there, taking the brunt of the mender’s fall.

  The commander manages to catch him, hands on shoulders, where Hojat regains his feet instead of colliding into the tent and taking the whole thing down, probably cracking his head open in the process.

  An exhale whooshes out of me.

  For a moment, none of us move, none of us speak. With my ribbons flared out on either side of me, the only sound that can be heard are my heaving breaths.

  When I manage to calm myself enough to breathe normally, my eyes flick to the tent flaps, where I can see the blackness of night bleeding through the cracks. I must’ve only dozed off for a little while.

  But in my panicked overreaction, I just showed my hand—or more accurately, my ribbons.

  Hojat steps away from the commander to straighten himself. “Well, you’re a strong one,” he jokes with a nervous laugh that tugs the left side of his scarred mouth in a grimace.

  Blearily, my ribbons drop as I lower myself back onto the pallet, shaky legs curled beneath me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I say, shoving sweaty strands of hair off my face. “I just...I don’t like to be touched. No one is allowed to touch me.”

  Pity crosses his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I find the courage to flick my eyes to Rip. I don’t know what he’s thinking. His expression is far too unreadable, his stare too still. It sets my already racing heart on edge.

  Sweat gathers across my brow and back, and I suddenly regret falling asleep beneath all those furs, because I’m no longer cold. I’m sweltering.

  And it has everything to do with the way that Rip’s gaze is burning into me.

  Chapter 20

  AUREN

  Rip and Hojat continue to stand there, staring. I feel like a little girl caught red-handed with stolen food.

  Hojat looks nervous and embarrassed, though I don’t miss the curious edge of his brown eyes as his attention flickers to the satiny strips that just launched him across the room.

  “So you can move them,” Rip says, voice cutting through the air like shears.

  His tone is thoughtful, as though he’s talking mostly to himself. He rubs the black scruff of his chin, his gaze running over the long length of ribbons now lying motionless on the floor.

  I don’t know what to say. I’m stuck between a lie and a truth. Squeezed from both sides, trapped between two unyielding walls. Neither of them is the right choice. Neither will protect me.

  It’s why I’ve always chosen silence when I can, because silence is sometimes all you have. Like the Deify—the pious people who reside in the Mirrored Sahara of Second Kingdom. Once they go through those doors to take their vow of silence, there’s no going back. Tongues cut from their mouths, they never have to choose between uttering truths or lies again.

  I envy them sometimes, that they’ve learned to cheat those crushing walls.

  Eyes dropping down, I dig my trembling fingers into the skirts of my dress, faded from its golden glory, wrinkled, slightly damp, baggy, and overworn. I feel every inch of the fabric hanging over me, as heavy as Rip’s stare.

  “I knew I saw you use them to break your fall when you descended the Red Raids’ ship.”

  I maintain my silence. It’s not like I can deny it. But I don’t have to admit it, either.

  “Why do you hide them?” he asks curiously, no mention of the fact that I just almost took out poor Hojat, like he isn’t concerned that I could be considered a threat. I guess to Rip, even with my ribbons, I’m not. Not compared to him, anyway.

  I flick my hand against the ribbons, urging them to move behind me on the pallet, where they wind themselves up in tight curls. “Why do you think I hide them?” I ask, my voice cracking, snapping words in half like brittle branches. “Should I keep them out all the time like you show off your spikes?”

  An arrogant shrug. “That’s exactly what you should do.”

  I scoff. “Easy for you to say, Commander. No one would dare touch you. But these?” I ask, picking up a clump of them in my sweaty palm. “I don’t need another reason for people to gawk and pluck at me. Hiding is the only thing I can do.”

  “Is that why you don’t like to be touched?”

  I feel the blood drain from my face.

  “Did people...pluck at you because of those?” Rip asks, gesturing to my ribbons.

  A breath sucks in through my teeth, but I’m saved from answering because a dry, scratchy cough tears out of my throat and splits the seams of his question.

  Hojat, still frozen on the other side of the tent, suddenly comes alive at the sound. “Pardon, Commander,” he mumbles before coming over to me.

  He kneels down at my pallet and pulls off his satchel, digging through the contents inside. “I know you have a fever and a cough. Is that all that ails you, my lady? Is it your ribs?”

  I let out a breath and press a thumb against my aching temple. “My throat is a little scratchy, and my head hurts,” I admit. “But my ribs feel healed.”

  His eyes quickly skate over my face. “Your cheek and lip healed, too.”

  My fingers rub over the areas. “Yes, all better.”

  “Okay, let’s get the rest of you right as rain.” He brings out three vials along with a cloth that has some herbs wrapped inside it. He wisely places everything on the furs beside me, careful not to touch me.

  I eye the glass bottles. “None of those happen to have boiled intestines in them, do they?”

  Hojat shakes his head, and some of the lingering trepidation eases off his face. “No intestines this time, my lady.”

  “Bright side,” I mumble un
der my breath before coughing again.

  He taps on the vial nearest me, the liquid green and oily. “Drink half of this now to help that cough. We don’t want it settling into your chest.”

  I dutifully pick up the vial and pop the cork off, downing half of it with a grimace on my face, expecting the taste to be awful. However, it’s surprisingly sweet. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” I admit, sealing it again before handing it back.

  “There’s some honey in there to cover the taste of the—”

  I quickly toss up my hand. “Don’t tell me.”

  His lips seal, though his brown eyes twinkle with amusement. It’s a relief that he’s no longer looking at me with skittish unease.

  “This one can be rubbed on your chest if the cough gets worse,” he instructs, tapping on the second vial. “And this third one can be soaked into the cloth, mixed with some snow to hold over your eyes and forehead for the headache. The snow will also help ease the fever.”

  I nod, glancing at the dried herbs wrapped in the cloth. “And those?”

  “They’re to put under your pillow.”

  My brows pull together. “Why?”

  He picks up the cloth and unwraps it. They’re not herbs like I thought, but dried flowers. “Where I come from, it is good luck to place peonies beneath your pillow when you are ill, my lady. You’ll have to settle for putting it beneath the furs, though,” he says, winking with his good eye.

  “You’re giving me these?” I whisper in touched surprise.

  The tops of his cheeks redden slightly, his accent thicker with his sudden shyness. “Here.” He holds them out for me to take.

  They’re delicate, three blooms on dried stems, parts of their leaves cracked off and crumbled. I turn them around in my hand, the pink color of the flowers gone dusty, the edges of their petals browned like the crust of bread.

  “Thank you,” I murmur, tears springing to the backs of my eyes.

  Peonies for good health. A willow branch for luck. Cotton stems for prosperity. The fleshy leaf of a jade to bring harmony.

  Hojat hesitates, maybe noting the way the flowers are affecting me. I take a steadying breath and set them aside, blinking away the watery blur.

  “Keep snow on your head, but send for me if you start to feel worse,” he tells me.

  “You’re a very well-prepared army mender,” I say with a smile, gently setting the flowers aside. I’m still pointedly ignoring Rip, wishing that he’d leave, wishing that he hadn’t seen what he did. It’s only a matter of time before he starts asking questions and demanding answers.

  “I have to be,” Hojat replies with a shrug as he settles things inside his satchel, arranging them just so. “Oh, I also wanted to thank you, my lady.”

  “For what?”

  “For speaking with the saddles. Because of you, a few of them allowed me to treat them,” he says cheerfully, all previous awkwardness gone.

  “Really?” I reply, surprised. I didn’t think the girls would listen to me about Hojat, but I’m glad to hear that they have. Who knows what sort of injuries they sustained when we got captured from the Red Raids?

  “Yes. It’s a good thing, too, considering the condition of the one woman,” he goes on while he places the other vials for me on the ground near my pallet. “She’ll need to be careful, especially considering our current whereabouts. It won’t do for her to get too cold, and the travel rations haven’t been too kind on her stomach.”

  I watch him walk to the tent flaps and gather some snow, piling it into the cloth. He then pours some of the liquid from the other vial into it before tying it off.

  “Is she going to be alright?”

  “Yes,” he answers, handing me the snowpack. “She’s progressing nicely. No signs that she’s in any danger of miscarriage.”

  My heart slams to a stop.

  “Wait. What?”

  Hojat turns, his expression changing because of whatever he sees on my face. He looks over at Rip, who’s still standing across from us, silent as a stone gargoyle, spikes gone, arms crossed in front of him.

  “Apologies,” Hojat mumbles. “I just assumed. Well, with you visiting them… Never mind.”

  “Which one?” I breathe, and I don’t move my eyes off the scarred lines of his face, don’t miss how the misshapen skin creases with contrition.

  Hojat spares another look at Rip, and the commander gives a tiny nod, though he never takes his eyes off me.

  The mender shuffles on his feet, the hesitation of truth caught in the harsh slash of his mouth. “Straight black hair, a bit standoffish. I think her name started with an M...”

  A snap in my chest—like a frozen pine needle crushed beneath a hard boot. “Mist.”

  He nods slowly. “That’s the one.”

  The last of whatever air I’d had in my chest whooshes out of me as my mind begins to spin and churn, my thoughts spiraling like a whirlpool in a river, spinning my head, yanking me down.

  “Pregnant,” I say, staring off, not seeing anything. “She’s pregnant.” My voice is nothing but a hoarse whisper.

  It’s Midas’s baby. It has to be.

  The sound of a crunch makes my head tilt down, and my eyes fall to the stems of peonies I’ve accidentally crushed inside the curl of my fist. I didn’t even feel that I’d grabbed them again.

  I quickly drop them, but pieces of broken green are stuck to my glove, the stems snapped in half.

  Mist is pregnant with Midas’s baby.

  Mist, who’s been the most vocal, the most vehement in her hate for me. She’s pregnant with Midas’s illegitimate heir.

  Tears slip down my face, but I can’t feel the heat of them against my fevered cheeks.

  A baby. Midas’s baby.

  Something he warned me, again and again, that I could never have. He couldn’t afford to have a bastard with me. Not when Queen Malina never fell pregnant. I’m his Precious, not his breeder. He said it wouldn’t be right to his wife.

  A sob scrapes up my throat, jagged edges of frozen rock making me bleed. I want to hide beneath the furs again, block out every revealing light, every raw chill. I want Hojat to take it all back, for this to be an elaborate lie.

  But I know it’s not. I can see the truth of it in the mender’s twisted face.

  Whenever we were intimate, Midas never finished inside me. He never wanted to risk it. With his saddles, he was always more careless. I tried not to let it bother me, because I knew they all took something to prevent pregnancy. But me, he never wanted to give me that herb, said he wouldn’t risk me taking it after one of the saddles got really sick and died from it.

  From my peripheral, I notice Hojat trade a look with the commander and say something quietly, but I’m too devastated to listen.

  He slings the strap of his satchel over his shoulder and walks out of the tent, and as soon as the flaps close out the night air, I drop my head into my hands. My palms curl over my eyes, tears dropping into them like they’re slowly filling cups.

  Cracks. So many cracks in the glass.

  How did that happen? How did I get here, when I thought I’d never have to look through broken things again? So long as my reflection was with Midas, I thought it would always be whole and good and clear. And yet, these cracks keep appearing, keep splintering.

  I know Midas has sex with all of his saddles. Hell, he shows it off. Having me watch, having me there like a silent bystander behind gilded bars. Maybe he thought of it as his way to include me, as warped as that seems.

  I managed to quell the grieving hurt of it over the years, but this… Mist’s stomach is going to swell with a child she made with the man I love. How can I quell that?

  The truth of it sinks in, lower and lower, like rough sediment at the bottom of a pond, sharp against bare feet, muddying up the water.

  I always preferred to ignore it. To shove away all the bad and look at the good. But Mist being pregnant changes things fr
om lustful, meaningless liaisons to something else. Something more.

  All of Mist’s hate makes so much more sense now.

  In her eyes, I’m the woman he puts on a pedestal. She doesn’t just have to worry about the queen, but me too. And here she is, carrying his child.

  Great Divine, what a mess.

  I pick my head up, lashes stuck together with wet hurt, throat cinched tight. Rip is sitting on his pallet now, the low lighting of the coals and lantern pitching him in shadow and flame. A villain to spectate my stumbles.

  Whatever was in that vial has already helped the itchiness in my throat, but the tightness in my chest, the feeling of the tent closing in on me, that isn’t going away, though it has nothing to do with my being sick.

  “Go ahead,” I say, tone numb, eyes flat. “Go ahead and gloat. Drive your wedge between Midas and me. Make me question everything. Make me doubt and rage and flounder.”

  I want to slap him. I want to let my ribbons come out and send him flying backwards. I want to fight and storm, just so I don’t have to feel this crushing grief.

  The harsh planes of Rip’s cheekbones look even sharper right now, the pointed tips of his ears a stark reminder of what he is. My opponent. My enemy. A fae renowned for his cruelty. And right now, that’s exactly what I want.

  “Do it,” I hiss, anger drowning out the urge to vomit.

  Something flickers in his gaze, something I can’t quite place. “I don’t think I need to do any of that right now, Goldfinch,” he says quietly.

  Fury rears up in me like a leviathan, its massive presence breaking the surface. “Fuck you,” I spit, acid spewing off my tongue that’s hot enough to burn away the chill on my soul. “You planned all of this, didn’t you? You’re manipulating me, every step of the way, making me question everything!”

  My furious words end in a cough, but it doesn’t choke off my ire.

  Rip shows no remorse on his face, no change in the black void of his eyes. “I find it funny that you so easily accuse me of manipulating you, when you seem to have turned a blind eye to your beloved king doing it for years.”