Glint (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 2)

by Raven Kennedy

  I hear a curse, some shuffling in the snow. “What the Divine hell?” the man grumbles.

  The other soldier chuckles. “You gonna shit your pants from a little hawk?”

  I immediately back up and close the small door as quietly as I can, but I’m too nervous to latch it, in case it makes a noise.

  “Why’s that thing even going out right now? There’s no damn messages.”

  I freeze, eyes widening. It feels like my heart might beat right out of my chest.

  “The thing hunts at night, you idiot.”

  “Oh.”

  With a puff of relief exhaling out of me, I let go of the handle and carefully round the corner of the carriage, putting it between me and them. My boots scrape over the snow, and I know that I’m damn lucky the horses are right behind me, covering up the sound as I slowly back up.

  “Damn, those fucking horses smell.”

  “You’re a whiny bastard. Why do I always get stuck on patrol with you?”

  “Because I give you smokes,” the man says dryly.

  “Oh. Right,” he chuckles.

  I crouch down to peek beneath the carriage, seeing their black boots on the other side. Snow dampens my skirts as I silently crab walk backwards with the tangled fabric around my knees. I slink toward the front of the carriage, watching their steps reach the back.

  But they stop, boots turning just as I round the front.

  “Huh. Latch is open.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face. Shit.

  I look around in a panic for somewhere to hide, but the nearest spot is a tent ten feet away, and it’s right in their line of vision. Unless I want to risk going back toward the horses, but what if I startle them?

  “You gonna stare at it all night? Close the fucking thing and let’s go closer to the fire. It’s cold enough to freeze my prick off out here.”

  A snort. “Must not be much to it, then.”

  “Fuck off.”

  I hear one of them close the back latch with a click, and the hawks inside make a quiet screech, either in appreciation or irritation. Still crouched down to watch, I see the soldiers walking away, heading back to the warmth of one of the low-burning campfires.

  I’m so relieved that I fall back on my ass in the snow, not even caring that more wet cold is soaking through my dress. I sit there for a moment with a hand over my racing heart, trying to calm down.

  After a minute or two, I pick myself up off the ground and start walking as quickly as I can, adrenaline still riding me. It’s not until I make it all the way back to my empty, dark tent that it well and truly sinks in.

  I did it.

  I actually did it! I got a message to Midas. He’ll have a warning now, a chance to prepare. The advantage of Fourth’s element of surprise is gone.

  A smile of victory pulls past frozen teeth, my lip cracking slightly from the chapped cold. My dress is wet, I’m freezing, and I was nearly caught, but I actually did it.

  I’m not a traitor. I’m loyal to Midas, and I just proved it.

  But my smile slowly drops, weighted down, like a hook pulling at my cheeks. All that victory, that pride, it sours in my gut before it even has the chance to settle.

  In its place, an awful feeling rises up, like my impulsive act to prove Polly and the other saddles wrong was a mistake.

  Regret. That’s regret there, festering in my stomach.

  My breath shakes as I look down at myself, eyes settling on my wet hem. I should be proud of myself for standing my ground, that I didn’t waver in my convictions. That I didn’t let Rip trick me into thinking he’s my friend.

  I should be gloating that Fourth’s army underestimated me, that their manipulations, their false camaraderie didn’t work. I should be thoroughly content that I just helped my king and solidified whose side I’m on, because that—staying loyal—it’s right.

  ...Right?

  I become a flustered mess in the span of a heartbeat, as a war erupts inside of me. I’ve always known where I stood, and I always stood with Midas. So why the hell do I feel like this?

  Shaking my head, I tell myself to stop. What’s done is done. I can’t take it back now, no matter how much I may regret it.

  I feel guilty just by thinking that.

  With my mind acting like a turbulent, churning storm, I start going through the motions of getting undressed.

  With only a thin bit of moonlight coming in the tent, I strip out of my coat, dress, boots, and wet leggings, hanging them up to dry. I try to stoke some life back into the coals, but they’re thoroughly burned out, nothing left of them but cold crumbles. No more warmth or light to give.

  It’s because of this, and the lack of lantern light too, that I never noticed him until right now, when his voice jolts across the tent.

  “Have a nice walk, Auren?”

  A yelp of alarm flies out of my mouth as I whirl around, hand over chest. With wide eyes, I panic, until I notice the shape of the spikes along the shadow’s back.

  Funny how the silhouette of a monster seems to calm my racing heart.

  “You scared me,” I say shakily, dropping my hand.

  “Did I?”

  He sits on his pallet, unmoving, his voice strange, like he’s using a different tone with me than he usually does.

  Unease slithers over my body.

  The sliver of moonlight pouring in across the floor is like a line drawn between us.

  He just sits there in the dark, not speaking, not moving. The dim light shines on the scales of his cheekbone, his black eyes only visible from the iridescent gleam in them. A feral cat waiting in the rafters to pounce on the unsuspecting mice.

  “Rip?” I question, and I hate that my voice sounds so small, so scared.

  He doesn’t reply. I’m thoroughly unnerved, and more than a little frightened of him right now—a contradiction to the relief I felt just moments ago.

  Dressed in only my shift, my knees begin to shake, but I don’t know if I’m shivering more because I’m cold or because I’m frightened.

  I back away a step, and that’s when he stands up fluidly, with more grace than a male like him should be able to move. I flinch, like a rabbit caught in a snare, but I know that the twine around my neck will only tighten quicker.

  My heart thumps hard with palpable threat, my ribbons starting to unravel, as if they’re anticipating attack.

  Three steps, and then he’s right in front of me, close enough that I have to tip my head up to look him in the eye. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, too dry, too heavy.

  This close, I can feel something brewing beneath his skin, feel it like a wicked coarseness that leaves a tangible sharpness in the air.

  Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the moment where I’ll finally reap that vicious cruelty that Rip is known to sow.

  I can be done with this interlude and finally face the real him. I can hate him and not be confused anymore.

  So I lock my knees and put my shoulders back, and I wait for the blow. Wait for the noose to tighten and leave me swinging.

  But Rip never does what I think he will.

  His hand comes up to grip my neck, like he’s going to strangle me right here in his tent. I flinch when his fingers close around my throat, except he doesn’t squeeze. His touch just rests there, burning into me like a brand.

  “I wasn’t supposed to find you on that pirate ship,” he murmurs, voice like rippling water, the fluttering waves slicking against my ears.

  I blink in the dark, trying to keep hold of his black eyes, trying not to notice the heat from his hand on my skin.

  He’s confused me once again, and I don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do. For a moment, I wonder if he’s getting ready to snap my neck.

  I should shove him off, use my ribbons to push him away, remind him that I don’t like to be touched...but I do none of those things, and I’m not entirely sure why.

  “You didn’t
have to take me with you,” I say, throat bobbing against his touch, defensiveness crawling through my tone.

  He strokes a fingertip across my racing pulse. “Yes, I did, Goldfinch.”

  And then, Rip leans forward and brushes his lips against mine.

  A gasp pulls between my lips, but that just makes me taste him. His air, breathing into me, like inhaling awe.

  He doesn’t press harder against my mouth, doesn’t demand. Just that barest of strokes, lip against lip, and then he’s pulling away.

  I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes until my heavy lids are snapping open again. His hand moves from my throat to my jaw, a skimming touch just at the edge.

  “You’ll be pleased to know...” he begins quietly, eyes roaming over my face.

  I look at him dazedly, trying to keep up with what he just did, trying not to touch my lips that are still tingling. “Know what?” I ask, a cracked voice through the dark.

  He drops his hand, and my body sways toward him before I can catch myself, like I wanted to follow his touch, to get it back.

  “We’ll arrive in Fifth Kingdom soon.”

  His words are jarring. Ill-fitting inside this confusing, intimate moment.

  Something in me droops. “Oh.”

  He reaches up and moves a strand of hair off my shoulder, leaving air to brush against the skin like another feather-light kiss. His eyes flick up, but they’re as hard as granite now. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to see your king,” he says, face unreadable. “Especially so soon after sending your message to him.”

  I rear back, like his words are an open palm slapped across my face. I’m left gaping as Rip turns and walks out of the tent, leaving me in the dark, leaving me reeling.

  He knows.

  He kissed me.

  He knows.

  He kissed me.

  He knows what I did, and yet...he still kissed me.

  Chapter 29

  AUREN

  Winter winds howl outside my dark window.

  I can hear it whipping the castle’s flags, wailing through the cracks in the glass, hail pelting the stone walls.

  It’s strange to see such a brutal ice storm raging in the night, while I soak in the heat of my bath. Steam still rises in steady tendrils, filling my bathroom, making it hard to see. Sweat beads like drops of glitter on my skin, my every muscle warm and languid as I laze in the water.

  But a shout pulls me from my dozing rest.

  Jerking my head up from the rim of the tub, my brows pull together tight. I look through the steam, but it’s thicker than before, and the noise of the storm outside is growing louder.

  I hear something, someone, maybe a voice.

  Looking left and right, I call out, “Midas?”

  But I don’t get a reply, and I can’t see anything past the steam. It’s hot, cloying, and I realize that the water I’m submerged in feels like it’s heating up.

  I look down as something coats my fingertips beneath the water, like the thick soap I poured in earlier to make bubbles. I lift my hand out of the tub, water dripping off, rippling around me where it lands.

  Except when I hold my hand close to peer at it through the haze of the steam, I see that it’s not soap clinging to my skin.

  All four of my fingertips are coated with liquid gold.

  “No...”

  My other hand comes up quickly, grabbing hold of my leaking fingers, squeezing them as if I can staunch the metallic drip.

  But my left hand is seeping gold, too.

  There’s a bright flare that makes me squint, and I turn to look up at the window. It’s lit up with daylight now, like the night was somehow blown away by the force of the storm.

  Panic fuses to my pulse.

  I shake my hands violently, but all that does is send golden droplets flying, some of it landing across my face like a splatter of paint.

  “Shit.”

  The gold starts to slip down my wrists, past my elbows, my shoulders, my breasts. I jerk upright, feet nearly slipping in the tub, my heart slamming against my chest like it’s trying to get out.

  “No!” I shout, but the gold doesn’t listen.

  More of it smears down my belly, slips down my legs, bleeds into the creases of my skin.

  “Auren.”

  My head snaps up, and there’s Midas, but he’s pissed. Furious. Enraged. His brown eyes don’t hold any comfort right now, and I know it’s my fault.

  “Help me,” I cry.

  Midas just watches as the gold spreads and spreads until it encases my body completely, like I’m mummified with it. I was gold before, but not like this. This is polluting me, like an infection spreading, taking over.

  Nothing of me will be left.

  A whimper escapes when I realize that the liquid is now hardening in place, gilding me into a solid statue.

  “Midas!” I cry, a sob shaking the chords of my voice. “Midas, do something!”

  But he shakes his head, eyes gleaming now, so clear that I can see the reflection of my body in them. He isn’t mad any longer, but the new expression on his face holds no comfort. If anything, it makes my fear worse.

  “Keep going, Precious. We need more,” he says quietly, firmly.

  I try to jerk my feet up, try to step out of the tub so I can run, but the gold has already hardened beneath the soles of my feet. It’s locked my ankles and knees, weighed down my legs. And the bathwater…it’s turned solid too.

  I’m frozen in place.

  With every frenzied breath I take, the gold that coats my skin becomes harder, thicker, stronger.

  Tears began to fall from my eyes, but those are gold too. They spill over, dripping down like the melted wax of a candlestick, solidifying against my neck.

  My ribbons are panicking, twitching behind me, but they’re heavy, soaked-through. Ends bent and sharp, they try to scrape off the hard layer from my skin like a chisel to stone, but they can’t. They can’t, and as soon as they touch the insidious coating, they get stuck, like ants to sap.

  Seeing my ribbons curled at odd angles, stuck, trying to jerk free to no avail, it makes fear lock around my heart with a cold, merciless grip.

  My terror-filled eyes snap up to Midas. “Do something!” I plead, but it’s a mistake.

  As soon my mouth opens, gold slithers past my lips, coating my tongue and teeth. A strangled cry pops out of me, the sound like bursting bubbles of magma as the liquid clogs my throat.

  It slinks down to my gut, rises up to my eyes, vision tinted, the sharp metallic scent filling my nose. It ensnares my bones, sheathes my heart, takes over my mind.

  The next moment, I’m completely solid from the inside out.

  Unable to breathe, or blink, or think. I’m like Coin—the bird in the atrium, never again to sing, to fly, stuck in place on my perch.

  Midas’s hand comes up to cup my cheek, fingernails tapping against the metal. “You’re so perfect, Precious,” he says before leaning in, placing a whisper of a kiss against my lips that I can no longer feel. I want to cry, but I can’t, because my tear ducts have solidified too.

  The steam in the room is so thick now that I can’t see anymore. The gold in my ears makes it so I can’t hear either.

  But I scream. I scream and scream and scream, though no one can hear me, because my throat is plugged with gold. I’m going to choke on it, be trapped in it for all eternity.

  Something against my chest pinches, and my eyes fling open wide from the pain.

  I come awake with a thrash, flailing arms and gasping breath like I’ve just broken through the surface of that solid gold sea.

  Sweat has soaked through my shift and leggings, and my hair is plastered against my scalp in damp tangles.

  Around me, my ribbons are flapping and snapping with unease, some of them wrapped around my body and constricting around me in a painful squeeze.

  I jerk upright and halt their frenzied pulls, make them loosen around
me. I start to tear them away from my limbs and torso, untangling myself with shaking hands, trying to escape the hold of the nightmare.

  The way Midas had looked at me… My eyes burn as I try to shove the vision away. Not real, I tell myself. It wasn’t real.

  It’s not until I extricate myself from the last of my ribbons that I’m finally able to take in a full breath.

  “Bad dream?”

  I jerk on my pallet and look over, finding Rip getting dressed. I wonder if he’s what woke me or if it was just the pinch of my ribbons.

  A glance at the front of the tent shows me it’s still dark, my internal clock telling me that dawn is still an hour or two away.

  “Umm, yeah,” I say with some embarrassment, my mind still trying to shove the dream away. “You’re up early,” I note, then feel immediately stupid for saying such an inane thing, considering what happened between us just a handful of hours ago.

  I wonder when he came back to the tent to sleep after I passed out, or if he ever slept at all.

  “I want to get the army moving,” he says, strapping a belt around his waist. “We’ve been going the long way, but I’m anxious to get to Fifth Kingdom now.”

  Something that tastes like remorse sits on the back of my throat. My tongue is poised with an apology, but something holds me back. Pride? Embarrassment? An argument to defend what I did? I don’t know.

  I sit up, keeping the furs tucked around me as I look at him.

  He kissed me, and I still don’t think my mind has fully processed it. My body, on the other hand, seems to have memorized every single moment.

  But why did he do it?

  Just like last night, before I managed to fall into a fitful sleep, my mind spins with warring emotions. I feel like every single thought I have argues with itself, and I don’t know which side is right.

  Because that kiss, that soft, somber kiss, it didn’t feel like the machinations of an enemy commander.

  It felt like deep-seated want.

  “Rip...”

  He cuts me off, tone cold, eyes not looking anywhere near me. “I suggest you get up and get ready. We move out as soon as dawn breaks.”