Glint (Plated Prisoner Book 2)

Sitting in the tent, I stare and stare.

There’s a pendulum swinging in my mind, in my chest. Back and forth it goes, with every heartbeat, every thought.

Past and present. Right and wrong. Truths and lies. Knowing and not knowing. Doubts and trust.

It’s a constant tick in an unending tempo.

I’m not sure how much time passes that I sit here without moving. I just know that I’m still staring, that pendulum still going to and fro, when I hear voices outside.

My tent flap is lifted, like the invitation of an open door. I take a deep breath as I stand, pulling my hood over my head once again, checking my coat and gloves.

When I walk outside, the skin of my face tingles all over. I probably would’ve had to squint from the daylight if Osrik hadn’t been looming over me.

He nods to my guard dogs, making Pierce and the other man depart, until it’s just Osrik and me.

Just like the first night I met him, he’s a mass of intimidation, but even more so in full armor. I don’t envy the blacksmith that had to fit him for a chest plate.

Today, his usually unkempt shoulder-length brown hair is pulled back and tied at the nape of his neck. His beard though, that’s as wild as ever.

He looks down at me, a sword at either hip and a helmet under his arm. He’s wearing his signature scowl, and his brown eyes are hard. He’s the epitome of a Fourth army soldier, right down to the wood piercing in his lip and the gnarled branched hilts of his blades.

“What happened?” I ask, though I can barely talk with my heart in my throat. My ears strain to listen, but I hear no sounds of battle. Everything is still quiet. “Is it going to be war?”

“Don’t know yet,” he says. “King Ravinger requested a face-to-face meet. Midas sent an envoy.”

My heart leaps. “So a negotiation, then? They might not fight?” Hope clings to my limbs like it wants to make sure it doesn’t get dragged away.

“Possibly. But Midas made a request too.”

I pause. “What request?”

“An offering to be made by us in good faith.” He spits the term, like he doesn’t think it’s in good faith at all. “The bastard should be giving us something. We’re the ones with the upper hand.”

I already know what the request is.

“Midas wants me.”

Osrik nods. “He does. The envoy had a very specific message from Midas. He told us, and I quote: ‘Bring me my gold-touched favored, and I shall let your King Rot have an audience with me.’” Osrik’s face twists in displeasure. “What a slimy, arrogant prick,” he says.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

I’m not surprised by Midas’s message, just like I’m not surprised by Osrik’s disdain.

“And your king actually agreed? He’s handing me over, just like that?”

“Yep. Just like that.”

Now that does surprise me, but I can’t even try to guess the way King Ravinger thinks or what he may be planning, though it makes me feel uneasy. It can’t be this simple, can it?

I let out a slow breath. “Well, it’s a good sign, right? That the kings are willing to negotiate terms? Anything is worth it to stop a war from breaking out.”

Osrik sighs at me, like I’ve just disappointed him. “I’ll never get how you fucking stand it.”

It. Midas. Being kept like a pet.

“I know,” I reply, and I also know that my voice sounds numb, because that numbness surrounds me.

Osrik grunts. “Ready?”

Yes. No.

The pendulum swings.

He leads me away from the tent and the camp, his stride so long that I have to take two steps for every one of his. We go up to the same embankment I stood on earlier, where five horses wait at the top of the slope, three with soldiers on them, two without.

“Can you ride?” Osrik asks.

I tug my gloves up, heart pounding, palms going slick. “Yes, I can ride.”

“Take the dappled one,” he says, and I smile at the black horse, admiring the sprinkle of gray spots on her chest. My mare is much shorter than Osrik’s horse. Honestly, I wouldn’t even be able to get up in the saddle of his stallion without a stepping stool.

Stopping in front of her, I give the mare a stroke before leaning down to make sure my leggings are tucked into my socks. “Need a leg up?” Osrik offers.

I shake my head. “No, thanks.”

He gives a terse nod and then seats himself on his horse, waiting for me to do the same. I carefully step into the stirrup and hoist my leg over, checking my skirts once I’m settled in the seat.

Maybe Osrik can tell how nervous I am by the look on my face or the way I grip the reins, but he brings his horse right next to mine. He gives me a hard look while the other Fourth soldiers position their horses to flare behind us.

“Well, you were right. You never did betray your golden king. That takes guts,” Osrik says, surprising me.

I wring the leather straps in my hands. “It’s not like you guys were torturing me,” I say with a small laugh. “As far as prisoners go, I think I might’ve been the best-treated one in all of Orea.”

He snorts. “Probably. Except I did give a good threat at the beginning. What was it I told you?”

I wrinkle my nose in thought. “I think you said if I talked bad about King Ravinger, you were going to whip me.”

Osrik grins. “That was it,” he says, proud of himself. “Did it work? Were you properly threatened?”

“Are you kidding? I almost peed myself. You’re a scary guy.”

A bark of laughter erupts from his mouth. He doesn’t look so scary when he does that. I don’t know what happened to make him not loathe me anymore, but I’m grateful. We’ve come a long way from his whip threat and calling me Midas’s symbol.

I tilt my head in curiosity. “Does it still piss you off to look at me?” I ask, remembering his previous words.

The amusement washes off his face, and Osrik studies me for a moment with a slight tilt of his head, gruff face solemn. “Yeah,” he finally replies. “But for a different reason now.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t ask him to. I’m not even really sure why I asked him that question anyway. It doesn’t matter now. I won’t see him again after this. Even if we do end up at war, I’ll be on the other side.

That thought makes my stomach hurt. It’s hard enough being loyal to one side, but what happens when you have loyalty to both? I don’t want anyone to die. Not Fifth’s men, not Midas’s, and not Fourth’s army either.

“Time to go.”

Nodding, Osrik clicks his tongue, leading his black stallion down the slope. My horse follows, while the three guards keep space behind me, protecting the rear.

When we reach the flat snow plains and start making our way across, I notice that Osrik keeps us well away from the rotted path that the king cut into the land earlier. Even so, my eyes can’t seem to stop drifting to it, to follow the lines of deterioration, to take in the sickly, jaundiced snow.

I don’t know where the king is now, but I’m glad he’s not around, because I don’t think I could bear to be near that man’s sickening power ever again.

Once was enough.

As we get closer, I notice that the army is still in formation, though no longer at attention. They’re waiting now, waiting to see how kings will decide their fate.

When we ride through a line between the soldiers, I can feel the weight of hundreds of eyes watching me as we pass. We’re a silent procession, me readying to be handed off as an offering between monarchs.

The gold-touched saddle returning to her king.

Despite the fact that I can sense them watching me, I don’t feel the weight of hate or enmity anymore. I wonder what Orea would think if people knew the truth about Fourth’s army. If they knew that they weren’t monsters, not bloodthirsty villains set on killing.

Formidable? Definitely. Deadly? Without a doubt.

But they were honorable. Not once did I fear for my life, not once was I abused or used. Instead, I was treated with respect, and I suspect there’s one person in particular to thank for that.

An army is only as good as its commanding officer.

As if my thoughts conjured him, a spiked form on the back of a black stallion breaks away from a line of soldiers and heads toward us. My ribbons coil around my waist, breath hitching at the sight of him.

Right now, Rip looks every bit the imposing commander of Fourth’s army. In full armor, missing only his helmet, he’s a reckoning come to demand retribution. He wears a fierce expression bracketed with the brooding line of his spiked brows and the sharp angles of his jaw.

His black hair is swept back as his horse rides toward us, the pale skin of his face more prominent from the scruff of his jaw and the black of his eyes. With spikes glinting on his back, jutting from perfectly melded armor, he’s making it clear that the sword at his hip isn’t the real weapon. He is.

My horse slows to a stop as Rip approaches. He nods at Osrik in greeting before stopping his horse beside mine, instantly dwarfing me on my mare. His energy is tense, like the snapping teeth of a beast, aggravated and sharp, wanting to maim.

Beside him, my nerves flip and flounder, a fish tossed on the shore. He doesn’t speak to me, offers no greeting. He simply dismisses the three guards behind us and then starts to lead Osrik and I toward Ranhold—toward a royal envoy flying a golden flag with Highbell’s emblem proudly displayed on it.

With Osrik on my left and Rip on my right, I get herded toward the line of men I don’t know, not a single familiar face in sight.

“What about the other saddles? The guards?” I ask.

“Their release is part of the negotiation. They’ll be escorted to Ranhold tonight,” Osrik answers.

I peer over at Rip, but his gaze is straight ahead, expression stone-faced. I see the muscle at his jaw tighten, like he’s clenching his teeth.

There’s definitely no pendulum swinging inside of him. He’s not wavering, not contemplative. He’s just pissed.

I know that it’s directed at me. Even after I sent the messenger hawk, his anger wasn’t like this. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for choosing Midas, even though I warned him time and time again that I would.

Osrik must feel the animosity too, because he keeps glancing over, as if he expects Rip to snap.

A sadness settles over me, like the soft silt of sand. It covers my skin, so many tiny particles that I know will continue to cling to me for a long time.

I hate how we’re leaving things. Even though it’s only been a short time since I’ve been with him, and even though I was technically his prisoner, I never once felt that desolate, empty discontent here that I felt back in Highbell. I wish I could tell him that.

But Midas… They don’t get it. I can’t stay. Midas won’t let me go, not ever.

I don’t care how fierce Rip is, or how powerful King Rot is. Midas will stop at nothing to get me back, and I can’t let anyone try to step between that. It wouldn’t be fair—not to Rip, not to Midas.

I couldn’t do that to Midas, either. He and I are connected. Not just through gold, but through time. Through love. I can’t abandon that, can’t abandon him. Not after everything we’ve been through together.

I open my mouth to try and explain, to try and say something, anything, to make Rip hate me less, but then we’re suddenly there, stopping in front of the envoy, and I’ve lost my chance.

My ticking pendulum ran out of time.

“Your king’s gold-touched saddle, as requested,” Rip says, his voice hard as steel, his expression even harder.

The men in the envoy approach on their shaggy white horses, and I have to try not to frown at their golden armor. I never realized before just how garish it looks.

I once thought of it as elegant, but next to Osrik and Rip, it just seems silly. Unlike Fourth’s, whose armor bears the marks of battle, their gold gleams without a single imperfection, like it’s all just for show.

“Lady Auren.” A man with white-blond hair jumps down from his horse and steps forward, the rest of the envoy stopping in a line behind him. “We are here to deliver you to King Midas.” He looks up at me expectantly, though not daring to come any closer.

“Aren’t you going to help her down?” Rip asks, and the tone of his voice could only be explained as a growl. It makes the man’s face go pale, the others shifting on their feet.

The golden soldier clears his throat. “No one is allowed to touch the king’s favored.”

Rip’s head turns slowly toward me. I can feel the judgment in it, and my cheeks burn beneath the cover of my hood. I don’t have it in me to look at him.

“Of course. How could I forget the rules of your golden king?” Rip replies with open disparagement.

Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, I remove my right foot from the stirrup, preparing to jump off my horse. But just as I swing my leg over, Rip is there, hands gripping my waist.

A surprised gasp slips through my lips, and my gaze snaps to his face. He’s so stern, so intense. His black eyes carry a thousand words, but without any light for me to read them.

There’s a sound of hissed shock that comes from Midas’s soldiers, but I don’t look away. I’m too busy letting my eyes run over Rip’s face, like I’m trying to memorize him.

“Commander, I must insist that you don’t touch King Midas’s favored.”

“I must insist that you shut the fuck up,” Osrik drawls.

Rip doesn’t look away from me, doesn’t pay them any attention at all. He simply lifts me off the horse as if I weigh nothing and helps me down.

Awareness surges through my body with every dragged inch as he slowly lowers me to the ground in front of him. My heart is pounding so hard that I know he can hear it. I can feel the firmness of his grasp and the heat of his palms. Even through the layers of his gloves and my clothes, it makes me warm all over.

But when he brings me down far enough that our faces only have an inch of separation, I lean away from him on instinct.

The instant I do that, Rip’s expression snaps.

Face hard again, the intensity in his eyes goes shuttered. A shadow falls over his features like a fast approaching dusk, darkening the scales of his cheeks until he regards me with nothing more than cold apathy.

The second my feet hit the ground, he releases his hold on me like I’ve burned him. All the warmth I’d felt from his touch is gone, leaving me bereft. He turns without a word, already walking away, while guilt freezes in my gut.

I watch him go, one foot poised to walk after him, the other foot firmly on the ground. My mouth is dry, but my eyes are wet. I want to say everything, yet I say nothing.

And so, the pendulum swings again, ticking with my choices. Somehow, it sounds like the hooves of Rip’s horse as he rides away from me.