Glint (Plated Prisoner Book 2)

If the army was somber yesterday, it’s been replaced tonight with tension. And it has everything to do with the spired building looming in the distance.

Several hours ago, we crossed into Fifth Kingdom’s capital city, coming face-to-face with Ranhold Castle. Directly behind it, there are mountains of bright ice that border glittering plains of unruffled snow.

Before night fell, there was a white shroud of thick mist in the air, like all the clouds gathered together to stitch a gown for the sky to wear, its skirts trailing down over the horizon.

Ranhold City is a ring around the castle, and from my vantage point on the overlooking hill, I can pick out the shops, the tenements, the larger estates.

I tried to sleep for a while, but I gave up. I’ve been staring at Ranhold ever since. I stand with my back to the camp as I look down at the city, my eyes skimming over the burning lights in homes and on lantern-lit streets.

“What are you doing up here alone, Gildy?” Judd approaches with his usual swagger, his yellow hair nearly glowing.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I reply, turning back to face the palace.

Midas is somewhere in that castle. I wonder what he’s doing, who he’s with. I wonder if he knows I’m here.

Right now, he could be looking out the window of the castle, watching Fourth’s army where we’ve set up camp on the edge of Ranhold’s border. Maybe he’s looking at me.

Judd makes a noise beside me, a grunt that wordlessly says he sees all of Ranhold and he’s not impressed.

“Come on. I have a job for you.”

He turns to start striding away, and I have to hurry to catch up. “What kind of job?”

Judd glances at me from the corner of his eye. “You’ll see.”

Instantly curious, I let him lead me through the camp. He doesn’t strike up any conversation, so I focus on following him as he squeezes us between tents and passes by campfires.

The soldiers we see nod at Judd and raise a hand or tip their heads in greeting. It seems most of them decided to give up on sleep too. Dawn is fast approaching, and with it, maybe war.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I finally ask when it feels like we’ve been walking for ages.

“Shh,” he hisses back at me.

I open my mouth to ask him what the hell is going on, but like he can sense it, he gives me a pointed look.

I huff out a breath but keep quiet.

After another few minutes of walking, my ears perk with the sound of women’s voices. I snap my gaze around, and sure enough, there are women soldiers gathered around a campfire—and Lu is one of them.

I open my mouth and raise my arm to call to her, but Judd yanks me behind a tent and obnoxiously presses his finger to his mouth. “Shh! Are you trying to get me caught?”

Blinking at him in surprise, I raise my hands in a silent question, which he doesn’t answer. Instead, he starts walking again, motioning me to follow. We duck behind a tent, putting distance between us and the fire.

When we pass a small collection of horses, Judd halts in front of me so fast I nearly collide with his back. When I peer around him, I see why.

“What are you doing here?” the woman soldier asks with clear distrust in her tone. She has an unlit wooden pipe tucked behind her ear, nearly obscured by the frizz of short brown curls around her face.

“Inga, always a pleasure to see you,” Judd says.

She narrows her eyes on him before sucking her teeth, like she’s trying to get a wayward crumb out. “Is it? Shouldn’t you be off with the left flank? I heard they’re stroking each other’s egos like they do their pricks. In need of a little pep talk so they don’t wet their pants on the eve of battle?” she says with a mocking tip of her lips.

Judd rolls his eyes. “Please. We all know that it’s the right flank who piss their pants before a fight.” His eyes drop to her waist. “Speaking of, new trousers?” he grins.

She glowers at him.

“Anyway, I’m just bringing Auren to find Lu.” Judd raises a hand and presses it against the edge of his mouth to highlight a fake whisper. “She’s in need. Having her women troubles, if you catch my drift.”

My mouth drops open, and embarrassed heat floods my cheeks.

Inga glances over at me. “Oh,” she says, “the red flag is flying, hmm?”

Completely mortified, I start to say no, but Judd steps on my toes. Hard.

“Nn…yep,” I say with a wince.

She nods in understanding. “Well, if you can’t find Lu, come back and I’ll sort you out.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Judd smiles before he cocks his head at me to follow him.

I can’t even look at her, my face is burning so badly. “Thanks,” I mumble.

As soon as I catch up to him, I shoot him a glare. “What the hell?” I rasp.

He snickers, leading me between a couple of tents. His blue eyes are scanning all around us, but he finds what he’s looking for because his face breaks into a grin. “I knew it.”

I stop as he rushes over to what looks like a pile of furs. But when he yanks a few off, I see it.

Exasperation fills me, coming out in a sigh. “Really?” I say dryly.

“Come on, help me lift.”

Grumbling, I come forward. Just like Lu had me do, I’m lifting a damn barrel of wine again.

It feels heavier this time, but maybe that’s just my sore arms from the training I’ve been doing.

“Can you hold it up higher than that?” Judd asks as he clutches the bottom end. “You’re weaker than I thought.”

I glare at him. “Maybe it’s all the blood I’m losing from my women’s troubles.”

Judd laughs. “I had to think quick on my feet. It was the best I could do.”This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

I strain to hold the heavy ass barrel up as Judd zigzags through the tents, the clandestine movements apparent as he makes us turn around or duck behind a tent any time we see someone.

He has us bring it all the way to the other side of camp, where a group of men are sitting around a fire, chewing on food rations.

When Judd sets it down, the men notice what it is and let out a cheer, their sullen mood instantly breaking. It doesn’t take long for one of them to pop the plug and start emptying the barrel, cup by cup.

I stand at the back, watching with amusement as Judd claps the men on their backs, trading a few words with them. He sees me watching and wanders over, passing me a drink.

“So this is a thing? Steal the wine barrel from each other?”

Judd grins. “Yep.”

I smile and shake my head in amusement before taking an appreciative sip. The wine hits my tongue with sweet, decadent warmth. “Mmm.”

“Exactly,” he says with a nod. “Best wine in camp. The other stuff is basically watered-down horse piss.”

I wrinkle my nose at that visual.

After finishing our cups, Judd walks me back, and I notice that the sky is starting to lighten with impending dawn. Even though I think my gloves might have splinters in them and my arms are sore from lugging that barrel half across the camp, I’m grateful that it distracted me, at least for a bit.

“Thanks for giving me a job,” I tell Judd as we stop in front of my tent.

“Any time. You had that look about you.”

“Which one?”

He sends me a smile, not the usual snarky one, but sympathetic. “The look of a person about to face a battle.”

My brows pull together. “But I’m not going to be the one in a battle.”

Judd arches a knowing brow. “Aren’t you?”

I know what he’s implying, but I don’t know what to say. It does feel a little bit like I’m readying myself for something. I just don’t know what, because I have no idea what I’ll be facing tomorrow. I only know that I do have to face it.

I fidget on my feet. “Do you think King Ravinger will declare war? Do you think it’ll be you battling tomorrow?”

He shrugs. “Who knows? That’s up to the kings. I’m just here for the wine.”

A laugh bubbles out my throat, Judd successfully popping the unease that had started to boil in my stomach again.

Movement out of the corner of my eye grabs my attention, and I turn to see Rip standing just at the edge of the tent. His posture is stiff, his face stern with a line pulled between tense brows, mouth pressed in a tight line. His eyes are on me.

The smile on my face wipes away.

Seeing my expression, Judd turns to follow the direction of my gaze.

Rip’s eyes flick to him for a split second. “Leave us.”

Judd passes me an unreadable look before he slips his hands in his pockets and walks off, taking the last of my happy distraction with him.

Now alone, Rip tilts his head at the tent, and I walk inside, warmth greeting me from the coal bank. Rip follows after me, bringing a chill with him.

Something is off. Something is wrong.

The tension is thick enough to slice, and he’s too still, too shadowed. His aura, which I’ve grown so used to, is restless, churning with agitation.

My hands wring together. “What’s wrong?”

He stays where he is, right at the entrance of the tent, with a foot of space between us that somehow feels both incredibly far, and much too close.

“King Ravinger will be here soon to meet with Midas.”

A little lightning bolt strikes into my stomach. I shouldn’t be so afraid. I’ve known this was coming. Yet now that it’s here, I can’t stop my heart from racing or my stomach from writhing in dread.

“What’s going to happen?”

To me. To Midas. To him. To them.

Rip shakes his head once. “That remains to be seen.”

I cross my arms like I can ward off the unease.

He watches me for a long moment, making me wind up so tight that I don’t even feel my ribbons around me.

“I have a question for you,” he finally says.

Something tells me I don’t want to hear it. “What is it?”

His black eyes are locked on my face, and I don’t know what he sees, I don’t know what he thinks. It’s like this every time I’m around him, but right now, it makes me want to scream.

“Do you want to stay?”

My lips pull downward as his question spins in my head. “Stay?” I repeat breathlessly.

Rip takes a single step forward. Just one, but it divides the space between us in half. He’s like he was that night, after I sent the hawk. Quiet. Pensive. An intensity about him that takes up all the air, makes every single one of my senses go alert.

His voice drops. “You don’t have to go back. I could make it so that you could stay.”

The breath catches in my throat when I realize what he’s saying. I’m stunned, confused, I don’t know what the hell to say.

“I could make it happen. But you have to tell me now, before King Ravinger arrives.”

Restless unease makes me start to pace in the small space. “Why are you offering this?” I ask, bewildered. “I’m your prisoner, Rip. Your king no doubt wants to use me for some kind of ransom, and you’re the commander of his army that’s probably going to declare war tomorrow. You can’t ask me if I want to stay. You can’t.”

He stands as proud and as unyielding as a wall. “I can, and I am. You have a choice, Auren.”

I’m so confused, so damn shocked. “Your king would never allow it. Not if he already has a ransom in mind. He plans to use me, and he will.”

“Not if you tell me now.”

I stop to gape at him. “What would happen to you, to your soldiers?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

A noise of derision slips out of me. “Don’t have to worry? All there is to do is worry. I can’t stay, Rip.”

For the first time since he came in this tent, a flash of emotion crosses his face. Anger, dark and quick, thickens over his brow. “Why not?”

I press a hand to my forehead, trying to quell my thundering thoughts. “Because.”

He shakes his head, jaw tight. “Not good enough. Give me a real answer.”

“I don’t even know what you’re offering. To hide me? To make me disappear? I can’t do that to Midas.”

If I thought he was angry before, it’s nothing to the anger that brews now. It’s palpable, thickening in the air like a storm building to rage.

“Midas.” The word is spit from his mouth like a curse, something to detest. “What about those things you said on the beach? You’re just going to let him keep you again like a bird in a cage?”

“No,” I say with a resolute shake of my head. “Things are going to be different now. I’m different now. I meant what I said.”

Rip scoffs. The sound is ugly, distrustful. “If you think for a second that things will be different, then you’re a fool.”

My hands ball into fists at my sides. “I’m not a fool.”

“He keeps you like a pet. Uses you. Manipulates you. Takes advantage of whatever twisted love you think you have for him.”

He flings the accusations at me like a dagger, meant to pierce me.

“He kept me safe.”

“Safe.” He growls it like he’s a wolf who’d like to devour it whole. “Always the same damn argument. Yes, how magnanimous of him to lock you behind bars all day and call you his favored whore.”

I flinch from the slap of his words, a hit that makes anger and hurt blaze in my cheeks.

“You can think what you want, but no one else ever did that much,” I say, and I hate that my throat squeezes with emotion, hate that I can’t stay as emotionless as him.

“I wilted in the streets, starving, abused, hated. You think he uses me? It’s nothing compared to what I’ve endured at the hand of others.”

Rip goes lethally still. Fury radiates off of him and lifts the hairs on the back of my neck.

“What’s wrong?” I taunt. “Don’t like to hear that a fellow fae didn’t rise up in this world like you? So sorry that I didn’t sell myself to King Rot instead. Maybe if I had, I’d be commanding this army, and you’d be in Midas’s cage for people to gawk at and prod at your spikes.”

Those spikes stretch and tighten, like they’re imagining it—him being trapped behind bars.

“Stop being complacent. Stop being okay with being a pet in a cage.”

My lips pull back into a snarl. “Go to hell!”

He shakes his head. “No, Auren. You’re the one that needs to burn. You need to spark to life and fight. Stop letting him dull you, stop letting the whole fucking world trample you,” he shouts, making me flinch from the vehement demand. “If you tried, you could shine brighter than the fucking sun. Instead, you’ve chosen to sit back and wither.”

An angry tear floods past my eye and drips down my chin. “You want me to run like a coward, but I’m not afraid of him. Despite what you think, he loves me and he’ll listen to me,” I say, dashing the evidence of my hurt off my face. “Why are you even doing this? Why do you care?” I demand.

But what I’m really asking is, what did your kiss mean? What does any of this push and pull between us mean?

A tic appears in his jaw, like he’s biting his words, deciding which ones to swallow down. “Everyone deserves a choice. I’m offering you one.”

“I can’t leave the one person who has ever protected me.”

He makes a growled sound and runs a hand through his thick black hair, pulling it at the roots, revealing his frustration. “Look, we do what we have to in order to survive. I’m not judging you for it.”

I let out a humorless laugh. The air is lightening even more, a dread dawn ready to crest. “That’s all you’ve done since I met you. You’ve judged me for every decision I’ve made to hide myself, to survive. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Fine,” he says, dropping his hand. “But you don’t have to hide, not anymore.”

My expression goes cold. I force my legs to lock to disguise my trembling knees. “I told you. I’m always going to choose him.”

I see the pale outline of his throat bob, like he’s taking in what I’m saying, getting a taste of the bitterness. His eyes, though, they’re drenched in it, and so is his voice when it hardens in a reply.

“So be it.”