Glint (The Plated Prisoner 2)

Okay, so, the saddles aren’t doing great.

Bright side? All twelve of them are alive.

I clear my throat, trying to cut through the multiple spats that seem to be going on. “Umm...hi.” Not my best opening, but at least everyone stops arguing.

Immediately, two blondes who had their backs to me whip around at the sound of my voice. “What are you doing here?” Polly asks, looking me up and down. She’s still wearing my old golden coat, and her sneer for me seems to have returned.

Mist rounds on me, all of the vitriol she’d been using on Gia now directed at me. “Oh, look, it’s the favored,” she says, practically spitting.

I ignore her. “I just came to make sure you’re all okay,” I say, glancing around.

Mist lets out a dry, ugly laugh as she sits down, propping herself up on a pile of furs and snatching one to drape over her. “You hear that? The favored came down from her pedestal to check on us lowly saddles. How kind.”

My ribbons tug against my back, like they’re envisioning coming out and shoving her again the way they did on the pirate ship.

I pointedly ignore her. “Is everyone okay?” I ask, glancing to Rissa for an answer.

She hasn’t said a word since I came in, and she, more than the others, makes me nervous. I truly did want to make sure the saddles were alright, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I specifically came to see her.

My life depends on it.

Rissa shrugs a shoulder, her hands braiding small sections of her hair while her shrewd blue eyes watch me. “As well as can be expected.”

My head bobs. “I saw the army mender. He mentioned some of you wouldn’t accept his help?”

Another girl, Noel, rolls her eyes. “Trust one of them? Are you really that daft?”

“He won’t hurt you.”

Several of the saddles laugh, shaking their heads. “Guess she is that daft,” Noel mutters.

“Shouldn’t come as a surprise. We all knew King Midas wasn’t keeping her for her mind, just her gilded cunt,” someone snickers under their breath.

I feel my face go hot, embarrassment clawing at my cheeks and leaving scratches of color behind. Once again, I’m put in my place. An outsider, always. They might have been arguing when I walked in here, but it seems like they can all agree on one thing.

They hate me.

Taking a breath to keep myself calm, I force their words to run off me like rain over oil. “If any of you are injured or feeling sick, you should let the mender tend to you. He hasn’t hurt me, and I don’t believe he holds any ill will.”

“Why bother?” Mist asks.

My eyes cut over to her. “What do you mean?”

Behind the hatred in her face, I see the tiredness, the worry. Her black hair is tangled, heavy shadows hanging black crescents beneath her eyes. “Pretty soon, the soldiers will get bored, and they’ll start to have their fun with us. Even if that mender really does do his job, we’re just going to end up worse off anyway.”

My nerves knot with worry. “You’ve heard the soldiers say they’re going to do that?”

“We don’t need to hear them,” Polly interjects as she leans her head against the male saddle, Rosh’s shoulder. “Look around, Auren. We’re captives in the middle of an army full of lonely soldiers. They’re going to take advantage sooner or later. Men are all the same.” She looks up at Rosh and pats him on the cheek. “Except for you, Roshy.”

He snorts and shakes his head at her, but even he seems uneasy at her words. As I look at the others, I can see it in all of their faces—the troubled resignation.

Every single one of them truly believes that this reprieve in captivity will be over soon, that the soldiers will use them however they like. And really, why wouldn’t they believe that? It would be naive to think otherwise.

Just as I’m seen as a statue on a pedestal to be gawked at, they’ve always been treated as saddles to be ridden.

A sick feeling drenches me, an agitated wave crashing against the pit of my stomach, soaking me in worry.

What if they’re right? What if Fourth’s soldiers do start using them?