Glint (The Plated Prisoner 2)

“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.