Gleam (The Plated Prisoner 3)

I don’t think I’m ready to face the answer.

Chapter 7

AUREN

I watch the falling snow through the glass panes of my balcony doors as I hum a pub song that’s stuck in my head. It’s an old tune from my time in Third Kingdom, and I don’t remember all the lyrics, but the chorus always made me snort.

Dear John was a yawn

But his trousers hung tight,

So the frills would all smile

And ask him home for a night,

But poor frills, how they trilled—

For it was only a pocket of pipe.

I smirk as I reach into my pocket to feel the pipe I nicked. I spotted its thin wooden length poking out of a passing guard’s holster on the way back to my rooms. It was almost too easy to take it. Seems some of those old pickpocketing skills I learned with Zakir can still be useful.

I release the pipe with a smile on my face, yet that smile slides right off again as I think of my interaction with the captain on the wall. I’d never felt such uncontrollable darkness surge up in me like that. Is that what happens when a caged pet finally breaks free?

Violence sang inside my chest, like a bird of prey lilting as it circled, ready to dive for the kill. It was a daunting lyric for a dark need. How tempting that wicked song sings.

If Ravinger hadn’t shown up, would I have allowed the fury to manifest? Would I have another person’s blood on my gold-clad hands?

And yet, even though that beast is once again silent, I can still feel it there, watching. Some untapped creature ready to rise up.

I go still at that thought, and an old memory slithers forward.

Shove down weakness, and strength will rise.

That long-ago advice has been cropping up in my head lately, but it comes back full force now, like it was always waiting for me to get right here, in this moment, so that I could remember.

My hair reeks of fish and perfume. The smell won’t come out, and there’s no point in trying. I’ll be right back here tomorrow, caught beneath the trap of a straw mattress and the flesh of a man.

With my head turned to the right, I can see the harbor through The Solitude’s speckle-stained window. The bed shifts, and straw crackles in a dry threat to poke through the wool sheets. A hairy arm blocks my view for a moment, but I keep looking, keep trying to see those floating ships, even when a metallic click sounds as the man drops a coin on the bedside table. “For you, pretty. I’ll tell Zakir West what a good girl you’ve been.”

A spot on my back pinches, the skin jumping right between my shoulder blades. I don’t reach around to try and scratch at it though. I don’t reply to him either. But my lips press into a thin line until he has the decency to stop blocking my view.

I hear him shuffle into his pants and shirt, all while my hair keeps tickling my nose where it’s shoved between my cheek and the pillow. Fish and perfume come in with every inhale, so strong I can taste it.

He says something by way of a goodbye, but I don’t hear what it is. I don’t care. When I’m finally alone, the prickling on my back ceases, and I drag myself off the bed to pull on my dress.

It’s a deep green color that reminds me of the moss that blanketed the rocks at the lagoon in Annwyn that I once snuck off to. It reminds me of the summer grass on the hills where my mother’s horses grazed. It reminds me of the trees that stretched to the sky down the streets on Bryol.

It reminds me of home.

A tear slips down my cheek as I pull on my stockings and mud-caked boots. I walk over to the window and brace my hands on the rough wood of the sill just as the door behind me opens.

“Time to go. Got another renter for the night.”

I turn to look at the buxom innkeeper as she goes straight over to the bed and starts to strip the sheets.

“Do you want help?”

Natia looks up at me from beneath a bun of thick black hair peppered with silver strands. She’s a blunt woman, tells you her mind with a quick jab and no remorse, but has smile lines in the creases of her ochre face. “No, girl, this is my inn, and I see to it. Besides, you don’t look like you know how to make up a proper bed.”