can’t stop me
can’t
The words palpitate between us, clogging in his ears and thrumming on my tongue, because there it is. The ugly truth that he never wanted me to know: that power doesn’t just come from magic. It comes from your own grit. And I have both.
The look in his eye makes me want to turn away, but I manage to hold my ground. “Careful, Auren. Be very, very careful.”
Every word is a lash of warning.
My breath heaves, that dark, coiled anger in my chest writhing and poking with feathers and beak like some unnamed beast. I’m trying to plan smart, to play the long game and disappear right out from under his nose, but he will not keep me captive. My soul can’t take that again.
I hold the power.
Me.
I don’t care how long he’s tried to trick me into thinking it was the other way around.
“Or what?” I challenge, my voice cracking like a whip.
He wants to threaten me, and the creature that’s bloomed under my skin wants to rise up and strike him down for it.
I’m not sure what I let through in my expression, but Midas’s eyes narrow. “Hmm. I can see our time apart has done more damage to you than I first realized.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “You think I’m damaged because I refuse to be locked away like a mad person in an asylum?”
“Listen, I have plans in motion, and Third Kingdom is due to arrive soon, so I cannot have you acting out of line. A lot rides on this, and you need to do your part. That means gilding whatever I tell you to gild, and staying where I tell you to stay. You went through some traumatic events, and I am sorry for that, but I’m not your enemy. I’m your protector and your king.”
My cager and betrayer.
“I’ll gild whatever you want,” I tell
him, “unless you lock me away again.”
The ultimatum lands like a star falling from the sky and exploding on the ground. The fire in the hearth burns low, a soft orange glow to compete with the shadows between us.
He watches me for a long time. Just the two of us staring at each other like strangers. I’ve never not given him everything he ever asked for or bent to his will. The bastard can’t say the same for me.
Finally, he lets out a sigh and shakes his head. “Oh, Auren.” His tanned hands come up to bracket his hips like he’s bracing himself. Yet there’s condescension on his face, and I wonder if he would look at me like that if it were still daytime. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve left me no choice.”
He digs into his pocket and then holds his palm out, revealing a small golden piece of grimy metal.
I frown down at the guard pin, eyes tracing over the bell emblem. “Why are you showing me that?”
“You don’t recognize it?”
Wariness paints over my face. “It’s the pin all the guards in Highbell wear.”
Midas lifts it up, rolling it between his finger and thumb like a god holding the world in a threatening pinch. “You told me you thought your guard died with the Red Raids.”
My mind races.
Stumbles.
Rolls down a cliff, scraped and scattered and left to fall.
For a moment, all I can see is a flash of red in the snow and sweet blue eyes. All I can hear is, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.
His name yanks out of me like the dagger pulled from a chest. “Sail...”