Gleam (The Plated Prisoner 3)

I swallow hard, those jagged pieces of rock cutting down, cleaving my reality.

“What do I do?” It doesn’t even sound like my voice. No haughty confidence, no poised decorum. The tone is ragged. Vulnerable.

Jeo’s eyes soften for a heartbeat, and my own chest compresses at this saddle, at this man I’ve called my own for these past several weeks.

“You didn’t abandon me.”

He shakes his head slowly. “No, my queen.”

“Why not?” I’m not a kind woman. I’m not an easy personality. I’m certainly not warm. And I can’t even boast that I’m good in bed, because he’s my first other than Tyndall. So why he’s shown me so much loyalty is beyond me.

If the roles were reversed, I would’ve been gone. No guilt. No hesitation.

Yet here he is, shaking me awake and packing me a bag, ready to sneak me into safety.

Jeo doesn’t answer, either because he doesn’t want to, or he doesn’t know why himself.

“We must hurry,” he says instead, a dagger I’ve never seen before held in his fingers. “Stay with me, and if you hear any violence, I want you to duck your head, alright?”

My heart pounds against my ribcage, threatening to cave it in, but I manage a nod.

“As soon as I open this door, your Queen’s guards will surround us and take us to your safe house. You need to keep moving, no matter what happens. Don’t stop. Okay?”

Dogged eyes look between mine for confirmation, and the moment I nod, he opens the door and pulls me through it. I gird myself, expecting the worst, head spinning like it’s still trying to argue that this couldn’t possibly be real, that I’ll wake up any moment.

But this is no nightmare. At least, not the kind you sleep through.

Just as Jeo said, my guards surround me the moment I’m in the corridor. I keep my head down, shoulders bunched as I’m rushed down the halls. My guards know how to get to the safe house, but it’s not common knowledge. Though if any of them told, if they’re leading me into a trap...

“What if the safe house is no longer secret?” I whisper to Jeo as we hurry side by side, his arm slung around my back protectively.

His grim face lets me know he’s considered this too. “It’s the best option we have left.”

My thoughts spin, trying to plot a way out of this. “The timberwings—”

“All gone. All taken with Midas.”

I curse beneath my breath, nearly stumbling when my too-tight boot catches against one of the new rugs placed on the floor, the glaring white fur an idiotic attempt at covering more gold.

Though when we get to the main floor, I hear it.

A cacophony of rage.

Voices, hundreds of them, bleating outside the castle walls. They’re all shouting something different, words or jeers or wordless hollers, joined in a clamor of unmitigated outcry.

When we race through the main hall, that’s when I hear the hacking. The destroying.

“What are they doing?” I cry out, the slashing and sawing noises growing so intense I can feel it vibrating through the castle walls.

“Getting their due,” Jeo answers gri

mly, his hold around me going tighter. “They’re splitting Highbell apart brick by brick, stealing the gold that they’ve been forced to see every day while they starve and freeze.”

Sour acid bubbles up my throat and coats the back of my tongue.

I hate the gold that Midas tainted Highbell with, but this...this desecration of my castle, of my home, makes my hands shake. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.

How did this happen?