Glint (The Plated Prisoner 2)

Ravinger steeples his fingers together, watching me over the top. “I’m listening.”

Finally.

I pretend to contemplate for a moment and then say, “Move your army back to your kingdom without attack, and I’ll pay your reparation in gold.”

Nothing.

I get nothing in return. No reaction, no excited glint in his eye. It doesn’t even seem as if he’s heard me.

Desperation crawls down my back. “Name the weight, Ravinger, and then we can be done with this business of war and you can return to your kingdom.”

Still, he looks. Says nothing. Letting me sweat.

He is toying with me, intimidating me. Flaunting. Has been ever since he arrived.

He flaunted his army by bringing its might to Fifth Kingdom’s doorstep. They don’t even appear to be disgruntled or weakened, and they just marched across the Divine-damned Barrens.

And they went the long way. Came right up to the palace and bypassed the mountain pass where I’d had a contingent to head them off. Not to mention the fact that the soldiers I sent to infiltrate their camp and grab Auren never returned. I have a feeling they won’t.

Ravinger didn’t stop there. He then flaunted his magic in front of the city, letting rot spread through the ground as a warning, a threat to intimidate.

And again, since the moment he walked in the throne room and stepped up on the dais, and then chose the seat at the head of this table.

Flaunting. Because he can. Because he’s an arrogant bastard.

My impatience plucks at my tongue. “Well? How much, Ravinger?”

“None.”

I lean back against the chair in shock. “What do you mean, none?”

Surely, I misheard him. Gold is what everyone wants. It’s the only thing that everyone wants.

“I mean what I said,” he replies evenly. “I don’t want your gold.”

I’m at a loss, and I have a creeping suspicion that he’s steered this whole conversation from the very start.

“What do you want then.” It’s my turn to demand now, my tone unable to pretend otherwise. He’s frayed my countenance like splitting hairs.

“I want Deadwell.”

My brows pull together a second later as my mind creates a map in my head. “Deadwell? The strip of land at the edge of Fifth?”

He tips his chin. “The very one.”

I look at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“As you said, there have been rumors that I have...encroached on territories outside of my own,” he says, shoulders back and proud, tone unwavering. “To appease such rumors and to pay restitution for Fifth’s unprovoked attack on my border, I will now take that border, which, as acting ruler, you will give me as your sign of good faith.”

A pause.

Ravinger leans in, and an ominous feeling leans with him, like a brittle tree being blown by the wind. “Otherwise, my

army attacks by nightfall.”

I regard him. He regards me.

Thoughts and questions come up one after another.