Gleam (The Plated Prisoner 3)

I’m pushed right off the peak.

Utter disbelief has me shaking my head. My mind spins in circles with this news, but I can’t even fathom it.

Malina...dead?

How can that be possible? The woman hated me from the start, but she’s a queen I knew how to deal with. Became a fixture in the background of my static life. To hear she’s suddenly dead...

“How? When?” I ask, bewilderment sticking to the roof of my mouth, my tongue a rasp of sandpaper scraping off the words.

A pleased gleam enters Kaila’s eyes. She enjoys catching me off guard. I wonder if this is something she used her magic to learn or if Midas actually told her.

“There were riots in Sixth Kingdom because she was trying to commit treason against King Midas. The people rebelled against her, of course. She wasn’t able to subdue them, and they stormed the castle and killed her. The king sent forces, but it was too late.”

I rear back in shock. I can no sooner imagine riots happening in Highbell than I can Malina being murdered by them. How the hell did this happen?

Suddenly, I remember the coded letter that Slade intercepted.

The cold weather has gone from Highbell. Clear skies ahead.

Comprehension is a landing of wreckage overhead, trapping me beneath convoluted rubble.

The Cold Queen. That’s what the letter was talking about. It was a confirmation that Malina is gone.

“I can see this is quite a shock to you,” Kaila remarks, though her pitying tone doesn’t fool me.

My eyes blur with erratic thoughts as I plunge down and down.

I stare at the timberwings, but I’m not really seeing them. Instead, I’m seeing Malina, always looking down her nose at me. Formidable. Cold. Utterly unflappable.

And then there’s Highbell itself. I may have been a self-inflicted prisoner there, but it was the place I called home for a long, long time. I literally poured myself into that castle to make it what it was. I gave so much of me without ever considering the effect it would have on the people who had to look at it every day.

Kaila is still speaking, and I have to forcibly jerk my thoughts from my inner spiral to focus on what she’s saying. “He’s gotten it well in hand. The late queen obviously did not know how to quell such things, but King Midas is a competent monarch who knows how to rule a kingdom. Which is good, because my first husband was a fool.”

Completely at a loss and too unsteady to care, I ask, “Why are you telling me all of this?”

Her finger traces over the shell necklace that droops below her cloak. “This is the woman-to-woman part of the talk, Auren. I need to know, are you going to be a problem?”

So far, this conversation has been the equivalent of a kick to the gut, the shove off the cliffside, and now, I’m just falling.

“A problem?” My eyes skip over to the timberwing as it starts to nuzzle her arm.

Kaila’s thick black brows arch up ever so slightly. “I’m not a fool, and I’ve been married before. I know the ways of kings and their saddles, but you’re so much more than that, aren’t you? The gold-touched favored one.” She drags her gaze from my head to my toes. “I’m not sure if he loves you or if he simply fucks you every once in a while and keeps you as his garnished prize.”

My lips part in shock, and I shoot a look over my shoulder to see if the guards are listening in, but Kaila says, “Don’t worry. I’ve been controlling our voices since we walked in this perch. No one can hear us.”

“Not even if I scream?”

A slow—and quite frankly, scary—smile spreads her lips. “Not even then. I can tug every whisper to my ears, push any voice from its box. I can grab conversations and pitch them across the room. I’m a master at voices, Auren, but it’s yours I want to hear. Are you going to be a problem?”

How is someone so young so damn terrifying?

“No.”

She regards me like she’s taken my voice and is studying it behind the lenses of her magic. “That’s very good to hear. And the other saddles, are any of them going to be a problem?”

I swallow. “No.”

“It isn’t a good idea to lie to me, Auren,” she chastises, her dark eyes gone barbed. “But it’s alright. I already know about the pregnant one. Mist. I can’t have my betrothed having bastards, so she won’t be an issue for much longer.”