Gild (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 1), Raven Kennedy [good books to read TXT] 📗

an inconsequential thing compared to everything else. I don’t even know why I point it out.

He carries me away, away and up.

“I need a bright side,” I mumble.

Bright side. I need a bright side to ground me. To keep me from going under.

Bright side...bright side, I didn’t get raped or murdered.

Great Divine, what an abysmal bright side.

Digby stays silent, not offering any suggestions, not that I expected him to. But the sure steps of his boots reassure me for some reason, even though my mind is whirling and those black flares in my vision are getting worse. “You killed a king for me, Digby,” I mutter.

He just grunts.

I close my eyes just for a second, lulled by the sway of him walking. I open my eyes after what feels like just a few seconds, but I realize I’m already on the tallest level of the palace, back in my bedroom, and Digby is setting me down on my bed.

I sit up, bracing my hands on the mattress, my fingers curling into the covers. With one departing look, Digby turns and walks out on quiet footsteps, the creak of my cage door closing softly before he leaves me to my privacy, the lit candles in my room my only companion.

I was going to be raped by a king tonight.

But that king was killed, a blade shoved through his chest just inches away from me. His blood is soaked into my slippers. I can still feel his hot breath against my neck. And the night is crushing me. Crushing me on all sides, as every part of what happened presses against my mind, replaying, picking it apart. Showing me again and again what happened, from the moment I woke up to right now.

I sit here like this for a long while, thinking, listening to the hail and the wind, wondering if I did something in a past life to offend the goddesses—or if I’m so hidden here in Sixth Kingdom, beneath a cover of snow clouds that never leaves, that the stars just haven’t been able to see me.

And for the next hour, that’s all I do, is wonder. With the blood of a dead king still smeared on my shoes, and a shallow wound drying at my throat.

Chapter Fourteen

The sound of a key fitting into my door pulls me from my thoughts. Several sets of footsteps come near as servants file into my cage one after the other. They walk past me, steps determined, as they head for my bathroom, steam rising from buckets in their arms.

A minute later, they all walk right back out silently, the cage closing again, my bedroom door shutting.

I don’t turn, don’t move, but I wait. Listen.

I can feel him behind me, watching, but I keep my back straight, keep my eyes on the window, to the blizzard raging outside.

Finally, Midas walks over, a dark silhouette that stops in front of me a few paces away.

He waits for a beat, and although I can’t see his eyes, I feel the trace of them, feel them land on the slash over my throat.

Midas takes three slow steps and then offers his hand, holding it in front of me, waiting.

I don’t take it.

“Let me get you cleaned up, Precious.”

My eyes lift up to his face. I still don’t take his hand.

His expression fills with remorse. “I know,” he says hoarsely. “I know, but let me explain. Let me—I want to hold you. Take care of you. Let me help you, Auren.”

That slowly creeping crack spreading up from the gash in the glass, it halts. Waits. Wonders.

Because Midas said those words to me before—Let me help you.

Is that why he’s using them now? To remind me?

When I was on the streets, I slept during the day and crept around at night. Hungry, often. Afraid, always. I was too scared to buy anything, to approach anyone. I did so only when it was absolutely necessary.

I wandered alone, stayed hidden. It was the only way a girl like me could stay safe. To make sure I didn’t end up right back in the same situation I’d escaped from.

Bad men. The world was run by bad men.

And as much as I tried to lay low, to be invisible, I couldn’t. I wasn’t.

I knew better than to stay too long in one place. I knew better, but I was tired. Worn down. I slipped up. Got sloppy. I knew it was just a matter of time before something bad happened to repay me for it.

The looters came that night.

With fire and axes, they took the village I was hiding in—the one I should’ve left behind days before.

They took everything and anything they wanted. The farmers who lived there didn’t stand a chance, didn’t have any defensive training. They didn’t even own weapons other than their pitchforks and shovels.

I tried to run. Too late. I was far too late.

Pulled from an alleyway, I was shoved into a cart with the other women who’d been dragged from their beds.

They screamed and cried, but I was silent. Resigned. I knew it was over for me. I knew there was no way I’d escape. Not again. The fates don’t give second chances. So I steeled my spine, and I readied myself to face the life I’d tried to run from.

And that’s when he came. Midas. Like the goddesses themselves had sent him, riding in on a dappled gray horse with a half dozen other men.

At first, I thought the shouts were just continued fighting from the villagers, a last-ditch effort to defend their homes. But then I saw the looters being cut down. And then the cart was opened and the women were running, sobbing again—this time, with tears of terrified relief.

But I had no family to reunite with, no one to run to. So I staggered back to that alleyway. Tense shoulders collapsed against a rough stone wall. I didn’t believe it was over so quickly. Didn’t trust it. But I thanked