Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)

by Raven Kennedy

Is that going to be me? Fifty years from now, will my body go completely solid like the bird? Will my organs fuse, my voice silence, tongue weighted? Will the whites of my eyes bleed out, lids stuck forever open, unseeing? Maybe it’ll be me on my perch in here, stuck immobile forever, while people look in, talking to me through the bars when I can’t talk back. It’s a fear I have, though I’ve never voiced it. Who knows if this power will change? Maybe one day, I really will be a statue. For now, all I can do is keep singing, keep ruffling my proverbial feathers. Keep breathing with a chest that still rises and falls like the sun.

Poor favored golden girl. I know how ungrateful I sound, and I hate it. It’s like a festering slice deep under my skin. I keep scratching at it, irritating it, even though I know I shouldn’t touch it, should let it heal over and scar.

I can’t recall what my mother’s face looked like. I don’t remember the rumble of my father’s voice. I can’t dig up the feel of their arms around me when they held me for the last time. It’s faded.

And I realize right then, that this woman, this saddle, holds power. Not the magic of kings and queens, but a different sort of power—one of control. She holds these men in the palm of her attentive hands, directing their desires, driving their emotions, feeding their fantasies.

“Are you a princess?” an older girl asks, but I smile and shake my head. “No. Are you?” The children all scoff together, trading looks.

I hold a finger to my lips. “Use one, hide one, and give one away,” I whisper. A risk—it’s a risk to give her this much gold. Hell, it’s a risk to give them any at all, but I have to hope she’s savvy enough, smart enough to be safe. The girl nods solemnly at me and then turns and sprints away as fast as her little feet can carry her. Good girl.

At least I know that for every King Rot that exists, there’s someone like Sail in the world to balance it out.

Even when a hand slams over my mouth to quiet me, the sound rips out, as if I could make a tear in the world, as if I could shatter the skies.

My heart shatters itself against my ribs. He looks at me, my teardrops landing on his. I sob. He shudders. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I cry. Lying for him, as he did for me. And with his last breath, he nods.

This is a crossroads, forged on the deck of a pirate ship. I don’t know which fate is worse or which captors are more brutal.

I give one last look at the gleaming captain below. He’s cursed to forever have shock in his eyes and pants around his ankles. He’s also richer than he ever dreamed, but too dead to appreciate it. For a man solely motivated by coin and pleasure, that thought makes me immensely satisfied.

But the soldiers behind Commander Rip don’t move an inch. The commander himself also doesn’t grip his gnarled hilt. He doesn’t take a step forward. He doesn’t even argue. No, the commander laughs. The sound pours out of his helmet and pools in the air between us, making the pirates go tense. It’s the sound of a warning. It’s the laugh of a madman, one set on the promise of blood.