Gleam (The Plated Prisoner, #3)

by Raven Kennedy

I was my parents’ little sun. I used to dance beneath a sky that sang. Now, here I am, a painted whore in the slums of a sodden harbor, with filth in the air and a silent cry in my throat, and no amount of rain will ever wash the curse of my goldenness away.

No, the sky doesn’t sing here. And every year that passes, the song of home gets drowned out from my memory just a little bit more, washed away to a polluted seashore rife with cragged cruelty.

I shun the ships sailing away at my back, shun the choice that is no choice at all, between the East and the West, between Barden and Zakir. Between life and death. Then, with a raindrop on my cheek that might have spilled from my eye, I open the door and walk into the inn. And I die, just a little bit more.

Truths are like spices. When you add some in, it means you have more layers to digest. You get a taste of things you were missing before. But if you add too many, life can become unpalatable. But when those truths are repressed for too long, when you realize you’ve grown accustomed to the bland lies, there’s no hope of removing the overpowering taste from your tongue.

“Maybe my perceptions wouldn’t be so skewed if the people I trusted didn’t constantly trick and twist and lie,”

I’m wrapped in deceit and molded in manipulation, stuffed full of everything I’ve done to survive. I want it all to unravel. I want to come out of the tangles that have coiled around me before I become mummified with them.

I met death the night I was stolen from home, and it’s been stalking me ever since.

Because...it’s too late. The blindfold has been ripped from my sight. Now, my heart doesn’t squeeze. My stomach doesn’t flutter. He broke something inside of me far more than just my heart. He broke my will. My drive. My voice. He broke down my very spirit, and I let him.

“I missed this,” he says through a yawn. Maybe that part is at least true for him, or maybe it’s just another deceit to pull me in. Either way, I give myself this moment. Just this one. For the innocent girl who lost the love she thought she had, I let her have this. Because this...this is her quiet goodbye.

I focus on the steady beat, and another tear falls with its rhythm as he strokes my hair, because it’s not love I’m listening to. It’s just possessive control. It’s so loud, I can’t believe I didn’t hear it before.

To everyone else, I probably seem unchanged. I probably look like the same gilded saddle, the same gold-touched favored. But if you look closer, you might see the gleam in my eye. You might catch the twist of my downturned lips that hints at the discontent lying just at the edge of my mouth.

It’s so liberating not being told what to do. Not being a captive. Not being kept. It’s an indulgence I’ve never had the opportunity to enjoy. It’s a balm, cool and brisk, against a part of me that’s been tepidly stagnant for far too long.

I have hated, resented, and been ashamed of myself for long enough. I don’t want to harbor thoughts like that anymore.

sometimes, you have to do foolish things just for the sake of doing them.

The goddesses made me a female. War made me an orphan. Midas made me a saddle. Up until now, those things have roped me. I’ve let myself be bridled, jerked around this way and that. But I’m sick and tired of gnawing on that bit at the back of my jaw with every tug of the reins.

I’ve never really comprehended what I’m capable of, because I’ve been reined with fears and doubts, led with manipulations.

Anger, I realize, tastes like a sugared flame. And after a lifetime of cold bitterness, a part of me wanted to indulge in it, wanted to bloom in its burning embrace.

“Shove down weakness, and strength will rise. You can’t be strong without conquering those weaknesses first.

“Pain shouldn’t be the requisite of beauty.”

We tell ourselves twisted lies to tangle around our wicked truths, all so that we can get caught up in the bind and not have to face bare regrets.

the eyes of liars are tricky things. They can show you what you want to see without ever reflecting the truth. It’s best not to look a liar in the eye. They’re so good at their own compulsions that their gazes hold steady, and then you’re the one who loses sight.

“My own good was stuck on a pirate ship, with an aura like a beacon that flared across the Barrens,” he grits out, a thick spun voice meant to tie knots around me. “My own good was cowering before men who were nothing—fucking nothing—in comparison to her.”

“My own good hated me, fought me, argued with me, but I didn’t care, because I watched her slowly come out of her shell, peeling back one layer at a time, and it was stunning.” He raises a finger in front of my face. “I got one touch. One taste, and if it was an act of selfishness, then you should know, it certainly wasn’t one-sided, Auren.”

We kiss like two stars colliding, our heat flaring with the threat to burn, while the cold world around us fades in our light. We kiss like we need the taste of one another or we’ll never be able to emerge from the dark.