Glow (The Plated Prisoner, #4)

by Raven Kennedy

“No. Fucking no!” Os snarls right in her face, denial and fury battling it out. “You will wake up, you stubborn woman. You can’t be fucking dead. Hear me, Yellow Bell? You can’t be fucking dead because we have mistakes to make.”

“Sir Osrik?” Hojat says gently. “Lady Rissa is not dead.” Shock plummets through me, and Osrik’s head whips up so fast he almost headbutts our mender. Disbelief crosses his expression as he looks back down to her. “The dagger just missed her heart, and because it was left inside her, she didn’t bleed out,”

“I’ll carry her,” Osrik grunts out as he gets to his feet. Hojat winces. “I’m not sure if—” “I said, I’ll carry her.”

Osrik leans down and collects her in his arms. It’s the gentlest thing I’ve ever seen him do. As if he’s picking up the thinnest pane of glass, and one wrong move will make it shatter.

“They took Auren. They fucking took her!”

“No more trying to use that magic, Lady Cheat,” she says. “This will happen every time you attempt to use what isn’t yours.”

“What did you call me?” I pant. “Lady Cheat,” she says in her same serene voice. “The gilded saddle who cheated her way into the Golden King’s heart and his power, before she stole both and then his life. You’re a cheat and a fallen woman, and this is the best place for you.”

“I am Isolte Merewen, Queen of Second Kingdom and First Matron of the Gathering of Temperance. The gods bestowed this power of pain on me so I may exact punishment on immoral souls. It is no sin, my lady. It is my duty as a patron of sanctity.”

“I’ll save myself,” I tell her before my eyes move across the wide-eyed faces of the others. “And even if I don’t, King Rot will.” Despite her colorless face, she somehow pales even more, and a telling hush falls over the room. “Did you forget about him?” I ask with a smirk. “Because when he gets here, not even your gods will be able to save you.”

Broken leg and a wounded wing that I don’t know the full extent of. He’s completely debilitated; there’s no possible way that he can move, let alone fly.

Argo can’t fly. Can’t walk. He’s going to die out here because of me.

My hand comes up to stroke the soft feathers of his neck, and when he lets out a near-silent purr, emotion thickens in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. To him. To her. So fucking sorry.

“My great-grandfather had the power of runes. And the one you’re standing on? It drains a person’s magic out of them, like squeezing out a tube, but you won’t be able to use it so long as you’re in there. It just reveals.”

The gold is pouring out of me now, and I know the monarchs are speaking, know the throng is shouting, but my ears are ringing, heart pounding, because these dark lines...they look like— “Great Divine.” My head jerks up at Queen Kaila’s voice, at the way she’s pointing at me, the shock on her face so apparent that I’d bet nearly everyone in the crowd can see. “She stole King Rot’s power too!” She screams it.

“The royal Conflux rules that she is guilty!” The voices of the crowd spread into a thousand cracks. “The verdict is immediate execution.” And everything around me shatters. Guilty guilty guilty.

He came. He came for me.

I’ll be the villain for you. He is the epitome of death and revenge. The personification of rage. He destroys everything and everyone in his vicinity without glance or thought, and through the chaos, through the massacre, I revel in it.

“If you touch her, I will rot every single one of you right here, right now.”

“Drop this barrier and let her out. Now. Or what I did today in this square will be nothing compared to what I do next.”

“You can hide behind this shield for as long as your son can hold it, but I assure you, I will wait longer. The moment it drops, I will curdle your skin and wither your bones. I will decay you slowly, from the inside out, until you’re nothing but an agonized corpse left to fester in the sun. Then, I will destroy every last person in your kingdoms, and I will not rest until all of Orea crumbles out of existence.” The other monarchs blanch.

He came for me, but he can’t get to me. Hot tears score lines down my shaking cheeks. But I try to pull them up. Try to give him a smile. “Find me in another life.” “No!” The anguish thrown from his throat feels like it tumbles right at my feet.

I smell the air, the beast inside of me sings. Because it carries the breeze of home. It feels like I release a breath that’s been locked in my chest for twenty years. With that long breath, my skin warms, my gold glows. I was my parents’ little sun. And with the world torn open, with the fragment of home just inside that rip, I actually feel like one. Like if I could just fall into that cracked-open sky, I could shine forever.

“Auren. You need to go into it.”

he’s tried everything else, and it’s home. Annwyn is home, and— But then I realize. Then I truly see. “The rip...you can’t get to the rip.” His lips are pressed into a thin line, his eyes full of speechless agony. “You have to come with me,” I say, panicked, terrified, despairing. He shakes his head, and my foundation shakes with it. “I can’t. You have to go into it, baby. You have to. I can’t get to you, and you can’t stay there. You’re fading.” My head shakes, tears pooling from my eyes. “I can’t. I can’t. Not without you,” I beg. Fight. Wail.

“I will find you. I will find you in that life. I fucking promise you that. But you have to go.” Two wet tears split down his cheek, and the sight makes anguish split through my soul. “Please, baby.”

“I’ll find you, Goldfinch. I swear to you. Now fly.”

“Whose timberwing is this? Where’s Argo?” “Our soldiers caught up to me—just like I told you they would when I found you in that desert. Argo’s on his way back to Fourth as we speak,” he tells me. “Probably already on a ship. He’s in good hands, I promise. One of them is an animal mender.”

“I’m going to Deadwell.” He frowns, opens his mouth to say something, but then realization dawns. “You’re going to the rip.” I nod. “I have to find her, and I’m not going to have the strength to use any more raw power. I can’t open another rip right now.”

If he and his group hadn’t found me in the desert, if I hadn’t shown up here when I did, Auren would be dead. Just thinking about how close she was makes my blood feel like ice.

“Slade,” Ryatt pants as he catches up, nearly knocks into me, both of us blurting words at the same time. “Everyone is—” he begins, and, “The rip is—” I start. “Gone.” Our words join together with an echoing blow I feel punch through my gut. The rip is gone. The people are gone. Auren is gone. And my fucking power to get to her is... Gone.

“With your blood and our magic, we restored what was broken.” My eyes cast down the bridge. To that drumming that travels down its length in a steady beat. Because I know the tale of this bridge. Every single Orean knows about it. This is the Bridge of Lemuria.

“I told you she had pure royal blood,” Pruinn tells them. “I could sense it.” “Well done,” the twins praise. “What did you do?” I say again, my voice as shaky as the ground was. “This isn’t what I agreed to.” “But it is. You made the bargain, Majesty. We needed the blood of a pure Orean royal to accept the restoration of the bridge, and you gave it.”

It sounds like...footsteps. Like a thousand marching feet thudding down the strip. My whole body trembles with the ominous pulse. “What is that? Who’s coming?” I don’t like the way their grins grow cruel. But it’s their unified answer that makes terror bolt through my heart. “The fae are returning. And this time, Orea will be ours.”