Gleam: The dark fantasy romance TikTok sensation that’s sold over a million copies (Plated Prisoner Book 3)

I watch the falling snow through the glass panes of my balcony doors as I hum a pub song that’s stuck in my head. It’s an old tune from my time in Third Kingdom, and I don’t remember all the lyrics, but the chorus always made me snort.

Dear John was a yawn

But his trousers hung tight,noveldrama

So the frills would all smile

And ask him home for a night,

But poor frills, how they trilled—

For it was only a pocket of pipe.

I smirk as I reach into my pocket to feel the pipe I nicked. I spotted its thin wooden length poking out of a passing guard’s holster on the way back to my rooms. It was almost too easy to take it. Seems some of those old pickpocketing skills I learned with Zakir can still be useful.

I release the pipe with a smile on my face, yet that smile slides right off again as I think of my interaction with the captain on the wall. I’d never felt such uncontrollable darkness surge up in me like that. Is that what happens when a caged pet finally breaks free?

Violence sang inside my chest, like a bird of prey lilting as it circled, ready to dive for the kill. It was a daunting lyric for a dark need. How tempting that wicked song sings.

If Ravinger hadn’t shown up, would I have allowed the fury to manifest? Would I have another person’s blood on my gold-clad hands?

And yet, even though that beast is once again silent, I can still feel it there, watching. Some untapped creature ready to rise up.

I go still at that thought, and an old memory slithers forward.

Shove down weakness, and strength will rise.

That long-ago advice has been cropping up in my head lately, but it comes back full force now, like it was always waiting for me to get right here, in this moment, so that I could remember.

My hair reeks of fish and perfume. The smell won’t come out, and there’s no point in trying. I’ll be right back here tomorrow, caught beneath the trap of a straw mattress and the flesh of a man.

With my head turned to the right, I can see the harbor through The Solitude’s speckle-stained window. The bed shifts, and straw crackles in a dry threat to poke through the wool sheets. A hairy arm blocks my view for a moment, but I keep looking, keep trying to see those floating ships, even when a metallic click sounds as the man drops a coin on the bedside table. “For you, pretty. I’ll tell Zakir West what a good girl you’ve been.”

A spot on my back pinches, the skin jumping right between my shoulder blades. I don’t reach around to try and scratch at it though. I don’t reply to him either. But my lips press into a thin line until he has the decency to stop blocking my view.

I hear him shuffle into his pants and shirt, all while my hair keeps tickling my nose where it’s shoved between my cheek and the pillow. Fish and perfume come in with every inhale, so strong I can taste it.

He says something by way of a goodbye, but I don’t hear what it is. I don’t care. When I’m finally alone, the prickling on my back ceases, and I drag myself off the bed to pull on my dress.

It’s a deep green color that reminds me of the moss that blanketed the rocks at the lagoon in Annwyn that I once snuck off to. It reminds me of the summer grass on the hills where my mother’s horses grazed. It reminds me of the trees that stretched to the sky down the streets on Bryol.

It reminds me of home.

A tear slips down my cheek as I pull on my stockings and mud-caked boots. I walk over to the window and brace my hands on the rough wood of the sill just as the door behind me opens.

“Time to go. Got another renter for the night.”

I turn to look at the buxom innkeeper as she goes straight over to the bed and starts to strip the sheets.

“Do you want help?”

Natia looks up at me from beneath a bun of thick black hair peppered with silver strands. She’s a blunt woman, tells you her mind with a quick jab and no remorse, but has smile lines in the creases of her ochre face. “No, girl, this is my inn, and I see to it. Besides, you don’t look like you know how to make up a proper bed.”

I give her a shaky smile. “You’re right,” I say. I don’t tell her that it’s because I don’t have one.

As she yanks up the sheets on the other side, Natia nods at the table. “There’s a token there for you. Take it.”

The skin at my back flinches, feeling tight. I don’t even want to look at the money. “You keep it. I’m sorry the beds are always such a mess.” My cheeks burn as I say it, and I’m forced to glance away.

Six weeks. It’s been six weeks of coming here to The Solitude every day to meet whatever person Zakir sends. I never thought I’d actually miss begging on the streets. I never thought I’d miss being made to pickpocket all night from drunks and thieves, even when it meant I was caught and roughed up sometimes.

Can a person break in six weeks?

It feels like I am. It feels like I might be tearing at the seams, like a rag doll handled one too many times.

Maybe that’s why my back keeps quivering, my skin constantly going tight with pinches and prods. Maybe it’s because that’s where my cracks are going to start to show.

It would be fitting, wouldn’t it? For me to fracture down my back. Ironic, seeing as how I’ve bowed in submission at Zakir’s feet.

I startle when Natia suddenly comes up to my side and grabs my hand, shoving the coin into my palm before giving it a squeeze. “Now you listen here, girl,” she says sternly. “I’ve seen that look a thousand times.”

“What look?”

“That look of giving up.” Her fingers dig into my hand, the coin kept between us like a secret. “I’ve been around long enough to see it. You’re not the first of Zakir’s girls to use a room here.”

If I thought my cheeks burned before, it’s nothing to how hot my face feels now.

She nods toward the window. “You’re always looking out at those ships, but I can tell you never think you’ll be on one.”

I blink in surprise that she noticed something like that. I’ve only seen her for a couple minutes every time…after.

“Well, I won’t, will I?” I reply, tone tainted with bitterness.

“Why not?” she challenges.

I’m filled with new irritation at her question, and I pull my hand from her grasp, slamming the coin down on the sill. “What do you mean, why not? Zakir would never let me leave, and you know what happens to stowaways.”

She leans in, her apron brushing against my dress as her brown eyes fill with defiance. “Who said anything about stowaways?”

For a moment, I just stare at her, not understanding. But then, her gaze falls down to the coin again. “Like I said, take your token, girl.”

My fingers are a little shaky as I reach over and pick it up. It’s not the first time I’ve been tipped, but I’ve left every single coin behind. I’ve been too ashamed, too loath to touch them. But when Natia reaches into the pocket of her dress and pulls out a small patchwork pouch, I already know what’s inside.

“This isn’t for Zakir West, you hear? These are yours. It’s up to you how you use them.” She tips her head toward the harbor again. “I hear the ships with the blue sails and yellow suns are from Second Kingdom where it doesn’t rain for weeks on end, and the hot desert sand is as fine as powder.”

Just the idea of being dry and warm in a desert instead of constantly soggy from the cold port rain makes me shiver.

“But that’s not something a given-up girl thinks about, I guess,” Natia finishes with a shrug. “Is that what you are? A given-up girl?”

I swallow hard, my eyes flitting back and forth between her and the trio of ships with the yellow sails floating in the distance.

This thing she’s suggesting, this hope of escape, it’s what I’ve been aching for. And yet, if I were caught, if I failed…

Tears spring to my eyes, and my body trembles. Zakir wouldn’t just punish me, he might actually kill me if I tried to get away. Or he’d give me to Barden East once and for all, and then I’d wish I were dead.

“I can’t.”

“You could,” the old woman retorts, glaring at me with her hands on her hips and a scowl beneath her thickly arched brows. “That’s your fear talking, and it’s a weakness that you have to shove down before it towers over you.”

She’s right, I am weak. Her “given-up” nickname isn’t far off.

I’m weak and I’m alone, and in only six weeks, I’ve gotten the look of someone who’s caved in on herself. There’s just hollow spaces filled with broken walls and ragged pains, too much heaped in to ever be cleared out.

I hate that my bottom lip quivers, hate how small I feel. “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to try.”

Natia doesn’t soften, doesn’t give me a kindly pat on the shoulder or tell me it’s all going to be okay. Instead, she shoves the pouch of coins at my chest so hard that it makes me stumble back a step as I quickly catch it.

“Either do it or don’t. Makes no difference to me,” she says matter-of-factly. “Though, it seems to me that trying and failing is better than giving up.” Her eyes scour mine like a soundless lecture. “Shove down weakness, and strength will rise. You can’t be strong without conquering those weaknesses first. That’s what I think, anyway.”

A chill travels down my spine as my fingers clutch onto the pouch, the edges of dirty money digging against my hold.

“Now go on and get out of here. I have customers waiting downstairs, and I still have to air this room out and get new bedding on. I can’t be wagging jaws all hours of the day when there’s work to do.” Giving one last stern look at me, Natia crosses the room and grabs the pile of soiled linens in her capable hands. Then she leaves without another word, while my ears pound with everything she already said.

I stare and stare at the pouch of coins in my hand, wondering if I dare, wondering how much it would cost me to bribe a captain for passage. I loosen the ties and dip my fingers in, pulling out a single golden coin, the sides worn and grimy.

I twirl it around, asking myself if I really have it in me to try. Maybe Natia is right. Maybe it is better to try and fail than to be the given-up girl.

At hearing a sound in the hall, I quickly drop the coin back in and cinch the pouch tight before I bury it in my pocket for safekeeping. But…is it enough? Do I need more?

As I hurry out of the room, my skin pinches and jumps again, but this time, it isn’t on my back.

It’s on my fingertips.

I’m plucked out of the memory when my bedroom door slams closed.

My eyes fly over to where Midas stands, and I immediately tense up. The anger on his tanned face makes his handsomeness drain away, replaced with something ugly, something that makes my stomach ache. My mind falters for a moment under his glare. It’s muscle memory, or maybe mind memory—something that makes me almost revert to old behaviors. The urge to placate, to please, is strong.

He’s trained me very well.

Rather than give in, I call up on that anger, stoke the coals of its justified smolder, and I manage to get my shit together.

“Midas, how are you?” I ask with practiced pleasantness as I get to my feet and head over to the bed so I can keep space between us.

“Howam I?” he repeats, throwing a hand in the direction of the door. “I was just informed that you’ve been traipsing around the castle grounds all day.”

I gauge his anger and decide to play stupid. Acting oblivious, I begin to fluff the pillows on the bed. “I did,” I say brightly. “It was great. I didn’t get into the library, but I saw loads of other rooms, and Ranhold seems nice. Although, it seems to have a bit of a draft problem inside, don’t you think? My guess would be porous wood used for the window frames. Bad planning.”

Midas gets the most incredulous expression on his face while I continue to mess with the pillows. I shake one of the larger ones quite vigorously, and then—“Fluff this one for me, will you?” I chuck it at him as hard as I can before all the words even leave my mouth.

The golden satin slams into Midas’s face, feathers bending around his head with a satisfying thump. Juvenile, sure. But it does wonders for my morale.

By the time he yanks it down and holds it at his side, I’m already busy straightening the blankets. I can see him in my peripheral as his grip tightens around the pillow.

“Auren.”

I glance over at him. “Yes?”

“The cage—”

I immediately straighten up, all pretenses of my false brightness gone as furious fire flares in me. “No.” I won’t stand to hear that word come out of his mouth. I’ll play a part here because I need time and a plan, but if he tries anything with a Divine-damned cage again, I will rage.

Midas hesitates, brown eyes calculating as he assesses the snap-change of my demeanor. After a moment, he seems to decide on a different direction. “It’s too dangerous for you to be out wandering the castle without me.”

“I had two guards with me.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Everyone is a danger to you. You know this. You can’t trust people. Especially when I hear that Ravinger went near you again,” he grits out.

My spine stiffens. “He just happened to be on the wall when I was there,” I defend.

Frustration makes his shoulders go tense. “I don’t like it. He and that commander of his are either infatuated with you or purposely taunting me.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to point out that he’s always made sure that people were, in fact, infatuated with me. He loves dangling me in front of others like I’m a gold carrot. King Fulke was a prime example. Midas just wants to control it.

“Aside from people being dangerous, you should remember that you’re also a danger to them,” he goes on, letting his words sink in. He watches to see how they tug at the expression on my face, even though I try hard to keep it blank. “One wrong move, one accident, and you could kill someone. Need I remind you that you just murdered your stand-in?”

This time, I can’t stop from flinching. I can’t stop the memory flash of how I shoved the woman back, my touch immediately lethal. She’ll forever be entombed in a cage meant for me, dead by my hand. Guilt and regret cluster together like clouds, a humid pressure gathering in my chest.

“Think of Carnith, Auren. Think of what happens when you’re reckless.”

A drop falls, like a hiss of water against the smolder of my anger. I can see the manipulation for what it is. And still, it makes me waver for a moment. A drizzle of the old Auren sprinkling overhead, threatening to douse my fire.

The problem is, he’s not wrong. One slip-up is all it would take. If someone touches my skin, they will turn solid gold, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I don’t know why, but people, animals, I can’t just change their color. If I touch them, the gold takes over. A simple brush of my arm against theirs, and they’re dead. Like the woman in my cage. Like Captain Fane of the Red Raids, whose statue lies somewhere in the frozen Barrens. Like the people in Carnith, when gold first dripped from my fingertips, and left me with blood on my hands.

“You need to stay inside during the day,” Midas tells me, his eyes as rough as the bark of a tree. One touch, and I’d be sliced through with his splinters.

There’s a lump the size of a peach pit in my throat that I struggle to swallow down while I work to control my overcast emotions. The idea of being locked in anywhere ever again makes bile twist in my gut. “You promised,” I say vehemently.

“I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”

I scoff and shake my head. I hate how much of an expert he is at this. He’s trying to get me to bend, to defer, because that’s how it’s always worked between us. He knows how to pluck on the strings of my guilt and make me play his tune, so I have to play mine instead.

Shove down weakness.

Midas gestures around the room. “Don’t be ungrateful for what I’ve already allowed.”

I pin him with a look. “Don’t be ungrateful for what I’ve allowed, Midas.”

There’s another stare-off between us. A clash of repellant wills. The tide and the shore, a forever battle between land and water, between give and take.

He may wear the crown, but I was the one who made it gold.

I can see the temper he’s trying to hold in, but he never was good at compromising, and he hates it when I talk back. After a moment, he lets some of it leak out when he sighs and throws the pillow at the bed harder than he needs to, making it bounce right off onto the floor.

He takes another deep breath, hands bracketing his hips. “I agreed about you not going back into the ca—about you not being confined behind the protection of your bars,” he amends. “But during the day, it’s far too dangerous for you to be out on your own. For others, as well as for yourself. You can’t control your power, Auren.”

“I know that,” I snap. He’s trying to gain the upper hand, and I don’t like it. “Just like everyone knows the rules. No one will touch me, and I’ll be careful, just like I was with Fourth’s army.”

He looks at me with pitying disappointment. That look would’ve been like a kick to the gut before. It would’ve had me scrambling to fix it, to be good. “You’re being irresponsible, Auren. Is it really worth it? Do you really want that on your conscience? I’m only thinking of you.”

Bastard. What an emotional-string-pulling, puppeteering bastard.

And yet…am I being selfish?What if I do make a mistake, and someone else is killed because of it?

I bite my bottom lip, teeth sinking in as I nibble on the worry. A fight begins inside of me, a battle of thoughts, of warring wants.

Midas comes closer, like a shark scenting blood in the water. “Think, Auren. Are you truly okay with the risk of murdering someone? Again? Because that is what will happen. I’m just trying to protect you. You always trusted me before. I need you to trust me again.”

My eyes begin to burn, and I want to spit in his face. I want to spit at my own damn face too.

I can feel him looping the strings around me, deft words trying to tie the knots. He’s so damn good at manipulating me. How did I ever think I could beat him at his own game when he’s such a master at it?

I feel utterly unequipped.

He needs me, I remind myself. I do have leverage here, because he wants me complacent, and I want him to think that all is well so that I can get the hell away. Of course, the last thing I want is to kill someone by accident, or gild the wrong thing at the wrong time and have everyone know my secret, but I can’t be cooped up in this room day in and day out.

“No locks, Midas, or this room is no better than a cage,” I tell him. “I’ll keep your guards with me at all times, I’ll keep my hands and arms covered, and keep a distance, but I can’t stay trapped in here,” I say, tipping my chin up.

He watches me, and my heart pounds as I try not to fidget. Even though we’re both standing still, I can feel the tug of war going on between us. Can feel splintering rope cutting into my palms as he pulls and pulls. If I let him, he’ll drag me under.

So I don’t back down. I don’t let go. And finally, after another tense moment, he lets out a sigh. “I don’t want to fight, Precious. I’ve had a long day. A long damn month.” He looks tired all of a sudden, like this interaction has exhausted him as much as it’s exhausted me.

Midas walks over and presses a kiss against my hair, safe now that night has fallen. “You should get some rest, okay? I’ll send up some dinner for you, and we’ll talk tomorrow.” His eyes flick down to the bodice of my dress. “I’ll have the seamstress fix your gown as well.”

Not waiting for a reply, he turns and walks out of the room, and I’m left staring at the closed door. I know without a doubt, he’s going to continue pecking against my resolve, trying to scratch me raw. If I don’t come up with a plan soon, he’ll sink his claws into me again, and I can’t let that happen.

I have to slip through his fingers before he tightens his grip.