I watch the guards amble around my bedroom, carrying out the last of the trunks that I filled earlier.
My space looks emptier than usual, my dressing room with noticeable gaps from where some of the gowns and shoes have been taken and packed away. Outside, dusk has fallen.
It’s nearly time to leave.
It doesn’t appear to be snowing out right now, but snow never stays away for very long here, which is why I’m dressed in a heavy woolen gown, complete with fur trim and sheepskin-lined boots. Everything is shiny gold, of course, right down to my thick leather gloves.
My hair is coiled tightly against my head in countless braids so that the wind won’t thrash it around, kept out of the way so that my hood can conceal both my hair and my face.
“It’s time.”
I turn away from the window to see Digby standing ready on the other side of my cage. He looks gruff and quiet as usual, no hint of the man who ran a sword through a foreign king. No expression of worry, like when he carried me up six flights of stairs while covered in blood. But then, I appreciate that about him. His complete unruffled manner, his steadfastness.
Unconsciously, I lift a hand and run my fingers against the newly formed scar at my throat where King Fulke tried to slit it three weeks ago. Digby notices the movement, his eyes flicking down to my fingers, and I immediately drop my hand, trying to stop myself from that nervous fidget I’ve developed.
Sometimes, my mind forces me to relive that moment in my nightmares, and I wake up screaming and clutching my throat, convinced that I’m suffocating on my own blood.
Other times, my mind decides it would be a good idea to imagine what would’ve happened if that messenger had never shown up, if Fulke had dragged me all the way to his bedroom instead, and Midas never came to stop it.
Neither nightmare lets me get much sleep. That’s probably why I have circles under my eyes like bronzed bruises shaded above my cheeks.
I wish Midas were here.
Three days. He could only stay for three days after the incident, and then he had to leave—he and a regiment of soldiers to travel to Fifth Kingdom.
I stood beside him in the throne room the night after Fulke was killed. Watched Midas’s plan play out as he wove a tale of what had happened. The people know about Midas’s Golden Touch. But his golden tongue? To me, that’s his true power.
“We were deceived.”
The room was quiet, the gathered nobles watching Midas with rapt attention as the king and queen sat on their thrones with somber but determined faces, looking out over the gathered crowd.
“My ally, King Fulke, is dead.”
Shock rippled through the people, wide eyes and open mouths spanning across the room.
Midas waits a beat for the news to sink in, but not long enough for the whispers to start.
“King Fulke wanted to stop rot from spreading over our borders. Wanted to ensure that our territories were safe—and he was assassinated for it.”
I stood behind him, a step in front of the guards, my presence there meant to show a united front while Midas weaved his story.
“He sent his soldiers to the edge of Fifth Kingdom to do his duty to his people, but he was deceived by one of his own. One who slipped into enemy lands. King Fulke’s regiment was killed in a brutal battle against Fourth’s awaiting men. And as if that weren’t treason enough, that same defector, that betrayer, flew back here to Highbell to deliver a message—by murdering his own unsuspecting king.”
The mood in the room moved and ebbed, a tide stretching from horror to indignation.
Midas motioned to someone behind him, and a guard came up, holding something wrapped in black cloth. With a nod from Midas, the guard unwrapped it and held it up for all to see.
Gasps rang out. I couldn’t even track how many. They were all repelled, and yet, and they couldn’t look away.
The guard held up the decapitated head of the messenger—the one who was guilty of no crimes. His head gleamed shiny gold, his gruesome, dying expression to forever live on in this frozen state, never able to deteriorate as a body should.
The crowd gaped at the face of the messenger-made-traitor. Midas watched the crowd.
“This,” Midas said, pointing a hand at the cringing face. “This is the kind of rot that is spreading from Fourth Kingdom. This is what King Fulke was trying to staunch. Not just decimation and disrespect of our lands, but of disloyalty. Distrust. Treason against one’s own kingdom and monarch.”
He was good. So very good at speaking. At drawing in a crowd. Like a spider spinning a web, he caught them, each one.
The head was wrapped up once more, no doubt to be forged to the front gates later, where all the gilded skulls of traitors stayed. Exposed for the public to spit at, for the icy winds to batter.
“I shall go to Fifth Kingdom,” Midas told them. “I will assist them in their time of need, ensure that the land and people don’t suffer with the loss of their king. I shall take King Fulke’s seat, uniting our lands after his death, even as we were allies while he lived. I will continue to keep our borders secure. To make sure the rot of outside kingdoms does not touch us. Until the day his heir may come of age and take his father’s seat.”
It didn’t take long for the news of King Fulke’s death to spread like a heavy snow, drifting over the land, coating every tongue. Midas managed to come out heroic, to give the people a villain to blame, while he gained more power in one fell swoop.
And now, he’s sent for me to join him—though it’s a secret.
Most everyone thinks I’m already there in Fifth Kingdom, that I traveled with him. However, Midas didn’t want me there until he deemed it safe, so he left me behind.
But Midas knew that leaving me alone in the castle was a risk too, so he used a decoy. A woman traveled with his caravan—not gold-touched, but painted to look like me. In the meantime, I’ve been guarded day and night while I’ve waited. Not even the servants have been allowed up to these levels. Not even the queen was told that I’m still here.
The only people I’ve seen these past few weeks are the small number of guards Digby apparently hand-picked to watch over me.
But now it’s time to go.
Giving one last glance out the window, I turn away with mixed feelings roiling in my stomach. I head for Digby, who’s holding the cage door open for me, and I try not to show the apprehension on my face.
Just as I pass through the threshold, I cast one last look at my cage, my eyes running over all of the things I’ve had around me every day for as long as I can remember.
It’s strange, but I feel a sense of loss when I turn away and follow behind Digby and the other guards as they escort me out. My cage…I’ve relied on it for so many years. I resented it, too, yes, but it was still a safe haven—one I’m now leaving.
We take the stairs all the way down to the main floor, the five of us quiet, the castle itself subdued. When we make it to the bottom level, I can’t help that my eyes dart to the right, seeking out the closed door to the letter room.
I wonder which servants were made to clean the blood up. I wonder if those servants are still alive or if they took those blood-soaked rags to the grave with them, because—
No. Don’t think of that now. Loyal. I’m loyal.
Forcing my eyes to peel away from that room, I see that the great doors leading to the dark outside are already open, letting gusts of chilled air blow in. Past the stone steps and courtyard, I can see a procession of carriages and horses waiting to take our party to Fifth Kingdom.
Feeling the back of my neck prickling, I turn to see Queen Malina standing on the second floor, her hand curved over the banister as she looks down at me. Her face is blank, sleek white hair coiled around her head like a crown, while her eyes watch me, watch with an intensity that makes my throat clog.
Hate. That’s hate in her eyes as she glares down at me, as she realizes that Midas lied, that I’ve been in the castle all this time. That I’m now going to him because he sent for me.
If I were her, I’d probably hate me too.
“My lady?”
I turn back around, finding the guards waiting for me by the open door, one of them holding up a thick fur coat for me. “Thank you,” I murmur, taking it from his outstretched hand before I slip it on. I don’t turn back to the queen, but I can feel her stare follow me all the way out into the night.
I clutch the coat tighter.
It’s heavy but soft, the fabric lined with leather and fur to keep me warm during the brutal nights. I lift the hood over my head as I walk down the front steps, feeling the last of the castle’s warmth leave me. But feeling the tension start to leave, too.
My chin tips up as soon as I pass the doorway, and my face points at the sky.
Ten years.
That’s how long it’s been since I’ve stepped foot outside.
The cold wind drifts over me with a lazy current, whispering across my face like a gentle welcome. The guards share a look, their feet shifting from side to side as I stand there, not moving, but I ignore them.
Because this moment—this is mine.
When I chose to hide away, I was barely more than a girl. Vulnerable. Battered. Scared. Utterly sick of what the world had to offer.
So I hid in a cage, and I was content to do so. After the things I endured, I wanted it. I accepted the bars, embraced them, even—not to keep me in, but to keep others out.
But I missed this. The fresh air in my lungs. The smell of the breeze. The cold against my cheeks. The feel of the ground beneath my shoes.
I missed it so damn much.
“My lady,” one of the guards says hesitantly. “We should go.”
I let my eyes scan the dark sky above me for one more moment, the clouds glowing gray before a hidden moon. But I swear, for one fleeting second, I see a glimpse of a star winking at me.
So I wink back.
