Gild (The Plated Prisoner #1)(38)

As we get further away, the clouds begin to gather, the weather ending its short reprieve. Rain starts to come down like strings, the iridescent lines freezing as they fall.

But our group travels on, the guards simply pulling up their hoods, the horses long since adapted to Sixth Kingdom’s cold, not even balking at being made to travel downhill on a snowy, slick road in the dead of night.

When the carriage slides from a patch of ice or jolts over a rock in the road, my heart jumps into my throat, but my escorts trek on, and I do my best not to imagine that I’m one bad step away from careening right off the side of the mountain.

Fortunately, the guards and horses slog through the snow with competence. We’ll be traveling all night, just like Midas ordered. We’ll sleep during the day, giving the scouts the best advantage when keeping watch.

It will be slow going, two weeks, one and a half at the very best, and that’s if the weather holds—and the weather never holds. Not here. Definitely slower than Midas and his men, but our party isn’t used to travel or being exposed to the elements, so the going will be slower, more cautious.

As I watch our painstaking way down the mountain, my breath fogs up the glass of the window, forcing me to wipe the condensation away with my gloved hand. Gloves that I’m going to become very familiar with, that I probably won’t ever take off until I’m tucked inside Fifth Kingdom’s castle. A small concession when I’m out here in this frigid world, so exposed.

By the time our caravan makes it down the winding mountain road, it’s fully dark. No hint of moon or stars behind the thick canopy of clouds, only the lanterns hanging from the carriages offering light to guide our way.

We cross Highbell’s bridge, hewn from the shale hollowed out from the mountain behind us. Hooves clop over the sturdy bricks as we make our way across, the bridge built over the chasm between mountain and valley.

And at the other end of it, Highbell City. Built in front of the forest of the Pitching Pines—trees so tall that you can’t see their tops when you look up, so large that it would take several men with outstretched arms to span the width of a trunk. The trees stand proud, growing pine needles of blue and white, shedding down like teeth of icicles, dripping with sap at the tips to grow longer, sharper.

But those trees, hundreds of years old—maybe even thousands—they offer the city a break from the wind that comes in down from the mountains, the branches taking on the brunt of the wintry gusts and brutal blizzards, shielding the buildings behind them.

The city itself is dwarfed by them, looking almost comical next to each other. Even in the dark, I can see the light of even the tallest buildings completely dominated by the trees at their backs.

And all at once, I’m too far, too closed off. Maybe it’s just now really hitting me that I’m out, I’m truly out of my cage. No Midas, no expectations, no role to play. I’m out of the palace, off the mountain, and I just want to see it, see everything. And not behind a pane of glass like always, but in the wide open, with the outside all around me, and me on the outside with it.

The moment the carriage wheels start rolling easily over the paved city road, I rap my knuckle against the window. Digby is riding next to me, of course, and his head whips to the side when he hears my knock. But I don’t wait or give him a moment to stop me. Instead, I open the carriage door while it’s still moving—albeit slowly—and I jump.

Digby swears and calls for my carriage to stop, but it’s too late. I’ve already landed on the ground with a spring in my step as my boots hit the ground. Digby pulls his horse over to me, a scowl curling down his weathered face. The sight makes me smile.

“Glaring so soon, Dig?” I tease. “This isn’t a good sign for our journey, is it?”

“Back inside, my lady.”

Digby doesn’t look amused. Not at all. But of course, that just makes my smile stretch wider.

“Glaring it is, then,” I say with a nod. “But scowl or no, I want to stretch my legs. I feel cooped up.”

He narrows his eyes, giving me a look like, Really? You’ve lived in a cage for the past ten years, but now you feel cooped up?

I shrug at his silent challenge. “Can I ride a horse for a while?”

He shakes his head. “It’s sleeting.”

I wave it off. “Barely. Besides, the sky is always doing something here. But I have a hood, and I’m not cold,” I assure him. “I want to feel the air on my face. Just for a little while.”

His gray eyebrows pull together as he looks down at me from his spot on his horse, but I wave my hand ahead of us, toward the city’s buildings where people are walking around. “It’s safe in Highbell, isn’t it?” I ask him.

Of course it is, which is why I asked.

“Fine,” Digby finally says. “But if the weather gets worse, or if you get too cold, you’ll have to return to the carriage.”

I nod, trying not to visibly gloat.

“You know how to ride?” he presses, looking unconvinced.

Another quick nod. “Of course. I’m an excellent horse rider.”

He regards me dubiously, seeing right through my smile, but he doesn’t question me further. Truth be told, I’m not sure that I do still know how to ride a horse, but I guess we’re all about to find out.

Digby whistles, and a pure white horse is brought forward by another guard holding the reins. I walk over to it, running my eyes over the animal, noting the long, shaggy hair all over his body.