Gild (The Plated Prisoner #1)(79)

In reply, she braces her hands against the captain’s head and plants her feet, while my grip tightens on the sheet.

I count down. “One...two...three...”

She pushes. I pull. The floor creaks. The wind blows.

The statue doesn’t move an inch.

My entire body strains as I use every bit of strength and determination I’ve got. My sore side twinges in pain, but I ignore it. My poor ribbons feel as fragile as butterfly wings, and my spine is screaming, the muscles pulling.

“Come...on…”

I’m going to either black out or tip this bastard over. There’s no in-between. I hold my breath and just keep pulling, pulling, refusing to stop, refusing to fail.

This has to work. It has to.

I hear Rissa make a frustrated noise as she heaves, and sweat breaks out over my body. Dizziness swoops over me, like a bird circling my head.

We’re giving this every bit of strength we have. And if we stop, we won’t be able to start again. This is it. I know it, she knows it, even the frigid wind knows it.

But the captain doesn’t tip.

Tears flood my eyes, and my stomach drops. We can’t do it. I can’t do it.

The impulsive decision I made to kill the bastard probably forfeited my own life as well.

The realization cripples me. That this is all for nothing, that there’s no way I can do this. The utter failure of it all makes dread slump my shoulders. It pushes me down, hunches me over, bowing me with the weight of what’s to come.

With a growl of resistance, my teeth clench so hard together I’m worried I might actually break them. My entire body shakes, my head swims with black dots, but I keep pulling. All I get in return is the sound of the sheet ripping, the floorboards creaking in threat.

A sob escapes my throat. Rissa makes a strangled, painful grunt. The last of my hope starts to slip out of my grasp as the sheet continues to tear.

But then, like some sort of divine miracle, my ribbons start to glow.

It’s dim, like the softest beam of light below a pond of water, but it’s there. It’s the same glow of silken warmth that woke me up in the carriage after the attack.

A gasp escapes me as the four silky strands seem to come alive with a second wave of strength I didn’t know they were capable of. The lengths whip out, releasing the sheet and grabbing straight onto the captain’s torso, wrapping around with a metallic clink.

They pull with such force that I cry out in pain, my spine feeling like it’s about to snap.

But with their massive strength, Captain Fane begins to tip. And that slight movement is all we need to make him topple.

Rissa lets out a surprised yelp and falls forward as the statue goes tipping toward the open window. With a crash, his shins hit the lip of the window frame, but gravity has him in her clutches now and she’s not letting go.

My ribbons unravel in a flash, and the captain falls, like a massive tree cut at its trunk. He spins in his descent, and I lean over, watching as he plummets to the ground, the sheets around his neck flapping as he goes.

He hits the ground hard, sending up a spray of snow, like a body diving into water.

Rissa and I both blink down, staring silently, as we realize that we actually succeeded.

I cast a quick glance around, but luckily, the other pirate ships aren’t behind us, and the dawn is still meek enough that the landscape is barely lit.

Our breaths are jagged as we continue to look out the window, staring at where he’s landed cock-up in the snow.

Rissa’s lips curl up in satisfaction. “A fitting end, I think.”

I give a tired snort.

Even though all my body wants to do is collapse on the floor, I force myself to go over to the desk and grab the handle of the coin trunk. It’s heavier than I can lift, and my aching body barks in protest, but Rissa hurries over to help me, and we both chuck that out the window too.

We watch as it lands a few feet away from the captain, snowfall already spreading over them like confetti.

“Explain to me why we just tossed out all that gold?”

“Motive,” I say distractedly, my voice weary.

Snow is piling up on the floor, so I do my best to sweep most of it out before I yank the windows closed again. My only hope is that they’ll believe my story, that the ships will move before anyone sees.

I give one last look at the gleaming captain below. He’s cursed to forever have shock in his eyes and pants around his ankles. He’s also richer than he ever dreamed, but too dead to appreciate it. For a man solely motivated by coin and pleasure, that thought makes me immensely satisfied.

I turn away from the window with an exhausted sigh, barely able to hold my back straight. My ribbons hang limp and feeble behind me, no glow left in their golden lengths.

But we did it. It actually worked.

“Alright?” Rissa asks me.

I shrug in return. That was only half the battle, and we barely managed it.

All I can do now is hope that the snow keeps falling, that my lie is believed, that the ships move on, and that the gleaming truth stays hidden beneath a mound of smothering snow.

But even if we manage all of that, our lives are still in danger.

I might have ended the captain of the Red Raids, but we’re going from being the captives of greedy pirates to being the captives of bloodthirsty soldiers.

I don’t know which is worse.

But I’m about to find out.