Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)(53)

“We need to go! Now!” Sail shouts at the others, the others who are already atop horses, yanking on reins or helping more saddles into the carriages, hurrying them along.

“Go, go!” Sail says, practically yanking off the door as I rush inside. He slams the door behind me, and I toss the lock over, my heart pounding in time with the battle cry that’s echoing across the barren land.

“Where’s the fucking driver?” I hear Sail shout. More yelling, more saddles racing by. More guards piling on their horses.

“Shit!”

Through the window, I see Sail abandon his own horse to race for my carriage instead, his body disappearing from view as he hops onto the driver’s seat.

“Move out! Head for the pass! Protect the king’s favored!”

A second later, the snap of the reins cracks through the air like a tree splintering down the center of its trunk. The carriage lurches forward, nearly sending me flying as it begins to barrel over the snow, Sail making the horses run as fast as they can.

I get tossed around the inside, my body careening from one side to the other. All I can hear is the pounding of the horses’ hooves as we race away, but the wheels are groaning from the deep snow.

Guards on horseback converge around my carriage, racing beside us on either side to defend it—to defend me. Their golden cloaks billow behind them, hoods flown back, their faces fearful shadows I can barely make out. Through the window to the left, I can see one of the saddles’ carriages racing right alongside us, though the others are out of view as we race on, race fast.

I strain to look ahead, to see how far the mountain pass is and if we have any hope of reaching it, but my stomach plummets at the truth of the distance. Too far. We’re too far.

Shouts sound. My head whips left and right, from one window to the other, but every time I turn to look, it seems like another guard is gone, plucked from the night.

Snowflakes race past the window, making it harder to see, even worse when the carriage jolts, sending the outside lantern smashing against the wall, its flame extinguishing in the blink of an eye.

Now bathed in horrible darkness, racing at a breakneck speed, the noises of those battle cries get loud enough to drown out the hooves, the wheels, the snapped reins. It grows louder, no matter which direction Sail steers us, no matter how fast our horses race.

They’re coming for us. As if they were waiting. As if they knew.

Sharp fear consumes me. My vision growing tunneled, my breathing erratic.

I feel my ribbons unbind from around my waist. All two dozen of them loosen and slither over my lap like serpents, coiling and defensive. When my hands tremble, they slip between my fingers, threading over my palms, wrapping around my thumbs. Their silken lengths clasp and twine, like a friend squeezing my hand for comfort.

I squeeze back.

Loud. Everything is loud. Close. The entire carriage begins to rattle from the speed, the wind, the sound. Outside, something crashes. Someone shouts. A horse screams. The wind balks.

Out the window, those balls of light are upon us. Fast—they got to us so impossibly fast.

There are hulking shadows behind them that I can barely see, but those lights burn red, a flare of warning, an omen that I can’t look away from.

One of the wheels of the carriage suddenly hits something hard, tossing me up into the air. It’s only my ribbons lashing out, bracing my body against all four walls that keeps me from falling.

Sail shouts something that’s lost to my ears, and then a second later, the carriage takes a sharp left turn. The wheels go up, the ground stays down. A shriek skids off my tongue as we hit the ground hard, and then we start to roll.

The pull of the ground disappears for a split second. A pause in the fall, where no gravity exists, where my entire body is weightless, floating, hanging by invisible threads.

And then that gentle hover, that pillowed air, it abandons me with a violent turn. The carriage flips, end over end, and this time, not even my ribbons can brace for impact.

I’m tumbling, I’m tossed, I’m rolling like a ball of snow down a slick hill, gathering weight, picking up speed, no hope of stopping softly, no chance of control. Just the grim realization that I’m in this fall’s clutches, and only a crash can stop it.

Like a ragdoll, I’m flung, blows landing to every part of my body. For a moment, I worry that the flipping will never stop, that I’ll be trapped in the fall, forever spinning in the dark, no hope of an end.

Glass flies, wood splinters, gilded edges snap. And then with one final flip, the carriage groans and slams against a mound of snow on its side, where my head smacks against the wall in a sickening crack.

I feel an explosion of pain, a flare of that red, red fire burning behind dimming eyes. And then I black out, the sound of those voices still there, like a turbid presence infecting the air and engulfing me completely.





Chapter Twenty-Four





Strands of a long-forgotten sun soothe over my eyes, golden streaks caressing my closed lids.

I hum in my sleep, joy leaping up, nostalgia pulling at me. I turn my face toward that shining warmth, but I can’t quite make it, can’t quite feel it.

Another silken graze over my brow, and I manage to open my eyes, only for a burst of pain to greet me. I blink against the pulse that triggers through my skull, as two of my ribbons fall away from my face, moving to caress my arms instead, as if those are the next things they aim to rouse.