Chapter 36
AUREN
Ranhold Castle is cold.
That’s the first thing I notice after I’m put into a covered carriage and brought around to the side of the castle through a small set of doors. Six guards escort me—Midas’s favorite number.
The walls in this hallway look like ice, but it’s a trick of the eye, a triumph in architecture. When I tap a gloved finger against it, I can see it’s made of smooth stone bricks, yet covered with a layer of blue blown glass.
We edge around what looks to be the main entryway, where purple flags hang from the rafters, a crisscross of white wood that arches up against a window laid into a ceiling that’s shaped like a ten-pointed star.
Aside from my guards, the space is empty, quiet, while my nerves are nearly rabid, nipping at my skin, breathing down my neck. I don’t even know how I’m able to walk so calmly, to not break out into a run or stop dead in my tracks as I’m led into a narrow hall.
There’s no doubt that the palace is beautiful. The elaborate glass moldings, the trimmed windows, the curved sconces. Every flair is a celebration of ice, every purple tapestry an homage to Ranhold’s monarch.
But the further inside I go, the colder I become. Maybe it’s all in my mind, maybe the glacial-looking walls are tricking me into thinking that it’s colder than it really is. Either way, goose bumps have risen across my skin, and I find my ribbons wrapping around me just a little bit tighter.
I’m about to be reunited with Midas.
He’s here somewhere, waiting for me, and my heart leaps at the thought. I haven’t seen him in weeks, the longest I’ve ever been apart from him in over a decade.
I long for his familiarity. To be able to tell him about Sail, about Digby, and have him understand because he knew them too. My life changed drastically since I’ve been away, and I can’t wait to tell him everything.
The guards lead me to yet another narrow passageway, and still, no one greets us, no one is around. The whole floor is empty, and I frown in confusion as to why I’m not being led through the main parts of the castle. But then it dawns on me.
I’m a secret.
Until this second, I didn’t even remember that when he traveled here, Midas used a gold-painted saddle as a decoy. A move that was supposed to protect me—one that didn’t work out so well.
The silence of the guards, the lack of a welcome, and the clandestine routes of emptied servant’s passageways solidifies my guess. It’s probably not public knowledge that I was captured, or that I’ve been traded now, not if Midas has kept up the façade.
I don’t know how I feel about that.
I’m led up a bare stone stairway and then led down a path with slits of windows at the high ceiling carrying a smear of light that dusts the narrow hallway.
Then we seem to exit the servant’s walkways, because I’m herded into a hallway that’s much more decorated. A straight runner of plush purple extends the length of the floor from one end to the next, and gleaming silver sconces hang from the walls, unlit. The windows are tall and wide, curtains pulled back, letting in both the sunlight and a wintry draft.
Another set of stairs, then a second, and then we finally reach a wing of the castle that isn’t empty.
I recognize Midas’s king’s guards immediately—six standing against either wall. They eye us, saying nothing.
I don’t feel my chest rise or fall with breath when one of them raps a knuckle against a set of double doors. I don’t feel my eyes blink when that door is opened. I definitely don’t feel the weight of my steps as the guards move aside, and I walk through the doorway.
But when I enter that room, when I lay eyes on my golden king for the first time in two months, I do feel my heart leap.
The door closes behind me as I stop, and then it’s just us. Just him and me.
He stands in the very middle of a large private study, the entire room bathed in deep purples and blues, all except for him. He practically shines with the golden threads of his clothes, the slightly tanned skin, his honey-blond hair. And those eyes, those warm hickory eyes—they glint most of all.
He releases a breath, one that’s ragged, short. Like he’d been holding it in his chest ever since he knew I was captured, and he’s only just now able to let it out.
“Precious.”
The single word is nothing but a murmur slipping out of his mouth, but the agony of his pent-up worry blares through it, loud enough that it cracks his expression as if it were made of glass. His handsome face shows overwhelming relief that’s so stark, so palpable, I can almost taste it.
At the sight of him looking at me like that, at hearing him speak, my own face crumples. In the next instant, I’m racing forward to close the distance between us, because I can’t bear to not be in his arms
for a second longer.