Turning, I walk over to the table, my ribbons trailing on the floor behind me as I go. At the vanity table, I reach over and turn the lantern up, casting more light in the room since the window is snowed in again.
I use my ribbons to undress myself, letting the fabric pool at my feet. Naked, I stand in front of the mirror and look over my body. My gold skin is marred on my stomach, a bruise the size of a fist with edges like a puffy cloud from where the guard’s fist slammed into me. I press my fingers to it, wincing at the tender twinge. It reminds me of the gold tea set Midas has—the one that the servants always have to shine. It’s a tarnished spot in need of polishing.
With a sigh, I remove my hand from my stomach and pluck a floor-length dress robe from the hook near the mirror and pull it on, tying it at my waist.
I check my scalp next, my fingers running carefully over my head, but it throbs at the lightest touch, making me suck in a breath. I’ll have to be gentle when I brush my hair.
“How did you sleep?”
Midas’s voice startles me so much that I whirl around with my hand over my heart. “Divine be damned, you scared me,” I admonish. I didn’t hear him open my cage door or his footsteps leading from my bedroom to here.
He smiles from where he’s standing, leaning against the bars of my cage near the archway. “Tsk tsk, Auren. You shouldn’t curse the gods.”
My racing heart slows down now that I know it’s just Midas who’s crept up on me. He looks so good in the soft lighting. His golden tunic more like butterscotch, his hair like warm brandy.
“How can I serve you, my king?” I ask, and although my words are proper, my tone is unsure. Tenuous.
Midas reaches up and taps his chin in thought as he studies me. I try not to fidget under his stare, the thin cover of my robe leaving me feeling like I’m naked in front of him.
“I know you’re angry with me,” he finally says, catching me off guard.
I study his expression, trying to discern what thoughts are spinning through his head. I don’t know what to say.
He gives me a sad look at my lack of response, and just for a moment, he doesn’t look like the mighty King Midas. He just looks like Tyndall. “Speak, Auren. I miss hearing your voice, spending time with you,” he says quietly, and my gaze softens a little.
I’m furious at him. I’m crushed. I don’t know where I stand with him or what’s going on, and yet I can’t say any of that because I don’t know how. So instead, I clear my throat and say, “You’ve been busy.”
He nods, but he makes no move to come closer to me, and I don’t either. There’s more than just the ten feet of space separating the two of us. There’s a hole dug between us too. A hole of his own making. And I’m terrified that one wrong step will have me tipping right over the edge, headfirst into a fall that I can’t recover from.
I stare at him, hope and fear burgeoning beneath my skin. He’s been harsh with me, harsher than he’s ever been before. I know he’s under a lot of stress, and I know that I should never have behaved that way publicly, but I’ve lost my footing with him. And then there’s the deal with Fulke.
My gold eyes sear into him.
You’re giving me to Fulke.
But even as I silently scream at him, that nagging voice in the back of my head chirps at me. This is Midas. This is the man who was once a vigilante. No crown, no title. Just a strong, confident man with a purpose. The one who rescued me and took me in. Elevated me until I became renowned throughout all of Sixth Kingdom—hell, all of Orea. He made me his gold-touched prize and held me up on a pedestal. But even before that, he was my friend.
And as I look at him now, I see what others don’t. What he doesn’t let them. I see the troubled cloud that’s hanging over his brows. The tightness of his shoulders. The stress that’s drawn lines on either side of his eyes.
“Are you alright?” I ask quietly, my words unsure.
My question seems to startle him and he straightens up, whatever quiet thoughtfulness there was between us suddenly snapping in half like a weakened rope.
“I need you to behave tonight, Auren.”
I blink at his words as they climb through the cogs and wheels of my mind, like I’m trying to interpret it in a different way, that he could mean something else, speaking in riddles or between the lines. But...there’s no other way to decipher this.
My throat feels dry. “Behave?”
“Wear the gown tonight. Mind your guards. Don’t speak unless addressed, and all will be well. You trust me, don’t you?” he asks, his face penetrating, unyielding.
My eyes prickle. I used to, I want to say. Now, I’m not so sure.
“Shouldn’t I always trust you?” I reply carefully.
Midas gives me another smile. “Of course you should, Precious.”
He turns and walks out of my dressing room, his steps echoing back at me as he walks out of my bedroom, where I hear the door to my cage clinking shut. I stay still until I hear his footsteps walk away, the bedroom door closing behind him, silencing the rest of his retreat.
A giant breath whooshes out of me, and my body nearly collapses into the chair in front of my vanity. I stare into the mirror, unseeing, my fingers trembling from the rush of emotions that leaks into me.
I’m so conflicted that my stomach churns, threatening to make me sick. “Get it together, Auren,” I chastise myself, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes to force them to stop stinging.
He wants me to behave. He wants me to trust him. And hasn’t he earned my trust, after all these years?
Hasn’t he?
The answer should be a resounding yes. The answer should be easy. The problem is, it isn’t.
Gritting my teeth, I shoot to my feet in a rush, and before I know what I’m doing, my hand has grabbed the glass lantern and I’ve hurled it with all my might against the mirror in a wave of anger.
A crash resonates through the room, and I relish in the shatter. Chest heaving, I stare at the cracked glass of the mirror, my body distorted, broken off into three reflections.
“My lady?”
I turn my head numbly and see Digby on the other side of my cage, peering at me through the bars with a troubled look on his face. With the lantern now extinguished and lying broken on the floor, the room is cast in shadows, save for the candle in his hand. He says something, but my ears are ringing, my breaths coming in too fast to hear.
I shake my head to clear it. “What?”
His head tips, his brown eyes flicking down. In a daze, I follow his line of sight and look at my hand, turning my palm up. As soon as I look at it, it’s as if my brain connects with my nerves, and I realize I’ve burned my palm when I grabbed the lantern.
I touch it lightly, frowning at the slight twinge. It’s not too bad, just slightly discolored and sore. “I’m okay,” I tell him.
Digby grunts but says nothing.
I drop my hand to my side and look over at him. “I know how this must look to you,” I say with a shake of my head. “Poor favored girl throwing a fit in her room, surrounded by all her golden things,” I say with a self-deprecating scoff.
“Didn’t say that.”
His gruff words surprise me. They’re oddly...nice. Like the gruff old guy is trying to make me feel better. He turns and walks out of the room before I can reply, leaving me to stare at the place he left with a small smile on my face.
He comes back less than a minute later, holding a new lantern. It’s bigger, one that he must’ve taken from the library, but he feeds it through the bars and places it on the floor.
“Thanks,” I say quietly before I go pick it up and put it on the table. Now that there’s adequate light, I cringe a bit at the mess I’ve made. The servants who come in here to clean probably won’t be happy.
I kneel down to start to pick up the broken glass from the lantern, but Digby raps his knuckle against the cage to get my attention. “Leave it.”
My hand pauses over the glass. “But—”
<
br /> “Leave. It.”
I arch a brow and sigh. “You know, for someone who barely talks, you sure are bossy.”
He just looks steadily back at me.
I sigh and stand up, relenting. “Okay, okay. No need to glare at me.”
Digby nods and scratches his scruffy gray beard, satisfied that he’s won. My trusty guard is very serious about my protection. Even when he’s protecting me from myself, apparently.
“I knew you were my friend, Dig,” I tease him, even though the smile doesn’t quite reach my eyes, it’s nice to pretend. I latch onto these emotions with him, and forcibly shove away everything else with Midas so that I can breathe right again. “Hey, how about a drinking game?” I ask hopefully.
Digby rolls his eyes. “No.” He turns on his heel, walking away, clearly satisfied that I’m not going to throw another hissy fit and break something else.
“Oh come on, just one?” I call after him, but he keeps going, just like I knew he would. It makes me smile a little bit wider.
When I’m alone again, I sit down and sigh into the broken mirror, the distracting playfulness with Digby leaking out of me all too soon. I study the three images of myself for a moment, and then I get to work, letting my ribbons carefully comb through my tender scalp so I can plait my hair. I imagine it’s a lot like a soldier putting on armor.
At least for now, while daylight burns, I know I’m safe. For now, I still have time.
But tonight, as soon as dusk descends and the stars burn, I’ll be expected to play the part of King Midas’s favored pet. I’ll be expected to behave.
But one question burns in my mind for the entire day: What would happen if I didn’t?
Chapter Nine
I take my time brushing and braiding, doing everything slowly, as if moving at a crawling pace will prolong my fate somehow. I’m pretending that I’m not operating on borrowed time.
You can pretend a lot of things in life. You can pretend so well that you even start to believe your own deceit. We’re all actors; we’re all on pedestals with a spotlight shining on us, playing whatever part we need to in order to make it through the day—in order to help ourselves sleep at night.
Right now, I’m going through the motions, refusing to let my mind think of what’s going to happen tonight. But my body knows. It’s in the tightness of my chest, the labored inhales coming from constrictive breaths.
I try to distract myself and stay busy, but there’s only so much harp a girl can play, only so much sewing one can tolerate before she goes out of her mind with boredom.
At one point, I’m so jittery with nerves that I just start walking the circle of my cage, the bars probably making me seem like an agitated tiger pacing in its enclosure.
Bright side? The burn on my hand feels better. There’s only a small slash along the center of my palm, making my golden skin look more orange than its usual cool gleam. My stomach still hurts, but my scalp is fine...so long as I don’t touch it.
Looking out the single window in my room shows nothing but a rabid snowstorm blowing a confetti of white against the pane. It’s nearly nightfall. I wish I could string up the sun and keep it tied in the sky, but wishes are for stars, and I hardly get to see any of those anyway.
Fulke’s and Midas’s armies should’ve reached Fourth Kingdom’s borders by now. I could go into the library to find out for sure, but that’s the last place I want to be today.
I still think they’re crazy for attacking King Ravinger’s land. Not only is Midas breaking a centuries-old peace pact, but Ravinger isn’t exactly known for his magnanimous kindness. They call him King Rot for a reason, and it’s not just because of his power of decay and death. It’s said that his viciousness makes everyone near him cringe.
His land is one of withering corrosion, but it’s also a place where he lets wickedness flourish. His power allows him to deteriorate anything he wishes. Crops, animals, land, people...but I think his cruelty might be the worse evil.
I hope Midas knows what he’s doing, because making an enemy of someone like Ravinger is dangerous. If Midas fails, I’m not sure any amount of wealth could buy him out of the consequences, and that scares me. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t be so confident in the ability to solve all his problems with gold.
Midas takes wealth for granted—and why wouldn’t he? One look around, every surface, every possession, it’s all gold. He knows that he’ll forever be as rich as he wishes.
Queen Malina believes that I’m garish and gaudy, but what about this entire castle and everything in it? The soles of her shoes are golden silk—for only her sweaty feet to ever appreciate. The structure of the dungeons beneath the palace—pure gold for the withering prisoners to die in. Even the toilets we piss in are gilded.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that this much wealth...it becomes meaningless after a while. Empty. You can have all the gold in the world and yet lack everything of real worth.
But maybe...maybe the underlying reason for Malina’s hatred of me isn’t that Midas keeps me here even though he’s married to her. Maybe the queen simply wishes that Midas had gold-touched her. Because of what it represents. Because of the way he calls me his Precious.
And just like that, I find myself feeling sorry for her. For her childless, loveless marriage. For losing the kingdom before she could even take it. For having to compete against a gilded orphan girl.
As I contemplate all of this, I lean against the gold bars to stare at the snowfall outside. That jealousy, if that’s what it is, has festered for years. There’s no way for me to do anything about it now. What’s done is done. The queen will never look at me with anything other than hatred. That’s simply the way it is.
But if she’s jealous that Midas hasn’t gold-touched her, she doesn’t understand at all. I won’t deny the fact that there are benefits of being gold-touched...but there are disadvantages too.
No one sees me for anything but the metallic glimmer of my skin. No one looks past the pure gold threads of my hair. Aside from the whites of my eyes and teeth, I’m just a golden statue to everyone. A fixture to be seen and not heard.
A commodity to be bought for a night.
My bedroom door opens suddenly, making me flinch away from the window. I turn to see a maid come inside and walk over to Digby where he’s still standing at attention at his spot near the wall. She delivers hushed words to him, while I stand by, watching warily.
As soon as she leaves, I walk over to the other end of my cage to face him. “What’s going on?”
Digby gestures up at the gown that’s still hanging up. “It’s time.”
My stomach breaks apart in cold, brittle pieces, falling down through my feet.
“Already?” I ask, and I barely recognize my voice. It’s timid and quiet like a skittish mouse, and I can’t afford to be a mouse tonight. I have to be strong.
Digby nods, and I blow out a breath, sending a tendril of hair to shift up and out of my face. I force myself to swallow hard, as if I can internalize my nerves and drink them down, bury them into a chasm inside of me.
Turning away, I pluck the sheer dress off its hanger with a pounding heart, and head into my dressing room with wooden steps. In front of my broken mirror, I take off the simple gown I dressed myself in and slip into the sheer one. My ribbons do all the work while my arms move robotically, my face expressionless.
When I have it all the way on, I take in the gauze drapery hanging over my body, and I will myself not to flinch. Just like I knew it would be, it’s so sheer that it shows every trace of my curves, even a veiled glimpse of the burnished tips of my nipples.
The dress has see-through sleeves of swirling gold lace, clasps at each shoulder holding it in place. It drapes over my breasts with a loose, plunging neckline that shows the edge of my bruised stomach in the front.
At the skirt, there are slits on each side that reach from my toes to my hips, so that no matter which direction someone is standing beside me, they’ll g
et an eyeful of flesh. The whole thing flows loosely over my curves, easy access for anyone to slip their hand in and touch an intimate part of me.
Midas has never dressed me like this before. Sure, I wear sensual dresses that accentuate my body, but nothing as provocative as this. My body, for the most part, is private. For him to enjoy. But for the first time in my life, I’m dressed like a true royal saddle, ready to be ridden.
I know the moment the last of daylight recedes, because a chill fills the air. I look up at my skylight, seeing darkness descending already. A dejected emptiness pulls at me, a shiver scattering goose bumps over my arms as night starts to rise.
Behave tonight.
A souvenir to show off.
Sit pretty.
Leave the men to speak.
Gritting my teeth, my spirit rebels. Midas wants me to wear this? Fine. But he never said I couldn’t embellish it.
My ribbons rise up alongside my resolve, and I get to work.
It takes a few minutes of wrapping and tucking and tying, but after some adjusting, I finally feel satisfied with the outcome. My golden ribbons are now wrapped around the bodice in elaborate braided designs, swooping over my breasts before cinching at my waist, the rest of the strips hanging down around the entire circumference of my skirt.
I’m still way more exposed than I’d like, but it’s much, much better, holding everything in and covering my most intimate parts. I’ll still have to be careful when I walk, because even with some of my ribbons wrapped around my waist, my sides are still somewhat exposed from the gaping fabric, but at least I don’t feel naked anymore.
My hair is already braided with a few pieces hanging down my back, so I leave my scalp alone. I hear voices carry in from my bedroom, and I know that more guards have arrived to escort me downstairs.
I should be starving by now since I haven’t eaten all day, but I wouldn’t be able to tolerate food right now even if I wanted to. When I hear Digby call my name, I slip my feet into satiny slippers and then straighten my spine.
Don’t be a mouse, Auren.
Gild (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 1) Page 7