Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)

by Raven Kennedy

It reminds me of how we were when we first became friends. When I was just a lost girl and he swept in to show me a different life, the way he smiled at me and reminded me how to curve my own lips.

I’m an oddity, a commodity, a rumor. I’m the king’s favored. His prized saddle. The one he gold-touched and keeps in a cage at the top of his castle, my body bearing the mark of his ownership and favoritism. The gilded pet. I’m the darling of King Midas, ruler of Highbell and the Sixth Kingdom of Orea. People flock to see me just as much as they come to look upon his gleaming castle worth more than all the riches in the entire realm. I’m the gold-plated prisoner. But what a pretty prison it is.

I ran away once, lived with the only kind people I’d ever met since my parents. I thought I’d escaped the brutality of life. Until raiders came and ruined that too. My life was going to be pushed right back into misery, but Midas swooped in and saved me.

Does it really matter if your cage is solid gold when you aren’t allowed to leave it? A cage is a cage, no matter how gilded.

But memory and time aren’t friends. They reject each other, they hurry in opposite directions, pulling the binding taut between them, threatening to snap. They fight, and we inexplicably lose. Memory and time. Always losing one as you go on with the other.

If those stars really are goddesses waiting to be born, I should warn them to stay where they are in the safety of their twinkling light. Because down here? Down here, life is dark and lonely, and it has noisy bells and not nearly enough wine.

I’m ridiculously fun. You kind of have to be when the only person you hang out with is you. I wouldn’t want to bore myself.