Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)

by Raven Kennedy

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.

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.

You can have all the gold in the world and yet lack everything of real worth.

It’s the arrogance of men, to think so little of women. And it’ll be their downfall too.

Men making deals on the behalf of women never seems to go very well for the women.