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.

A victim of child trafficking, I lived for far too long at the hands of bad people. Saw too many vile things.

Tramua

Ten years I’ve been with him, and that decade knotted the string between us.

Doesnt sound like a good reason to justify abuse

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.

It’s almost funny how much people will say in front of a woman they only view as a possession.

Meb are so sexust

But one question burns in my mind for the entire day: What would happen if I didn’t?

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.

And I realize right then, that this woman, this saddle, holds power. Not the magic of kings and queens, but a different sort of power—one of control. She holds these men in the palm of her attentive hands, directing their desires, driving their emotions, feeding their fantasies.

“Aren’t I worth more than this?” I ask quietly. Not to Fulke, but to Midas. Not about the gild of my skin, but the love of my heart. Isn’t that worth more?

Bad men. The world was run by bad men.

Midas’s Golden Touch. But his golden tongue? To me, that’s his true power.

I realize how much I’ve wished for this, this connection with another person. Not an alliance for similar goals, not anything driven by politics or society or even lust. But a simple friendship. Just two people who enjoy talking to each other, who can share stories and meet in laughter, conspiring only for one another’s amusement.

Friendship

Time to accept it, to be glad that at least I have one friend in this travel party. One friend, and one gruff, protective guard who killed a king to save me. That’s much more than I ever expected to have.

He sighs at my stubbornness, and I smile at his aggravation. It’s not a drinking game by any means, but it’s still the most fun I’ve had with Digby, and he’s talking to me now more than ever. I count it as a major victory.

Father/daughter relationship

“You guards are a gossipy bunch. Does everyone know?”

Guard got tea time like old ladies

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I cry. Lying for him, as he did for me. And with his last breath, he nods.

“We’re professionals. Not just saddles from the slums, but King Midas’s select chosen. If we’re going to get through this, we’ll have to perform, but we know how to do that. We know how to work a room.”

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

I won’t allow myself to be stagnant anymore. I won’t allow myself to be so weak and inept.

Because the fae betrayed Orea.

Because I just turned the motherfucker solid gold.

“The last time you tried to help me, you chucked a book at my head.”

Friendshbip forming?

“Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you.”

“They have her.”

I don’t feel it, and I don’t care, because the thing that matters the most to me in this world has been taken from me.

My favored. My gilded. My precious. She’s been stolen from me and is being held in an enemy’s clutches.

She’s mine. And I’ll destroy everyone in my path to get her back.