I don’t want this man to touch me. I don’t care if he is a king. I don’t care if my king traded me to Fulke for the night, or if he won a battle because of it. I don’t want this, and I’m not going to just lie down and take it. I’m not going to behave. This…Midas can’t ask this of me. Can’t demand it.
I come to a stop right before we reach the gleaming doors.
King Fulke and his guards don’t even notice for a moment. They’re too caught up in the celebration. In the excitement.
When they start to walk toward the doorway, the five men seem to realize I’m not moving with them anymore, and they all look behind them where I’m standing a few paces back. The king is the last to turn but the first to speak. His bushy gray brows pull together. “Come, pet.”
My neck feels as stiff as stone, but I manage to shake my head. “No.”
I swear, my voice echoes. Ridiculous, since there are two hundred people here and the musicians are still playing—albeit drunkenly. But my single, soft spoken word? It might as well have been the rumble of an avalanche, because it makes everyone go quiet and strain to listen, to decipher the disturbance that ripples through the air.
“What? What did you say?” King Fulke asks, all good humor gone from his face. Now, his dark eyes shine with disbelief and outrage.
I back up a step and shake my head, my resolve unwavering even as my fear grows. “I’m the king’s favored,” I say, lifting my chin and speaking with a strong tone that doesn’t match with the fact that my hands are shaking. “Despite what I look like, I’m not a coin to be spent.”
I thought there was silence before, but now it’s crushing. Even the wind outside has gone quiet. I look around, though I’m not sure why. For an ally? I have none.
I don’t know the hit is coming until my head snaps to the right and an explosion of red-starry pain crashes over my eyes.
The only way I’m able to stay upright from the hit across my cheek is because his hands are fisted at the back of my dress, his hold crushing some of my ribbons between his knuckles.
Fulke wrenches me to face Midas, who’s already striding this way, the crowd parting for him like he’s a rushing rapid, a river to cut through the land.
“Is this how your saddles speak to royalty?” Fulke asks, spit flying from his furious mouth and hitting the side of my throbbing face as he shakes me. “I should have her head!”
“Well, I gave you her cunt, not her head,” Midas replies coolly as he walks past the gawking crowd.
My own weak river flows down my cheeks, pitiful drips that move nothing at all, landing uselessly at the floor near my feet.
I know I should keep my mouth shut. I know this. But I can’t help it, and I’m already in trouble as it is, so why not? What the hell have I got to lose?
“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?
“Worth?” King Midas seethes as he stops in front of me. His tone is quiet, but the closest onlookers can still hear, and everyone is pressing closer, straining to hear what he says. “You are worth more than all the gold in this castle. But I still own you, and I will spend you any way I see fit.”
I’ve never heard a heart shatter, but it sounds like a crack spreading up glass.
But you promised to keep me safe. You promised I’d always have your heart.
I want to say it, but I’m silent. My wet eyes scream with the truth of those soundless words, but my king doesn’t hear me.
Midas looks over at his ally. “Apologies, King Fulke. You’ll have to excuse her innocence. I’ve always spoiled her. She will not misbehave again.”
I can’t tell if Fulke is assuaged, because I don’t look at him. Midas’s eyes flick behind me to the guards. “Escort Auren to King Fulke’s rooms.”
“No!”
Spurred into action, I try to wrench away, but I’m dragged forward by two of Fulke’s guards, like it’s not even a strain. Smashed between the guards’ purple-dipped armor, I’m mindless with anger, with shock. I hurl curses at them left and right, but their holds don’t loosen.
King Fulke stalks in front of us as we walk through the doorway. “Quiet!” he snaps. “Or I will belt you this night until your golden skin is welted!”
My mouth shuts, though I’m not convinced that will save me. I defied him publicly, and in my experience, defying a king never goes unpunished.
Outside of the ballroom, I’m hauled across the entry hall, my escorts turning me in the direction of the grand staircase at the other end of the room. But before we reach it, the main doors suddenly fly open, and a soldier wearing Fulke’s armor comes sprinting in. Midas’s guards standing watch at the door shout for him to stop, but he ignores them when he spots Fulke and starts racing toward his king.
His heavy purple cloak is covered in snow and ice, his boots muddy with frozen slosh. He slips on the floor as he runs, yet he doesn’t lose his feet. “My king!”
Fulke stops with a frown. “What is the meaning of this?”
Stopping in front of us, the bedraggled soldier pants so hard he has to kneel over a bit to catch his breath before he can speak. His chest plate is crusted with frost, his face red and chapped from the wind.
“Where are you reporting from, soldier?” one of Fulke’s guards asks, stepping forward in front of the king in a defensive stance.
“Fourth Kingdom’s border, sir,” the soldier answers.
The guard frowns. “Where’s Gromes?”
He shakes his head. “The messenger was killed in action. The general attempted to send two others, but I was the only one who managed to get on the back of one of the timberwings and escape before we were shot from the sky. I flew all day and night.”
Raucous laughter from the ballroom bleeds out as a few of the party-goers come stumbling into the hall, hands groping, unaware of their surroundings.
Midas comes striding toward us a second later with six of his own guards—of course it’s six—including Digby. He takes one look at Fulke’s messenger, and a grim look crosses his face.
“Come. Speak in private this way, away from the ears and eyes of revelers,” Midas says, nodding his head in the direction of the letter room off to the left. I’m hoping to slip away, but the guards don’t let me go. Instead, I’m hauled down a short hallway, away from the staircase, and our group files into the room.
The space holds a few scattered tables and chairs, while parchment, candles, ink bottles, wax, and quills are piled up for anyone to use to write their letters and send them off.
The door is closed behind us, shutting me in with two kings and ten guards between the two of them.
The messenger doesn’t look any more composed than he was when he first burst in through the doors. If anything, he’s breathing even harder now, his eyes shifting nervously around the room as he positions himself behind one of the golden tables.
“Well?” King Fulke demands. “I want to know why my messenger is dead and why you’ve been sent here from the border.”
The messenger’s hands shake slightly. Whether it’s from nervousness or exhaustion, I don’t know. “My king, if I could speak to you in private…”
But Fulke’s dark eyes narrow on his request. “Are you a traitor, soldier? Did you defect?”
The messenger’s eyes go wide. “What? No, sire!”
“Then explain yourself!” Fulke demands, crashing his fist onto the table, making both me and the messenger flinch.
Somber resolve settles in the man’s face, though he grips the hilt of his sword. “As soon as your army breached Fourth’s border, King Ravinger’s men attacked. Your entire fleet was decimated, sire.”
King Fulke’s brows pull together. “You are mistaken. Our troops broke through Fourth’s line earlier this morning. We took Cliffhelm. Our joined armies with Sixth’s were victorious. Fourth was caught completely off guard. Our negotiations are already in place.”
The messenger darts a look around the room, eyes landing on a stoic, expressionless Midas before returning to Fulke. “No, Your Majesty.”
“No?” Fulke repeats, as if he’s never heard the word before. “What do you mean, no?”
“We—we didn’t take Cliffhelm. Ravinger’s training outpost there was full of soldiers. We never even breached the walls before they were on us.”
One of Fulke’s guards curses, Fulke’s fists tightening at his sides. “You’re saying my entire division was taken out?”
The messenger hesitates. “Yes, Your Majesty, and…”
King Fulke picks up one of the ink bottles and sends it hurtling against the wall, the glass shattering, ink splattered and dripping. “And what?” Fulke fumes. “Spit it out!”
Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong. They were celebrating. Their plan was victorious. My brows pull together in a frown as my mind whirls. What happened between then and now? How could such misinformation be passed to the kings earlier? Or is this soldier lying? But if so…for what purpose?
The messenger grips the hilt of his sword tighter under the scowl of his king, and I’m not the only one who notices. “What are you doing, soldier?” King Fulke’s guard asks, tone heavy with suspicion as he reaches for his own blade.
But the messenger isn’t looking at him. He’s not even looking at Fulke. He’s looking at Midas.
My body coils with tension, my instincts blaring at me that something terrible is about to happen, but I have no idea what.
“Explain to me how we were told that we took Cliffhelm this morning, only for you to now inform me that my men were all slaughtered!” Fulke snarls. “Tell me how Ravinger’s men were able to overtake both my soldiers and Midas’s without us knowing!”
Fulke’s guards close in on the messenger, like a pack of wolves sniffing out a traitor. A liar.
But they’re closing in on the wrong man.
The messenger tilts his chin up, a proud stance widening his feet even as resignation flashes in his eyes. “They didn’t overtake King Midas’s men. Because Midas’s army never met ours. Sixth’s army never went to Fourth’s border. Your soldiers were there to face King Ravinger’s men alone, and the earlier messages were a deceit.” Accusatory eyes cut over to my king. “Midas betrayed you.”
