All of them are topless, wearing sheer skirts similar to mine, though theirs are black. Behind Midas are several of his guards and King Fulke’s guards standing watch together, two kingdoms’ crests, gold and purple, standing together in a show of alliance.
King Fulke sits on his own throne set beside Midas’s, with Rissa straddling his lap. I can’t help but imagine that it’s me up there, forced to let his bony hands touch me and his yellowed teeth to nip at my flesh.
Behave tonight.
My eyes flick back to Midas as he leans in toward one of his guards, speaking words I’m much too far away to hear. In a moment, the music cuts off, the dancers coming to a dizzying halt, while everyone in the entire room turns to look at the monarch, who sends his saddles scurrying away as he gets to his feet.
“People of Highbell,” Midas announces, his strong voice carrying to every ear. “Tonight we celebrate the strength of Sixth Kingdom.”
People cheer in the crowd, shouting incomprehensible words, but I can’t help the way my lips press together in a thin line, the way my brow furrows. They did it. They attacked Fourth Kingdom, and they were victorious enough to warrant this party.
“Yet none of it would have been possible if it weren’t for King Fulke and our alliance with Fifth,” Midas goes on, gesturing magnanimously to the king beside him.
Fulke’s crown is slightly askew on his bald head, and his cheeks are ruddy and pulled into a grin, but at least he had Rissa get up from his lap.
“King Fulke, as promised, I gift you this night with my gold-touched favored.” Midas looks at me, pinning me in place despite the distance between us, those brown eyes like soil burying me with suffocating weight. “Auren, come forward.”
Two hundred pairs of eyes swivel to me. Frenzied whispers pass from one to another as bodies shift to leave an empty path from where I stand, all the way to where the king awaits.
Midas isn’t just giving me to Fulke tonight. He’s also making it a public spectacle.
“Go on.”
Digby murmurs the words quietly, but loud enough to get me moving. Swallowing hard, I force my feet to take their first steps, my body moving forward despite the fact that I want to turn and run away in the other direction. The other guards hang back, but Digby sticks with me, his stern expression in place as I match his stride.
My eyes skate around the gaping crowd, my ears assaulted with their murmured observations. They talk about everything from the shine of my skin to how much they think my fingernails are worth.
The way they look at me, I can tell that I’m not a woman to them. I’m a trinket that the king usually keeps hidden away. Everyone wants to take advantage of this rare sighting like I’m a nearly extinct animal.
The walk through that room feels miles long.
By the time I stop in front of the dais, everyone has gone quiet. All I hear is my own thudding heart and the howling wind outside.
I curtsy in front of him, knees bending, neck curving down with learned poise.
“Rise, Precious.”
I do, my eyes meeting his as his hand extends. I walk up the steps of the dais, stopping beside him. He’s so handsome that it makes my heart hurt just to look at him. Instead of looking back at me, he addresses the assembled crowd again. “Continue your celebrations.”
As soon as he finishes saying the words, the musicians strike up their instruments again, dancers slowly begin to move, and the crowd converges once more.
“Hmm, you’ve made some adjustments,” King Midas says, his eyes flicking over every place where my ribbons are wrapped around my dress.
There’s no use in denying it. “Yes, my king.”
He clicks his tongue in disapproval but runs a knuckle against my cheek. My entire body reacts, fluttering with the desire to curl against his chest and be wrapped in his arms. To pull me from this madness, to be the dreaming wanderer in the snow drift once more, when we could just talk for hours, lying in each other’s arms.
As if he knows the direction of my nostalgic thoughts, Midas’s knuckle settles beneath my chin and tilts it up so he can look me in the eye. “You’re spectacular, you know that?”
I don’t answer, my tongue tied to the knots in my stomach.
He taps my chin affectionately before dropping his hold. “Be a good girl?”
Behave tonight.
Sit pretty.
A hard swallow pushes bitterness past the tangles of my throat. “Yes, my king.”
He smiles, transforming his face to easygoing handsomeness that makes my heart clench. “Go and sit with King Fulke,” he murmurs. “We owe him a debt that needs to be paid.”