What threw me in through the loop is the opening scene. King Midas is literally having an orgy with his concubines, AKA Royal Saddles and having our FMC Auren just sit in a gold cage and watch. I questioned a lot of reading choices when I read this within the first page of starting this book.

Auren doesn’t care and said it was sort of normal for it to happen? Yeah….my point exactly. I almost quit. But sense I am normally not a quitter, I continued on reading Gild.

Auren was turned to gold by King Midas who is the king of one of the kingdoms of this realm. King Midas wasn’t even a direct descendant, but married the daughter of the king. Because he had magic and was a man, they selected him to be king of this kingdom.

Well, King Midas is a tad possessive of Auren…okay okay a understatement. He doesn’t not like people touching, looking and even fantasizing over Auren. So much so that he created a series of pathways through the castle that is a gilded golden cage for her. She can’t go anywhere and just stuck there waiting for the affections of King Midas.

Yes, Auren has a slight stockholm syndrome with the situation. She isn’t fighting the cage and quite content being locked up. She is also desperate for any attention and physical affection from King Midas. So she spends a lot of her days just pining away for him. 

I also add that Auren has these magical ribbons coming out of her back. They can move around to fight, help her get dressed etc. Not sure why she has this particular power, maybe it would be more explained in the next books?

King Midas and Auren had a history before he became king. Unfortunately, Auren developed a savior complex for him because he took her off the streets when she was being used in prostitution. So he brought her with him and made sure to put her on full display that she was his favorite and most treasured possession.

Well, even though Auren lives a cushy life, she has some trouble up her way. Well, King Midas is married to a very bitter and resentful wife. The woman that was supposed to be the real queen and ruling the kingdom. But a pig of a man nation took it from her. And this woman hates, I mean HATES, Auren with a fiery passion that woman would have towards another woman. But I can’t blame her though.

Another issue that happened is that literally, the prick that he is, King Midas sold Auren to his alley as a king from another kingdom. This king will get to have one night with Auren to do whatever he wants to her. Another pig.

In exchange for that, King Midas gets this king’s army to invade another kingdom. Terrible. Leaving Auren feeling betrayed and used by King Midas to get what he wants. She still agrees to it anyway because she is super loyal to him.

So the night finally came, it finally kicked in that she doesn’t want to do it. So as she was being led away with this king for one night, she fought back. Before she can really do any real damage, King Midas swoops in like the fake hero that he is and reveals that he has betrayed this king. Instead of attacking this kingdom, he sent the army to be slaughtered and started taking over this king’s kingdom. I have to admit, that was a cool move.

So King Midas killed that king there and claimed it was assassin. He went to this kingdom to make arrangements for the takeover. Eventually, he arranged that his royal saddles and Auren to be transported to this new kingdom. But it was a long, frozen and treacherous journey. Oh, and he left his actually wife behind too.

While on the road, they did get ambushed by these Red Pirates. They took hostage Auren and the other Royal Saddles. The captain of these pirates is really brutal and hence where the trigger warnings really come into play. 

So, please proceed this next part with caution.

This captain exchanged for gold to the caption that works for King Rot, another neighboring kingdom. But before they handed them all over, the captain had to ‘taste’ one of the saddles and Auren.

I unfortunately forgot the saddles name, but this captain unwelcomed sex to her. Quite brutally to be quite frank. That is where this whole thing really bothers me. Earlier in the book, Auren and King Midas does have sex, but it was very brief and not very detailed. But this scene was DETAILED. A little too heavy on this and felt that it was a bit much. I felt a little traumatized. 

But Auren didn’t stand down when she had to watch it. Apparently she had this big secret as well, she can turn people into gold as well and she turned that captain into one with his stupid dick hanging out. They tossed him right out the window. Haha justice.

They had to pretend that this captain stepped out and ran away with the gold. The crew didn’t believe them but they got exchanged to the captain for King Rot.

Apparently this captain is also a fae/elf of some sort and made a comment to Auren showing she is one as well. Then the book ended there.