So this one is considered “dark fantasy,” which seems to mean most of the characters are traumatized and will continue to be traumatized throughout the series, and our lead characters like to call each other "baby" a lot. Which is…a choice, and something I missed when looking at the description. I have this one because Audible was having a sale and a lot of books were about 1.99 – 5.99, so I randomly bought a bunch of them. This one was included in the sale so I got it– retelling the myth of King Midas? Sure, I’ll try that.
Warning, trauma, violent sexual assault, grooming, and a very mean murder of one of the only decent characters lie ahead. I’m not overly keen on dark fantasy, I think.
We open with an orgy, fair enough, welcome to dark fantasy! King Midas offers Auren, our heroine, a deal on a muffler as he Tiddlywinks his royal saddles in front of her. Auren’s not allowed to join the orgy, instead she’s an audience of one witnessing the group from her golden cage because Midas is a weirdo. She drinks her wine and dreams of being able to touch him because she was very effectively groomed by Midas. They’ve been together for ten years – I think they met when she was fifteen? and he saved her, might have been ten? – she knows they’re in love because he talks to her sometimes and was almost in a good mood after the opening orgy.
The royal saddles all kind of hate Auren, oh, right, and she’s gilded in gold. Gold hair, skin, eyes, appendix… She’s Midas’s favorite and she’s iced in gold and plays drinking games with herself in her golden cage on the top floor. She also has golden ribbons like tentacles that she keeps tied around her so no one thinks she’s different. Luckily Auren only interacts with what I can only guess are the most unobservant people to ever exist so she never has to explain THE TWENTY FOUR RIBBONS THAT HAVE GROWN OUT OF HER BACK.
Our heroine is dewy-eyed with her Midas Stockholm Syndrome, but even she waffles when Midas gladly hands her over to King Fulke, a visiting king who is gross and wants a night with Midas’s golden saddle. In exchange, King Fulke will send his soldiers, along with Midas’s army, to take down the Scary Pants Kingdom. Auren is at first, excuse me, what now? But accepts her fate and starts to pluck out “Single Ladies” on her harp.
It seems to take about a half an hour before their armies have taken down the Scary Pants Kingdom, so that means it’s orgy-party time! King Fulke puts his fingers in Auren’s mouth as he feeds her fruit and I think someone needs an eye exam. As they head to his rooms, Auren switches places with a watermelon in a golden curtain and it’s about two hours before he notices a difference. That would have made me laugh, no, they walk across the ballroom towards his rooms and Auren has finally had enough and cries, “No, thank you!” in front of everyone. Fulke backhands her with his pimp hand and starts to have his men drag her when one of his soldiers shows up. His army was slaughtered! Midas is a liar pants! He didn’t send his army!
Midas is all, yeah, I’m super smart, so suck it! Several guards die, leaving Fulke all by himself. Fulke decides it’s only fair that Auren has to endure some more trauma and tries to kill her. Digby, our heroine’s spartan guard, saves her because Midas is completely worthless. She obligingly goes back to her cell and Midas is all, I’m, like, soooooo sorry, I just really wanted Fulke’s kingdom, I would never let him touch you! Errr, I’m confused – Midas let the gross king put his fingers in Auren’s mouth, manhandle her throughout dinner, hit her in the face, then drag her off to assault her, so what? Auren’s all, sigh, you’re right, you’re the bestest boyfriend ever. And Tiddlywinks. And I’m just like, what am I listening to? BUT, earlier, when Auren hits Rissa, a royal saddle, in the face with a golden book to help give her a break from dancing and narrates what happens, I laughed out loud, like really laughed. I’ve probably listened to at least thirty-ish? romantasy books and this is the most I’ve laughed, ever.
Back to the smartest man alive in a kingdom of idiots – Midas sashays to Fulke’s kingdom to take it over, leaving Auren and the saddles behind because…no idea. He eventually decides the saddles and Auren should make the arduous journey so he can do rude things to them and off they all go into a blizzard because Midas is just so damned…I have no idea why anyone does anything for him, really, like is he really funny or something?
Auren’s all excited – I can’t believe it’s so pretty out here! I love mud and the smell of latrines and I want to ride a horse so I can really get the full olfactory experience of waste! Digby’s all, no, you’re not riding a horse. But Auren really really wants to, so he relents and then the saddles laugh at her for sitting astride, and I’m like, you all were very naked and in various nasty positions in the opening orgy, so I’m really not sure what you’re laughing at, but we never miss a chance to make Auren feel lonely and small. Which is why we get Sail, her very nice, polite, chatty new guard who’s the first friend she’s had ever. Oh, did Auren get something kind in her life? Ha ha ha!
The journey takes like years, I don’t know, it’s a long time, and Sail is kind to Auren the whole time, which makes her feel better about her existence. Then there’s a blizzard that keeps them holed up in tents for another year, but the weather breaks and they are on their merry way when they’re attacked by snow pirates! Yes, snow pirates. Sail starts yelling for the guards to protect Auren, which annoys the saddles, which is fair, that would be annoying. Digby went on some kind of nature walk, so I have no idea where he is during the attack. Before you can say argh, the guards, including Sail, have been stripped and they’re all on their way to the snow pirate ships.
Captain Fane and his gross snow pirates are really excited to have royal saddles and Auren to abuse as horrifically and as often as they would like, but Sail’s not cool with that future for his new best friend. He tells the Captain not to touch Auren! So Fane then has to go into detail of what he’s going to do to her, and it’s like, why? Of course, the other half of Auren’s bff pendant doesn’t back down from telling the snow pirates it’s not polite to talk that way in front of a lady and is stabbed to death. Bye Sail, nice knowing you.
What made this so sad is that Sail was checking on her the whole time to let her know it was all okay while he was also scared, then he’s dead. And I’m just like, this is bulls*&^, to introduce her one friend who worked hard to be promoted to royal Precious duty only to be sacrificed to make Auren feel even lonelier. Bulls*&^t.
Auren and her ribbons get to work taking Sail down from the mast where they nailed his body, because of course that happened. While she does this, no one is like, huh, are those ribbons moving independently on their own? That’s some kind of magic, maybe? Let’s ask her about…nope, they just watch her until she manages to get his body tossed off the ship like they’re watching a cooking video. Nothing to see here.
Captain Ick does tie up her ribbons around her in knots, so I guess he realized there was something odd about them? Probably not, that’s a totally normal thing to do – tie up twenty-four golden ribbons that are like appendages and just moved a body.
Just then a hawk arrives announcing the arrival of Commander Rip from the Scary Pants Kingdom. He wants to buy the royal party, but Captain Ick is pissy because he wanted to field multiple offers and do terrible things to the saddles while it got sorted out. Drat. Oh well, King Rot, Rip’s boss, is the boogie man, so okay, fine, he can buy them. After their meal!
So now the saddles are helping make dinner, which is just such an odd shift, but it’s better than all the talk of how they’ll be abused and sold when they’re used up. Like, why did those threats to go on so long?
Auren’s not allowed in the dining room! Stay back, golden harlot! So she tries to use her time to unravel her poor ribbons without anyone noticing, and it’s like, you’re fine, no one even notices you have them.
Captain Ick’s ruse to keep Auren out of Scary Pants’s clutches by having her army crawl around the dinner table is a spectacular failure since Scary Pants actually has a functioning brain at this point – she’s the reason he’s there offering a trunk of gold for the entire party. Captain Ick has a hissy fit that he owns her now, but fine, just go away and come back after awhile, okay? Scary Pants is like, oh, okay, that makes sense with all of your whining about wanting to abuse them and asking for more time with me off the ship, I’m sure the ladies will be treated with respect. You got it, Captain, we’ll be back! So I now retract my optimism about Scary Pants’s brain.
Captain Ick drags Rissa and Auren to his room where he very violently assaults Rissa because he likes pain and fear, and it’s like can this stop now? But it keeps going until Auren’s finally like, um, excuse me, but that doesn’t seem very pleasant, could we just drink some tea? Then Captain Ick decides it’s Auren’s turn, but Auren decides maybe she should do something helpful again, like the golden book throwing, and places a hand on the a*&hole. And bam, they have a golden Captain Ick statute frozen with his pants around his ankles. And I’m like, could you maybe have done that about ten minutes ago? But we now learn that Auren’s got the Midas touch that she’ll use to save herself but not Rissa.
Rissa and Auren toss the golden pervert statute out the window into the snow below, and I’m hoping that’s not a children’s playground in the spring. They also toss the trunk of gold Scary Pants gave the captain, crying to the snow pirates who come to collect them that the Captain stole the booty and ran away! Ummm….what? No one will believe…oh, and the snow pirates believe it. Oh, that jerk! the snow pirates declare.
Well, until one of the snow pirates realizes the Captain left his pervert coat, so then he’s like, wait, that might not be true! Auren’s like, it’s total true! And he’s confused until Scary Pants shows up to collect his baubles. Off they go to be ransomed or something, maybe King Scary Pants needed more pair partners for an important bridge tournament?
Well, before they can face their doom, Auren falls off the ship. She’s mostly fine, but Scary Pants hovers over her and she sees that he’s a fae, which she tells him, and, it’s like, I think he knows. But he tells her he was going to say the same thing to her, and it’s like, maybe start with are you okay? She just fell off a ship.
