My heart pounds with the command, and I know I’ve lost any hope of rekindling old Midas. King Midas is firmly in place.
He jabs a finger to point in the direction of the cage. “I’m not going anywhere until you’re in that cage, safe and secure, where no one can get to you. Do you want to get taken again? Do you want to be vulnerable?”
“Of course not.”
He’s agitated, cheeks reddened, eyes lit with that temper I tried to subdue. I’ve failed miserably in keeping him calm and open to what I have to say.
“Did you betray me?” h
e asks suddenly.
His question makes me pause. “What?”
“You heard me,” he says flatly. “Did. You. Betray. Me?” Every word is a sentence, each one bitten off.
My mouth drops open, mind whirling. “What... How could you—of course I didn’t betray you!”
“Did you let any of those filthy pirates touch you? Did you let Fourth’s army touch you?”
“Let?” My question stretches like a string ready to snap.
I know he can hear the hurt in my voice, because I hear it too. That hurt is stitched from my words to my face, woven through my features.
“Fine,” Midas replies, but his voice is still hard, still cruel, the voice of a king who expects to be followed. “But if you didn’t betray me, then prove it. Get into the cage.”
I feel tears prick the backs of my eyes, and my shoulders stiffen. He’s not going to listen. Even though I’m right here, standing in front of him, trying to tell him, he won’t listen.
My chin drops to my chest, as if it feels the burden of a forlorn weight pressing down. “Don’t do this, Midas. Not now. Not after everything. Please.”
His stony exterior isn’t touched by my plea. “This is the way it has to be, and you know why. You agreed.”
My eyes flick up. “I changed my mind.”
Midas levels a flat look at me. “I didn’t give you permission to change your mind.”
I rear back like he’s hit me. For the pain that’s emanating through my body, he might as well have.
His mouth is tight, shoulders tense, crown still proudly sitting on his head. “Last chance,” he tells me, a viciousness in his tone. “Get into the cage, or I’ll put you in it.”
It’s like I’ve been pierced directly in the heart.
I haven’t seen him for two months. I thought I was going to be killed multiple times. All I wanted was for him to tell me that he’s proud of me, that he loves me.
I wanted him to hold me. To really hold me, head to chest, so I could hear his heart singing just for me again. But he didn’t. He didn’t hold me in his arms—he held me at arm’s length.
“I’m trying to talk to you, Midas. Really talk,” I say, voice bruised with the hurt he’s pressed into my chest. “I always trust you. I always listen to you. Just this once, can’t you listen to me?”
The look on his face is acidic enough that I’m surprised it doesn’t burn straight through me. “Listen to you?” he spits. “Because you’re so successful at living in the outside world, is that it?” he asks mockingly. “When I found you, everything was okay?”
My lips press into a thin line. “You know it wasn’t.”
“Exactly.”
“But that was then,” I argue. “I was just a girl, Midas. I’ve—”
“Proved it to yourself all of a sudden?” he says, cutting me off, throwing my previous words back in my face.
I cross my arms around me, eyes meeting his in defiance. “Yes.”