Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination, emotional abuse, sexual violence, and death. 

Auren is the protagonist and first-person narrator of Gild and the rest of the Plated Prisoner series. As a young child, she was orphaned following a bandit attack on her village, after which she spent years living in poverty or being traded among human traffickers. Thus, from a very young age, she was neglected, abused, and exploited. When she was kidnapped by raiders, the vigilante then known as Tyndall rescued her and the others, and from that moment, Tyndall (Midas) vowed to protect Auren. Though Auren was 15 years old and Midas was in his twenties at the time, they became lovers. At an unspecified time during their relationship, Midas used his magical power of gold touch to turn Auren entirely to gold. She has since become known as the king’s “favored”: his gilded trophy and most prized “saddle”—one of many women whom he has enslaved for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Auren’s body also features strange ribbons that protrude from her spine and can move independently, an ability that she keeps hidden from all but Midas.