Goldfinch (The Plated Prisoner, #6)

by Raven Kennedy

As long as there is breath in my lungs and a heart in my chest, I will fight for her with everything that I am.

Our souls are now bound together. Our lives forever connected. Our magic entwined. It means that she and I are a match fated by the goddesses. It means that we have been given the greatest gift ever bestowed on a fae. It means that she’s mine.

When tears are like starfall, when bleak is like night, We remember the dawn that will bring back the light.

I might not know anything else yet, but I do know this truth with innate certainty. My name is Auren Turley. And I am stronger than the dark.

When I opened my eyes from my deathbed, Osrik was staring at me like I was a ghost. Like I was a gift. Then he buried his face into my hair and wrapped his arms around me and made me feel something I haven’t ever felt before. Safe.

“Like I told you before, you’re the best mistake I want to make. Over and over again. For the rest of our lives. So what do you say?”

“Don’t talk about seeing many others, or I might ask for every single name of every single man you’ve seen so I can fucking kill them all.”

When a woman faces an impossible problem, whether she be mother or queen, she must find a solution. She must find a way. So I will.

How is it that I’ve been perched in a gilded castle, towering over these streets, without ever looking at what was truly here? Because I didn’t want to see.

I told her I’d be the villain for her, and I was. Now, I need to also be the hero she would want me to be.

There is no growth without rot. There is no sun without the dark sky. And there is no me without her.

The guards might as well be holding their dicks instead of swords for all the good it does them.

They say old spirits are drawn to the dawn. That they can’t help but haunt the light. That’s what I feel like. Without her, I’m caught in endless darkness.

Take her. Fuck her. Claim her.

If Annwyn has any hope of ushering in true peace, it has to start with our opponents, or it isn’t really peace. Isn’t really change. We can’t pick and choose between friend and enemy.”

I go to her, and the two of us share a look before we turn back toward the city’s arch. Where everyone suddenly drops to their knees, repeating one thing. Lyäri Nōhcra. No longer the golden one gone, but… The golden one who rules.

I glance up, my heart hammering through my chest, and elation runs through me. But then I hear the war drum and battle cries as the Stone Swords descend like vultures, ready to pick us off, and horror washes over me. Fatal comprehension. Because I killed their king. I killed the person who ordered this invasion. But it doesn’t fucking matter. The war didn’t end with him. The fae are going to slaughter us anyway.

“Don’t you remember? I will find you in any life. So just wait for me, okay?”

“They’re right, Auren,” Wick tells her. “You made Carrick flee. You healed Annwyn. You saved countless lives. You were reborn. Our broken-winged bird flew, rising like the dawn.”

“Oh, Goldfinch,” he murmurs. “If ever there was a person for whom love was created, it was for you.”