Goldfinch (The Plated Prisoner, #6)

by Raven Kennedy

I hesitate, but then for some strange reason, I let him pull me toward it. We go right up to the end, and then Dommik actually sits down. Sits. At the edge of the world. “Get up!” I hiss in fear. He laughs and then pats the snow beside him. “Sit with me.” I feel my eyes nearly bug out of my sockets. “Are you out of your mind?” “Scared of heights?” he teases, looking up at me. “Of course not.” He continues to stare, while I bristle, his face utterly calm but thoroughly challenging. “It’s okay. If you can’t do it…” I press my lips together tightly. Yet because my ornery streak refuses to back down from Dommik’s provocation, I carefully sidle forward and settle onto the snow beside him. He reaches over and uncurls my legs, making them untangle until my feet dangle over the edge of the world. I nearly hyperventilate. Nearly. I don’t, of course, because I am still a queen. “There,” Dommik says with a grin. “How do you feel?” “Like I want to stab you,” I grind out, scared stiff. Instead of teasing me, he shakes his head calmly. “No, Queenie. Look. Take it in.” He points ahead at the nothing. The vaporous ether of fog in front of us that seems to never end. Then at the dark void below us that holds our world cradled in its bottomless grasp.