Goldfinch (The Plated Prisoner, #6)

by Raven Kennedy

“I’ll protect Fourth with my life.” That’s what I’m afraid of.

It’s the sound of her voice as she told me her truths. The scent of her hair when she laid upon my chest.

I was always meant to find her. To see her.

Our souls are now bound together. Our lives forever connected. Our magic entwined.

A fucking dragon.

You have your own light, little sun. So you must carry it with you when it grows dark.

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

I can, I do, I will.

Kissing him is like the first sip of warmed mead during a snowstorm.

“Wait a minute, I’m not marrying you!” I blurt out, staring at him aghast. “Yes, you are.”

I’m not a Cull, and I never want to be. I’m my mother’s son. I’m a Ravinger.

I don’t know who he is, but I loathe him with a fierceness that burns.

He wasn’t a gift of wealth. He was a curse of unending greed.

A gilt greenhouse, trapping the golden flower that bloomed within.

Auren is life. I am death. That is why the goddesses paired us together.

She is the gleaming power of light, and she needed her antithesis to stand at her side. Because she’s the golden sun of warmth and growth, while I am decay and darkness, with a magic that comes from the deepest core of the earth.

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

My name is Auren Turley, and I am stronger than her.

“What are you?” she asks. My gaze stabs into her. “Really fucking pissed.”

it looks like her temper is keeping her plenty warm with the way her cheeks flare red.

“I am not gone, and I do not bow.”

They’ve already tried to break me, but instead, I broke free.

Gold bends, but stone breaks.

Her breath hitches. I want to wrap that breath around me and pull it into my chest. Feed her air right into my lungs. I need her with a ferocity that extends beyond anything else.

So I wait. I have faith. Because the only thing I believe in, is her.

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.

“I’ll always find you, Goldfinch.”

I’m whole again.

“We were made for each other, weren’t we, baby?”

There’s not enough rushing blood to go around.

My love for you consumes every part of my soul. It’s in every word, every movement. With each morning that dawns and every night that falls.

I’m not a Carrick expert or anything,

He’s scared. You’d never be able to tell under his stony exterior—ha.

Perhaps it just takes sitting at the edge of your world to find a little bit of hope.

“Because Orea has finally united. We’re fighting…together.”

that even a broken-winged bird will rise like the sun.

They all stand in gaping awe, watching this golden Turley stand here, as a dragon, the most ancient of powers, bows to her.

The golden one who rules.

He looks at me like I’ve hung the sun in the sky.

“For Judd.”

But then…after twenty years, I found the meaning. Found what was foretold.

“My foretelling, my life’s prophecy, my purpose, my divined was you,” I choke out. “Always you.”

Then, little sun…don’t.

I passed by the other stars, saw the goddesses’ faces, and I smiled.

Because I don’t want to fall anymore. I have been falling my entire life.

Thank you for leading him to me. Thank you for leading me to myself.

Sometimes false hope is all you have, so you cling to it for as long as you can.

“I knew we were friends,” she says through a smile.

Lyäri wyl Betuläria.

“The golden one and the deathly flight,”