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.

I remember what it felt like when that same power somehow ripped me in two. But this…this feels like those two parts of me are smashing back together.

Like Auren got her ribbons, Slade also gets back to his true self

But hands clamp over my ears, and sharp nails dig into my skin. Though there’s a deeper digging that goes past my skin, past my skull. Holes. So many holes left from the hostile burrowing, making the throbbing in my temples amplify even more.

If she doesnt get all her memories back instantly once shes away from the king and being hostage, i will not look at this book the same

There’s a flash of a different crowned man…a different blade…a pain at my throat as I was held back.

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

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.

What did I want when I was a young girl with dead parents? To eat. To feel safe. My options were to find work or marry, and I didn’t want to marry. Not after I saw what marrying did for my mother. Loneliness, arguing, and the occasional black eye. So I became a saddle instead. There wasn’t much else I could do, and since I was always told how pretty of a girl I was, I used that beauty to my advantage.

I do like rissa as a character. I find her interesting. I just dont care about the details of her and os's love story

“Well?” he asks, cracking one eye open as if he could sense my gaze. “Are we a mistake, Rissa?” The answer is easy, and I smile at him. “The best mistake I ever made.”

Panic suddenly hits me, and I quickly shove my hand into my pocket. What if it fell out, what if it— Relief floods me when my fingers wrap around Auren’s strip of ribbon. I can’t bear to lose it.

I’ll unleash a fucking dragon.

Damn

Being a queen in a castle was nothing compared to leading my people through this forest. How trivial it all seems now. How wasted. I should have been here all along.

Pruinn makes a choking gasp, eyes bugging out, and I whip my head to stare at him. I watch in horrified fascination as the whites of his eyes go jaundiced, his skin wrinkling as it shrinks. Infected veins spread up his neck to feast on his face, just as his panicked gaze meets mine. Cold retribution solidifies in my chest and ices over my panic, filling me instead with cruel satisfaction as his eyes brim with fear and confusion. “I’m watching,” I hiss. A second later, he falls dead at my feet.

King Ravinger…except he’s also something else. Something that chills my bones and scatters my heartbeats into useless thrums. He has brought terrible power and terrifying wrath, and yet…he also just saved my people. Saved them, when I could not. So I do something I never would have ever done in the past. Something that I would have been too proud for, too selfish for. Too short-sighted for. I, Queen Malina Colier, fall to the ground and kneel.

Slay crossover

One of them raises his weapon at eye level. “Who are you?” Who am I? I jump off Argo’s back, and the second my boots touch the snow, my magic surges out. The fae have a moment to gasp, to curse, to shout, but then I let my rot free. Let it reign. And it rules with pure tyranny, showing them exactly who I am.

I’ve given Orea a chance, and it’s time to give Highbell one too. Because it’s what she would want. I’m no longer on a rampage of revenge. No longer fed by only torment and reckoning. 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.

Obsessed w this....

We were both trapped by King Midas, though in very different ways. Both blinded—her, by love, and me, by hate. I think I see things now because I’ve finally started to look. My body stiffens with the residual waves of shame, and I swallow hard. Thinking of her trapped in here. Thinking of how it must’ve been. The favored was nothing but a prisoner. A whisper trembles from my lips, shaking out into the cold and empty room. “I’m sorry,” I say. Though it’s far too late for her to hear it.

My reply is stabbing, stark and quiet. “Ravinger. Not Cull.” I see him visibly swallow. “Auren Turley is paired with you?” “Yes,” I reply, knowing exactly what they’re all thinking. How can the fates have bonded her to someone like me? But there’s something they don’t understand yet, though I have a feeling they will soon. There is nothing I won’t do for her. Auren is life. I am death. That is why the goddesses paired us together.

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

“You’re not good. You’re covered in dirt and sweat and blood.” “It’s really very normal for him, love,” Judd says, sidling up beside us. “Don’t call her love,” I growl. “Yeah, don’t call me love,” she snips, giving him a look of disgust that instantly makes me feel even better than good. Judd grins. “Wow. You two are made for each other.” “Of course we are,” we both say in our own irritated tones.

fine. They are growing on me.

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. You are completely mine, and I am yours, and that is all I ever need in this life and all the others.” I kiss her forehead, tears burning in my eyes. “I love you, Auren.”

“You are beautiful. Strong. And so fucking warm.” His hands grip my face, forcing me to look him in the eyes, while his shadows dance around us. “You are good, Malina. And I’m proud of the woman you are.”

She deserves this.

“It’s happened, Lady Rissa,” Manu says beside me, his voice strangled. “What’s happening?” I ask, just as tightly. “We don’t need a rotting ground,” he tells me as he looks over with the ghost of a watery smile. “Because Orea has finally united. We’re fighting…together.”

“Are you okay?” I ask shakily, leaning back to get another look at his face that’s streaked with blood. “Is any of this yours?” “I’m good, Rissa. I have you.”

I waste no time in leaping to my feet, just as the timberwing lands next to Digby and me. That’s when I recognize the bare-backed beast. It’s Argo. “Fuck, you’re a good bird,” I say to him.

Love

His gaze widens as I lift my blade—metal. Not an inch of stone on me that he can control. And with my momentum fueled purely by near-death panic and unadulterated rage, I swing my sword. Right through his neck. Metal slices through him, and the moment his head hits the snow, so does every single statue. All at once. Lifeless. Unmoving. Useless rock. I land hard on my knees, heaving breath, the head of the fae king rolling to a stop to my left. Dead.

Thank god something goes right

“Ah, but you have this strong, precious Colier blood, remember?” she says, tracing a finger down the lines of the blue veins on my arm. “This will help you in both roles. You’re going to be the greatest queen Highbell has ever seen.”

But he doesn’t understand yet. This was the bridge to nowhere. Until a girl willingly walked it and went into a different realm. Until a fae came and bound the worlds together, because the two of them, Orean and fae, willed it so. Because a different fae then willed it to break. And because I willed it to repair. “Willingness,” I say thickly, trying to make him understand. “Willingness has always been the price for the bridge.” “Malina, please. Let’s get off this bridge. Let’s go and talk about this…” I shake my head and grip his hand firmly. “It has to be me,” I say again, tone pleading with him to understand.

I raise the dagger to my chest as tears drip off my face, and I hear my mother’s words. You’re going to be exactly what this kingdom needs, Malina, because it’s in your blood. This time, I can give Orea my blood. This time, I won’t fail. With wet, burning eyes, I look straight at Dommik and I plead. “I wish you’d go,” I cry, my hand shaking so badly I can’t keep the dagger lined up with my heart. “I wish you’d live.” He lets out a choked breath before he reaches up to hold my face. Runs a thumb across my cheek. Kisses me softly. “I’m your assassin, remember? I’m in charge of your death. So if it has to be you, then it has to be me too, Queenie,” he says quietly. Heartbreakingly. Then he reaches up and steadies my shaking hand, his fingers curling over mine where I’m gripping the hilt. “You don’t have to face death without me. You don’t have to go alone.”

When the roaring fae are only feet away, when my blood has soaked the surface and Dommik takes his last breath, the bridge suddenly explodes. It shatters like ice. Obliterating in a blink. The bridge doesn’t break this time. It unmakes. It’s blaring and blinding. Light and mist and sound and void—all of it erupting out and sucking in. Dommik and I are thrown off the gray surface that no longer exists. Leaving life behind with the final drops of our unbeating hearts. With the last spot of vision, with our bodies wrapped tightly around each other, Dommik and I fall into the void. Into the death. Willingly.

OH MY FUCKING GOD

That milky gaze held me hostage, and then she opened her mouth and spoke a single word, in a voice that was not entirely her own. “Goldfinch.” That one word, torn from a diviner’s lips. And right now, it’s pulled from my own mouth and laid at Auren’s feet like an offering. I was fifteen years old when I first heard it, and back then, that word meant nothing to me. It frustrated me. Confused me. It was a word I agonized over. A word I tried to ask my mother about over and over again, to no avail. But then…after twenty years, I found the meaning. Found what was foretold.

“What was the point?” I demand, my voice a furious sob. “What was the point of any of it, if I was just going to lose her?” Her lips turn down. Her eyes fill up. “What was the fucking point?” I heave out. My mother lifts her hands, placing one at my heart and one at Auren’s. Over one that’s split, and one that’s still. She doesn’t speak, but her eyes and touch say plenty. This. This was the point. To love her.

I echo those words Slade first said to me, so long ago. Don’t fall. Fly. And I do. I move my wings as I’ve moved my ribbons, with an innate familiarity and ease.

I don’t need the divinity of the goddesses. Because with him, I have what I’ve always wanted. Love. Whole. Unconditional. Healing. Beautiful. Pure. Love.

“We bow,” he says, face intent on her. “We bow to the new Queen of Annwyn. The last-birthed Turley heir.”

Sometimes, that’s just how life is. Sacrifice in grace, loss within the victory, scar after the heal.

“See?” she says with a smirk. “Told you.” She looks at Auren. “You got the better brother, I think, because this one is rude.”

Wait emonie is awesome and this made me lol. Living for this pairing too

Everything here on the street looks renewed. The golden tree I made when I first visited Bryol is now a sort of landmark, and the ground is cleared and even, with a patch of new grass springing up around the metallic roots. The rest of the road behind me has been smoothed, no longer left in chunks of scorched rubble.

Oh this is just beautiful. Our girl finally has peace, and is back home <3

We turn, and I get the view of the newly built townhouses along the road. They all stand at least two stories tall, with bright colored doors adorning each house. Except for right here, in this open space, where my parents’ house used to stand. I decided I didn’t want to build over this spot. So we turned it into a garden instead. A notch in the street where my golden tree stands to watch over it. And if you walk through the garden, you’ll see a hundred or so Vulmin charms and pins and buttons left to gleam in tribute. For my parents. For Wick’s parents. For all those who lived and died in Bryol.

They’re just happy to be together—though the constant bickering might confuse some, but not me. They’re perfect for each other.

Makes me think of my joshua hehe

“How was your one day today, Goldfinch?” he asks, and I smile, because he asks me this every day. My answer is always the same. “It was the best, because I’m with you.”

There we are. Slade and I standing together in each other’s arms. Me with ribboned wings, him with spikes and scales. Our auras are aglow around us, tendrils of gold and black that wrap around our figures like a halo of light and dark. And behind us, nearly flying right off the page, a goldfinch and a dragon. Below it are three words. Lyäri wyl Betuläria. “The golden one and the deathly flight,”

God they are just perfect. Better than feyre and rhysand dare i say

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

Slade and I look at each other, and the stars look at us. My wings flutter, my heart soars, and I know. That after everything. After all of it. This was what I was always fighting for. This was why I kept going even in the bleakest of times. Even with every stumbling fall. Because this love? This is what it feels like… to fly.

There they are, and there they stay, Paired and tied to core. Dark and light, through realms, they hold. And to Time, they whisper, more.