Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)

by Raven Kennedy

I cried beneath my parents’ kisses, but they told me to go. To be brave. That they would see me soon. One order, one urge, one lie.

Because every time I look up, I remember my mother. Or at least, a piece of her. A piece I’ve been desperately trying to hold onto for twenty years. But memory and time aren’t friends. They reject each other, they hurry in opposite directions, pulling the binding taut between them, threatening to snap. They fight, and we inexplicably lose. Memory and time. Always losing one as you go on with the other.

I can’t recall what my mother’s face looked like. I don’t remember the rumble of my father’s voice. I can’t dig up the feel of their arms around me when they held me for the last time. It’s faded.

SOB OMG

Why am I so cursed to endure the greed of men? Is it simply the gild of my skin? Or is it something more, something deeper, something inside of me that brought me this life? The answer, I suppose, doesn’t matter. But the question still burns. It burns just as much as the scar on my throat.