Gold (The Plated Prisoner, #5)

by Raven Kennedy

Just before I land, I feel something flow behind me. As if I really did stop falling. As if I really did learn to fly. It wraps around my body like threads of the sun. Like bands of steel. Like rays of warmth. Like streams of light. Like…

SOBBING

That’s always been the way of things. Once I serve my purpose to the men who need me, I am pushed aside, because I have only had one worth to them. My blood.

Give Malina a redemption NOW

“We know you, Lady Auren, because we’ve been praying that one day, you would return. We know you, because you are the Turleys’ last-birthed heir.”

the gasp i gusped. i feel like im now reading a twisted fairy tale....and i love it

Annwyn has been calling to me since I was stolen from it, but now that I’m back, I feel as lost as ever. Because I found myself with Slade, and only with him will I ever truly be home.

Maybe somewhere in Orea, his eyes will close too. Maybe he’ll feel my pull, and we can meet in our dreams while we sleep. And maybe there, we can be home, for just a little while.

Annwyn needs changing. The open hatred for Oreans who still live here, the encouragement of division and fighting between fae, of rewarding nobles and punishing the workers, our dying land…it has all systematically ruined what used to be good,”

Hm sounds familiar..

“He couldn’t,” she says with a confident nod. “The Stone King would shake in his marble boots.” “Stone King?” “His power. He can control stone and rock. It’s why his guard are called Stone Swords. He outfits them with magical stone weapons and armor.” “Sounds heavy.”

Im gonna make a guess this is slades half brother. One that was born after they went to deadwell

This magic that’s filled me with cold, this power that crusts ice at my palms, it’s faulty. Dysfunctional. Or perhaps…it’s me. Unable to create life, though I have a womb. Unable to create magic, though I now have power. Unable to rule, even when I wore a crown.

“Do you know what the cold does to stone, King Carrick?” I ask. He pauses and tilts his head as he looks at me. I gesture through the doorway, to the crumbling stone walls that are worn and abraded. “Stone has rifts and crevices. Weaknesses. It may look invincible and strong, but the cold can exploit those things. Moisture delves into those cracks and fissures, and when it freezes, it ruins. Stone can’t withstand it forever. In the end, cold will always win out.”

GET HIM MALINA

Wheezing is like nails down a porcelain plate. Enough to drive me out of any mender tent. But now… I look at the still, sallow form lying on the bed. Rissa wheezes. With every fucking breath, she wheezes. I don’t know if it’s blood in her throat or fluid in her lungs, or some other shit I don’t know about because I’m not a fucking mender, but I do know this: So long as she’s wheezing, she’s alive. So wheezing has been my favorite fucking sound lately.

It’s strange to return to the place where your roots are, only to realize you’re actually a tumbleweed, cut off and drifting.

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.” He nods. “I don’t doubt that for a second.” And finally, neither do I.

And with my final drops, I gild their broken-winged bird sigils until they gleam. The crowd utters Lyäri,

And that’s what it feels like I’m doing—filling in the gaps. Filling in every dark recess that polluted her life. I promised her I’d be the villain on her behalf. So that’s what I’ll fucking be.

It reminds me of another moment—another arctic shore not far from here. Where Auren and I stood on a beach and watched a mourning moon. Where she first started to see me but was still too blind to see herself. Even then, I saw her. I could feel her strength, her brightness brimming beneath her surface, just waiting to come out. It didn’t matter that the world constantly tried to snuff out her gleam. She shone anyway.

It’s how I found her. Her aura, glowing against the blackest night, lighting up the sky and making the sailless ship glow. It called me like a beacon. As if fate itself was showing me the way. Reminding me for the first time in so long that I wasn’t just torn in half and uprooted—but that I was also fae. Just like her. Ever since, she has been my light. For someone with a soul as black as mine, who’s done the darkest deeds and has the foulest power, her glow is something I will not give up. Without her, I am darkness and death, and that is what I will be until I get her back.

I was lured with magic, and I took it. I brought the fae over the bridge. It’s my fault everyone here is dead. All because I wanted to be worth something.

MALINA ):

Patches of frost stay stuck to my fingertips, even more gathered at the gashes. Permanent scars slashed into me by my own temptation and weakness. Everlasting proof of my wrongdoing.

I look down at the gold that’s slicked against my palms, at the lines of rot running through it. We’ll find each other. He’s already a part of me, in more ways than one.

It would be really great if monarchs could stop wanting me dead. At least I have the most powerful king of them all on my side. When Slade and I find each other, he’s going to be so pissed at this King Carrick. I’d like to see the Stone King try to go up against my King Rot. Carrick doesn’t stand a chance.

I just know its his dad or new half brother or some relative

Grief isn’t based on someone’s length of presence. It’s based on the impact of their absence.

Emonie glances over. “And what about this…dangerous lover of yours? Did he tame you?” The smile on my face goes sad, a fresh pang of longing pinching the center of my chest. “The opposite. He set me free.”

Wick’s beside me, hand on my arm. “Auren, you shouldn’t wander alone.” He’s saying my name here, in the same place where my parents spoke it. A fresh wave of despondency trickles through me.

I fold my legs beneath me. Knees bent, head up, tears dripping. I wasn’t killed that night, but a part of me died, anyway. Emonie comes up. With light steps, she leans down, placing the broken-winged bird charm from her earring onto the ash. As soon as she steps away and sits beside me, more Vulmin take her place, each one of them setting down their own sigils. Until there’s over a hundred of them lying at the foot of my home, glinting among ash and rubble. Until all of them are kneeling with me, here on the hallowed street.

A solid gold tree, roots dug down where mine were severed. Turley gold. Grown up where they tried to snuff us out.

I wish for Slade, the Wrath, Digby and Rissa, Nenet and Estelia and Thursil, Sail and my parents…wish that they were all here. With me. But maybe there’s a reason I’m alone. And maybe…I’m not really alone after all.

I wake up with a splitting headache. Those smoked vanilla drinks were entirely too delicious going down. I’m not exactly sure how many cups I consumed, either. Feels like a lot. Bright side? It’s better than all the times I’d wake up with these headaches in Highbell after drinking too much wine and fermenting in despondency.

Love the callback here

One more second, and he would’ve sliced that sword through my neck. Subconsciously, my hand lifts to my throat like a protective barrier as I continue to stare.

THE PARALLELS TO AURENS BEGINNINGS

My steps slow, however, when I see castle workers chipping away the last of the white paint still on the wall. The paint I ordered to try to cover the gold beneath. With scrapers in hand, the men work to peel away the layers bit by bit and then use a rag to wipe away the curdled white, leaving them to scatter on the ground like piles of dust. Or snow. My hand pauses where I grip the banister railing before I force myself to face forward once more and start my ascent up the steps. The palace has been looted, the paint’s been stripped away, and Highbell is gold and empty, with no king and a different queen. And I don’t mean Kaila.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” “What?” I snap. “You, here. Being locked up in this very cage.” My back goes ramrod straight. Her brown eyes find mine, her face illuminated softly from the candle still burning on the table just in front of her. “You let your husband lock up his gilded pet here.”

“Queen to queen, I’ll let you in on a little secret. That gilded whore is much more than she seems. And so am I. What are you, Malina?” With that haunting, echoing question, she sweeps out of the room, taking the last of the light with her. What are you?

I’ve walked the length of the cage over and over again. Bedroom, washroom, through the library, through the atrium, glancing out at the iced-over windows and seething the entire time. Everything behind the bars seems to have not been ransacked by looters, probably because it was locked. Even though it’s still daylight, the bedroom is incredibly dark, the sole window blocked by a thick layer of snow. I never realized how dark it is up here.

No like i am absolutely obsessed w her path paralleling to aurens like this. Shows how far auren has come and where malina now needs to go. amaze.

Because I regret. I regret allowing my powerless life to mold me. I regret not standing up to my father. I regret marrying Midas. I regret allowing him to keep a woman in a cage. I regret looking down on the very people I was meant to serve. I regret taking everything for granted. I regret becoming this bitter, cold woman, and I want to let that cold out. To make it do something good. Please…

Love happens in all kinds of ways. He was right when he said that. Love does happen in all kinds of ways. But our kind happened like the dawn. The dawn doesn’t question when to appear. It simply does. He walked into my life with the surety of his presence, and from that point on, the night began to wane.

My last defense, one that took me all night to build, and I’ve only been able to slow them down by minutes. All this effort, exhaustion, energy, and it barely matters. I’ve barely made any difference at all.

been able to do what I did.” I lift my hands to show him the evidence of the slashes that will never heal, though they’re bloody and peeling now, the skin gone blue. “If you’d done your damn job, then I wouldn’t have been able to get to Seventh Kingdom in the first place. I wouldn’t have been able to give my blood and then make Orea bleed,” I shout scathingly as my fists raise and start hitting him in the chest. He doesn’t try to block my strikes, and that makes me even angrier. “You should have killed me!” I scream as I hit him again and again, though it’s my own words that crush me, each one a weight on the ladder of my ribs. Dommik just continues to watch me while wisps of his shadows curl around us. If I could go back in time, I’d kneel at his feet and welcome his blade.

His thumb presses over my windpipe, straining my breath, making my mind stop spinning and instead holding me right here. “You want death?” he grits out, his challenge lashing against my face and spreading heat with each hit. “I’m your fucking death. I will consume you so thoroughly there won’t be a wish for any end, because no end will release you from me.”

The other glances up absently for a second and then gets back to stirring a big pot, but I notice with a jolt that she has blunted ears. Both of them do. Cull’s Orean servants.

i think the servants being saved came from the rip.

I want to heave. To scream. They’re all here. All of them. Great Divine… Every single villager that should be tucked away in Drollard, hidden in their frozen village. They’re here, in Annwyn.

I was rjght

During all the time I’ve been in Orea, I have been at war with myself. Ripped in two, each form wanting to come out—to dominate and thrive. It was a release for me to switch between skins. To be both Rip and Rot. The first, to be the aggressive fae learning to protect me and mine through muscle and rage. The second, to learn to protect in a different way—politically. Magically. I was able to be the commander and the king. The soldier and the sovereign. I could slake my bloodlust on the battlefield and quench my thirst for control in a throne room. Because of this, I forged the protection of Drollard right along with fear and loyalty of an entire kingdom—an entire realm. There are two sides to every coin, but there’s only one core, and there, I am in complete joined agreement. Auren.

“Slade,” he hisses out desperately. “Just… You can’t abandon Orea. Think of your kingdom. We have to help. We have to—” “I’m going to her.”

No moral high ground. No hesitation. Just her. Slay

“If there is ever a choice between her or the world, it’s going to be her.”

I stumble, just as the sword that had been aiming for me swings down and slices into him instead. I gasp as it cuts deep into his bicep, and Wick shouts out in pain. His sleeve slashes open, and blood bursts from the wound. But I stare in shock because the blood…it’s not red. It’s gold.

1. Thought it was about to be revealed he is a valg. TOG lives in my head too much… 2. WHAT???!?

Light has exploded over my body in luminous warmth. But…there are now shadows of black curling through it. Like our auras combined. Inside, I convulse with a wave of heat and tepidity, with light and dark, life and death. Black and gold. There’s this connection I can’t quite explain but somehow understand intrinsically. Like two hearts beating as one. Breathlessly, I watch the glowing gold and wisps of coiled black slowly sink back into my skin until the flare of colors is gone. But while I can’t see it anymore, I can still feel it. Can still feel Slade’s presence. Gently. Softly. Like the quiet moments right before waking, when I can sense him lying next to me. Like when he enters a room and I know he’s there, even before I turn to look.

My favorite fae fantasy plot is it being so obvious that they are fated mates over 5+ books and still being so amped when its finally revealed.

“It’s remarkable, you know.” “What is?” I ask. “We might be the last two fae in the entire world, and somehow, our paths crossed that night.” His words from before, about how my aura was a beacon that he followed, make a lump appear in my throat. “Fate does funny things.” “It does.” It does. My mind is a cyclone. Twisting and twisting. My emotions are in chaos. And still, his words echo. We’re quite the pair, you and I. Quite the pair, you and I. Pair, you and I. Päyur, you and I.

Oak bark. My head hollows out. My heart does too. I’m not here, at the fae’s castle. I’m there, in Bryol, when I was five years old. When a leather gag that tasted of oak bark was pressed into my mouth. When I was stolen from my guards, separated from the other children and taken into Orea. Orea…where old fairy rings used to dot across the lands when fae had lived there.

But my ears have latched on to one thing. The bridge of Lemuria has been unbroken. Slade. I can get to Slade.

Because this is what it feels like… to forget.