Gold, page 1
About the Author
Raven Kennedy is a California girl born and raised, whose love for books pushed her into creating her own worlds.
Her debut series was a rom-com fantasy about a cupid looking for love. She has since gone on to write in a range of genres, including the adult dark fantasy: The Plated Prisoner Series, which has become an international bestseller.
Whether she makes you laugh or cry, or whether the series is about a cupid or a gold-touched woman, she hopes to create characters that readers can root for.
When Raven isn’t writing, she’s reading and spending time with her husband and daughters.
You can connect with Raven on the social media platforms below or visit her website: ravenkennedybooks.com
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR
Raven Kennedy
* * *
GOLD
The Plated Prisoner Series
V
When you feel swallowed by the dark,
may you become your own light.
I go loudly.
Loudly, loudly into the void.
The blaring rattle of a solitary fall.
I don’t close my eyes against the strange dark. My grief wails like thunder, clapping past a broken chest, while echoed teardrops stream down my cheeks like rain.
The world ripped, and I was ripped from him.
It feels wrong. So wrong to be rent apart. Like fingers curled around my ribs, yanking me open. Hollowing me out.
Thick wind peels at my skin. Rushing air plugs my nose and condenses on my tongue. A howling clatter drowns my ears. The flash of lightning and stars surrounds me in the yawning dark.
Through it all, I can see the rip.
I can see the jagged edges of the torn sky above me, a betraying Orean air gaping like a wound in the dark. Liquid gold bleeds through, falling like gelatinous droplets, glinting as they drip down into the nothing. But that rip gets further and further away from me, my body plunging deeper into the starry unknown with unstoppable force.
I’m alone. Alone in this dark, endless void, torn away from Slade.
I keep falling and falling, further and further away from that rip. Further away from him. And as if that weren’t terrifying enough, my senses are suddenly stripped away.
My sight. Sound. Feeling. Taste. Scent. All of it—gone.
The scream tearing from my throat is no more either. Or if it is, I can’t feel it. Can’t hear it pierce my ears.
Without my senses, without any way to experience what’s happening, my grief and fear condenses. Time stretches and snaps.
I don’t know what will happen to me in this void. I don’t know if this is what it feels like to die. Though I do know one thing.
This
is
what
it
feels
like
to
In the beginning, there was a bridge.
A bridge to nowhere, they said.
A bridge that existed into non-existence. A bridge where people went and didn’t come back.
Where cold and color warred. The former winning, the latter drained.
And I…I went.
I walked that bridge that didn’t want to end. I slogged through the barren gray, scraping through time that ceased to exist with goose bumps pebbled on my thin arms.
I was just a girl, but I went. Because my father had been forced to go, and he never came back.
None of them did.
So I snuck onto it, determined to find him. I told myself I wasn’t going to fail. I wasn’t going to turn around.
Now, when the story is told, people think I kept going because I was brave. But really, it was because I was scared of falling.
So I walked.
For days and years. Through memories and moments.
I soon found that it wasn’t just a path. It was an all-consuming void of my own bleakness. It had me believe I’d never make it to the other side of the bridge itself any more than I’d ever make it to the other side of my soul’s grief. They went hand in hand. They became one and the same—the journey on the bridge and the path of my own desolation. Because my mother had died, and my father had gone, and I was so utterly alone even before I started the long, solitary trek.
I became hungry and thirsty on that path, and so very tired. The cold air did strange things, playing sounds that came out of the foggy nothing. There was the voice of my father, telling me to keep going. The sound of my mother, crying, urging me to come back.
But that earthen, colorless ground was steady and perpetual, so I kept dragging my tired soles on and on and on, letting the land guide me through the forever. Because I had nothing to go back to. I had nothing to lose by going forward. And the way down looked such a long way to fall.
So I kept walking.
Until I was so exhausted I thought I might just finally have to give in and lie down to die. Forlorn body and forsaken spirit drained out into the voided path.
But then, it…ended.
It’s funny, I kept going because I was terrified of tipping off the edge. But that endless bridge did have a limit. The rough path of earth was there step after step, until suddenly, it wasn’t.
After all of that, I ended up falling, anyway.
It was a strange sort of falling, though. I didn’t fall down, I fell through.
My scraped and blistered feet slipped through the shade of the earth, tearing a scream from my throat. I plummeted down, down, down, through dirt and rock, past grime and rubble. Where my breaths were just dust and the sand had no purchase.
I thought I was going to fall forever through the ground, but then I was spat out like a bitter taste, and I crashed through the clouds in an amethyst sky.
Whereas the ground had felt intangible, the sky felt liquid. Its dense weight shoved at me while cotton-bloomed clouds tossed me left and right. The ground was up and the sky was down, and I flipped so many times that my clothes tore to shreds. Thick strips of my dress cascaded out behind me like tattered wings while my arms flapped uselessly in the air, trying to gain control, trying to fly when all I could do was fall.
Until, suddenly, I wasn’t falling anymore.
Like gravity was just a breeze, and I was lighter than the grass. The tips of my toes bounced lightly before my heels met the earth, the frayed strips of my dress billowing down around me like wings tucking back in.
As soon as both of my feet were planted, a shockwave poured over the earth like a ripple through the water, and out of it spread a sea of glowing blue flowers that burst from the soil. The ground was now as solid as it should be, the air bursting with the perfume of blooms, and the sky no longer felt like a current wanting to whisk me away.
I was…here.
I’d crossed the bridge to nowhere, and I reached somewhere new. I didn’t know much—I’d never left my city in Seventh Kingdom—but I knew I wasn’t in Orea anymore.
I wasn’t alone, either.
People were around, staring at me wide-eyed, looking up at the clouds I’d jostled through. I could feel the magic in the air even then, though I didn’t know what the feeling was. I didn’t know what those bystanders would be to me. Didn’t know what those pointed ears meant.
But I would soon.
Years would pass, and this magical world would become my home, but I never forgot that endless trudge on the bridge. In turn, the fae never forgot the way I burst through the sky like a broken-winged bird, and that is what they always called me.
So, yes, I was scared to fall. But without falling, I never would have landed.
And what a beautiful thing it was to land.
Thump.
Fragments of awareness nudge against me.
They thud against the barrier of my mind, like a log thumping on a shoreline rock. It’s a hollow, steady sound that reminds me of dead, washed-way things. Some pieces have edges sharp with pain, and others are dulled by watered-down memories long ago lost.
Thump
The first lugging piece that knocks against my consciousness with a forceful thump is a taste. Like the void took my senses away only to slowly offer them back.
I taste the sweet and woodsy relish of a sugarcane against my tongue. I can fathom the split stalk, of peeling back its edges to lap up the goodness inside. I remember being a little girl, remember popping it into my mouth and sucking out its sugar. It’s so real that I can even feel the sunshine warming the reed. It’s like I’m back there, in Annwyn, tasting it all over again. My mouth waters as the saccharine slurp explodes on my tongue.
Thump
Suddenly, scent surrounds me.
A flower. Though, I can’t remember its name—not even what it looks like. But the moment the smell invades me, a memory of my nose buried against my mother’s coat becomes a fragment in my prismatic mind. The perfume is rich and deep, heady in its floral crispness that makes me want to crawl inside the smell and breathe its air forever. But not just because of the scent—because of my mother. Because of the comforting way it clung to her the same way I did.
With that scent, my nose seems to work again, the claggy air of the void replacing my mother’s perfume with something deeper and far more riotous. Like some untouched cavern in the earth that hasn’t been disturbed by light or breath in thousands of years.
Thump
Thump
Incessant, the next sensation knocks against my skin, announcing its return. It sparks life down my limbs, reigniting my nerves to touc
The catalyst is a hand holding mine. The memory so real that my fingers flex, even as the sensation of falling returns, my stomach plummeting right alongside the rest of me. But that palm, that callused, warm grip… I can’t see his face, can’t hear his voice, but I recognize the feel of my father’s hand. Strong and sure. Safe. So long as I kept hold of it, I knew nothing scary or painful could ever touch me.
Thump
Thump
Next, my hearing abruptly returns with a rounded piece that fits into the slats of my mind, twisting the lock.
“Auren!”
I hear a young boy calling my name.
“A-Auren!” His voice is so full of laughter, the excitement making him stutter slightly. It makes my name sound like bubbles and bumps, up and down for every letter, rising to a pop at the end. The joy, the pure effervescent happiness of childhood, accompanies that single word called into the echoes.
It makes my heart hurt.
When the voice fades away, I once more hear the wind rushing past my ears, the thunder spitting in the void.
And then, my last sense returns, like a gift. Wrapped paper peeling open from the dark. It’s the memory of an Annwyn morning, soft yellow beams of sunlight reaching out to caress the world like a kiss against the horizon.
It’s as if my eyes snap open to the light, though they were never closed.
My vision returns, and I blink up at the rip. It’s far, far above me now, looking like a piece of black fabric that was cut through with a dagger. It stays stagnant, unreachable, while liquid gold continues to leak from it like a gleaming waterfall, coating the stars.
Lightning flares and fumes in the darkness alongside me, making my skin glow, leaving streaks behind in the dark ether. I forget for a moment to feel afraid, because of how beautiful it is—this light in the dark.
But then, those frayed edges of the rip slowly start to close.
My throat closes with it.
Thump
Thump
Thump goes my heart.
I watch helplessly as the split melts back together, fingers of wax stretching to clasp me in its grip. I plunge down the gullet of this gap between worlds, while the fibrous jaw bites hard.
And I feel real fear.
Even with childhood memories of Annwyn flooding my senses, terror clomps over me until I’m trodden down with it. I’m still falling, and maybe I’ll be stuck in this in-between place with these jagged memories and that’s all I’ll have. Maybe that’s all I deserve.
The rip is threading back together, which means Slade won’t be able to follow me through. Reality hits me in the chest like a punch. The rip is closing, and I’m drained of my power, and I have no idea what to do, and I’m alone, and I’m falling—
Don’t fall. Fly.
Slade’s voice cuts through my kaleidoscope mind. Like the scrape of solder melting together all the scattered pieces, bringing me back together again.
He’s grounding me, even when I have nothing beneath me but air.
You have to go into it, baby. You have to. I can’t get to you.
I watch as the last of the opening inches shut more and more, faster and faster. Tattered strips of void clump together like ink bleeding over the final inch of paper to absorb the rip that was made—made for me.
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go alone.
Look at me.
My eyes snap to the stitching seam as if his gaze will still be there. As if he weren’t already closed off from me.
I will find you. I will find you in that life.
Now, my senses flood with him.
I remember the taste of his skin as I licked up his neck. His scent when my cheek was pressed against his chest. The feel of his arms around me. Steady. Solid. Safe. His heartbeat, thumping for me.
The sound of his voice when he called me Goldfinch.
I remember the sight of him coming down from the sky like a vision. A fierce, raging warrior come to rot the world to keep me safe. Those variegated eyes going from green to black, boring into me, telling me a thousand things all at once.
I’ll find you, Goldfinch. I swear to you.
Now fly.
Fly.
There’s an echoing crash, like ocean waves slamming together. Then, with one final stitch, the rip cinches shut.
Totally. Completely.
There isn’t even a gap for my gold to drip through anymore. I can’t tell a rip was ever there to begin with, and the bleak emptiness of the black void settles around me like a suffocating cloak.
The way back is closed. Orea, the world I’ve grown to know, is gone, and all that’s left is the stark unknown.
And I…I have Annwyn on my mind and Slade in my ears.
Reassuring me. Reminding me.
Don’t fall.
y
l
F
Can I?
I close my eyes for a breath. I shut down my dread. Shove down my weakness. Replay that strong, steady voice of his to fortify me. So that when I open my eyes again, I can turn and face my plummet head-on.
So that strength can rise out of the fear.
All the gold that spilled down the rip alongside me starts gathering. It wraps around my body in shining rivulets like it’s answering some unspoken call. Even the void itself changes with my mood. The lightning starts to spark in gilt splinters. The stars begin to pulsate with golden thrums that match the beat of my heart.
I smile in the glinting dark. Because once I force myself to stop being afraid, I realize that somehow, this feels…right.
When another flash of lightning juts through the air, it brings my attention down, and I notice one star that’s brighter than the rest. I feel it pulling me closer, until I’m squinting at its light.
Until I’m close enough to reach for it.
My fingertip grazes along its dazzling flare, searing me with warmth. As soon as I touch it, it cracks against the black and hatches like an egg, its radiance spilling from the burst shell. The insides pour out like a flood, and I fall into it, letting it sweep me away into its starshine river.
And I am not afraid.
Because now, I’m no longer falling. I’m soaring toward the unknown, guiding myself to be swept away, no longer screaming or fighting or fearing.
The glimmering river of light that sweeps me away feels a bit like falling in love. Fast and gripping, blatant and blazing. It’s a resplendent comfort, as it keeps me caught in its current, crackling against my skin and filling me with shivers.
I fall back in its flow, like floating in a sunshine ocean. I don’t know how long I stay in the flux and the ebb, but I drift with its pulsing magic for ages, and it warms me up from the inside out.
Then, I’m poured into an earth.
Each speck of sparkle is now a grain of dirt, fertile soil clogging my nose and filling my mouth. I’m in quicksand, except instead of pulling me down to the core, it’s pushing me up up up until—
I’m spilled out into a wayward sky.
The dark is gone. The starshine is too. Even the grains scrubbing against my skin disappear. In their place is soft buttermilk light and tufted clouds of silk, bright with the shine of a sun that feels so very different from Orea’s.
The air is both new and familiar all at once. As soon as I breathe it in, I feel that wild beast, that effervescent fae inside of me, open her eyes. That part of me basks in the inhale and croons in my chest.
Because this. This is what it feels like to breathe.
With eyes wide open, with my mouth pressed in determination, and embraced by the sky’s current electrifying my veins, I spread my arms, and my beast spreads right alongside me.
I feel my faeness viscerally, as in tune with me as ever, and in this perfect bond, this fulfilling moment, something surges out.
Like feathers sprouting from skin, or petals unfurling from a stem. Like cutting teeth from empty gums, or light spilling from a splintered horizon.
The pain that accompanies it is consuming, yet freeing. It’s a whirlwind of sensation hacked from loss and reborn with change.
I’m diving through the spongy clouds as if I’m a fish swimming through water, until suddenly, land appears beneath me, beckoning.
Welcoming.
And as I curl into its open embrace, something else curls with me—around me. The pain is gone and all that’s left is this strange, ecstatic comfort that yanks free from the very center of my spirit.
