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  Please Note: This series will contain explicit content and dark elements that may be triggering to some. It will include explicit romance, mature language, violence, non-consensual sex, and emotional manipulation. It is not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. This is book two in a series.

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  GOLDEN GOLD VINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  READ MORE

  Raven Kennedy is a California girl born and raised, whose love for books pushed her into creating her own worlds. The Plated Prisoner Series, a dark fantasy romance, has already sold in ten countries and is a number one international bestseller with almost one million copies sold to date. It was inspired by the myth of King Midas. Her debut series was a romcom fantasy about a cupid looking for love of her own. She has since gone on to write in a range of genres. Whether she makes you laugh or cry, or whether the series is about a cupid or a gold-touched woman living in King Midas’s gilded castle, she hopes to create characters that readers can root for.

  You can connect with Raven on her social media sites, and visit www.ravenkennedybooks.com

  Dedicated to those who see no bars but still feel caged.

  Fly.

  QUEEN MALINA

  Gold, as far as the eye can see.

  Every inch of Highbell Castle carries the telltale shine. In the past decade, people have traveled far and wide across all of Orea just to look upon it. It is heralded for its magnificence, the people always impressed with its overwhelming splendor.

  But I remember how it used to be. I remember the slate of the parapets and the iron doors of the gate. I remember when I had gowns in every color and the dishes on the tables were white to match the Colier hair. I remember when the bell in the tower was copper, its chime light and clear.

  Things that were once feather-light now take several men to pick up. Parts that once carried the colors of age and history now glisten as if new. Even the roses in the atrium have been gold-touched, never again to sprout a new bud or fill the air with their perfume.

  I grew up in Highbell Castle. I knew every rough rock and speckled stairway. I knew the dark grains of wood on the window frames. I can still recall the way my father’s throne felt, melded together with stone and diamonds cut from the mountains to the east.

  Sometimes, I wake in the middle of the night, trapped in the tangles of my golden sheets, and I can’t tell where I am. I don’t recognize this place at all, not anymore.

  Most days, I don’t even recognize myself.

  The dignitaries who visit revel in the gloss and glamour. They stand awed by the precision of every surface’s change and celebrate Midas’s power.

  But I miss the way Highbell used to look.

  Every gray nook, every raw chair, even the ugly blue tapestries that used to hang in my old bedroom. It’s surprising, the things you come to miss once they’re stripped away from you.

  I knew I was going to pine over the loss of control over Sixth Kingdom when I agreed to marry. I knew I’d mourn my father when he died. I even knew that I’d miss being addressed by my old name and title, Princess Malina Colier.

  But I never anticipated that I’d feel the loss of the palace itself. It wasn’t something I could’ve predicted would happen. Yet room by room, item by item, everything was changed before my eyes, down to each pillow and wine glass.

  It was exciting at first, I can’t deny that. A gold castle in the frozen mountains was something out of a fairy tale, and I had a king to make me a queen. I had a marriage that would ensure I could stay here, in my home, to carry on my royal bloodline.

  But here I sit, in my gilded drawing room, my naivety long since ripped away. I have no heirs, no family, no magic, no partnership with my husband, and no recognition of the very place I grew up in.

  I’m surrounded by wealth that holds no value to me.

  This castle, the place where my mother birthed me, where my father and grandfather ruled, where all of my fondest memories reside, has become foreign. It holds no comfort, no excitement, and certainly no fairy tale.

  People are dazzled by it, whereas my eyes see every single scratch in the golden surfaces of the floors and walls. I notice every inch where the soft metal has worn down, distorting the shapes. I catch the corners where the servants haven’t polished, I note each fragment that’s gone dull.

  Gold may gleam, but it doesn’t stand the test of time. It wears down, loses its luster, becomes nothing but a needy, malleable surface with no durability.

  I loathe it. Just as I’ve come to loathe him.

  My renowned husband. The people fall to their knees for him instead of me. I might not have magic, but resentment is a powerful thing.

  Tyndall will be sorry. For every time he pushed me aside, for always underestimating me, for taking away my kingdom.

  I’ll make him pay for all of it—just not with gold.

  “Would you like me to sing for you, Your Majesty?”

  My gaze cuts over to the courtier sitting across from me. He’s young, probably only around twenty, pretty on the eyes and easy on the ears. Traits that all my courtiers have.

  I loathe them as well.

  They buzz like pests, consuming pretty dishes of food, taking up air with their mindless chatter. No matter how many times I try to swat them away, they always swarm around me again.

  “Do you want to sing?” I retort, though it’s honestly a moot point, because …

  His smile broadens. “I want to do whatever will please my queen.”

  A fake answer from a fake companion.

  That’s all these courtiers are. Pretenders. Gossipers. Sent to my side to distract and entertain me. As if I’m a simpering, foolish female in need of mindless recreation all hours of the day.

  But Tyndall is gone—swept off to Fifth Kingdom where the people will no doubt bow at the Golden King’s feet. Midas will like that immensely, and that’s just fine with me.

  Because while he’s there, I’m here. For the first time, I’m in Highbell without his flashy presence.

  It’s as if it’s a sign from the great Divine. No husband to defer to. No king to bow to. No golden puppet at his side, greed incarnate, glossing over the ugliness of lies.

  It’s my chance.

  With Tyndall away, distracted by putting Fifth Kingdom beneath his thumb, I have an opportunity, and I won’t squander it.

  I may not recognize the walls of this castle anymore, but it’s still mine.

  I still have the same ambition I did when I was a little girl, before it became clear that I have no magic, before my father gave me to Tyndall, blinded by the gleam of his gold.

  The gold doesn’t dazzle me, though. Not anymore.

  Because my dream, my role, my due, it was always to rule Highbell.

  No submitting to a husband, no being shoved aside or treated like a coddled pushover. Tyndall Midas has put his hands on everything, glazing over my entire life.

  And I let him. My father let him. This whole damn kingdom let him.

  But I’m done.

  I’m done sitting in a cushioned chair, embroidering silly handkerchiefs, eating sickly sweet cakes while the courtiers talk about which dress so-and-so wore, simply because they like hearing the sound of their own voices.

  I’m done being the silent cold queen frozen in place.

  Tyndall is gone, and for the first time since I’ve become queen, I can actually be a queen.

  And I intend to.

  I’ve worn a crown my entire life, but I’m finally going to wield it.

  AUREN

  The wooden wheels of the carriage churn as much as my stomach.

  Every rotation expels another memory to the forefront of my mind’s eye, an endless cycle that keeps circling and unloading, like vultures dropping forgotten carrion from the sky.

  Death clings to me.

  I wanted so badly to leave my cage. To be able to roam freely in Midas’s castle. My boredom and loneliness was a gaping yawn that I couldn’t speak past, couldn’t swallow down, couldn’t close off. My mouth kept widening, tongue flat, chest open, wishing and hoping for that deep breath to come into my lungs and set me free from the growing suffocation of my bars.

  But now …

  There’s blood on my hands, though no red stains my skin. But I feel it there, with every graze of my fingertip, like the truth is ingrained in the fortune lines across my palms.

  My fault. Sail’s death, Rissa’s pain, Digby’s absence, all of them my fault.

  I flick my gaze toward the c
loud-covered sky, though I don’t really see the haze of white and gray. Instead, those relentless spinning memories keep falling behind my temples, landing at the backs of my eyes.

  I see Digby riding off, his retreating form pressed between a sky of black and a ground of white. I see red flames crackling from the paws of the fire claws, the powder of snow flying up beneath the pirates’ ships like waves in a frozen sea. I see Rissa crying, Captain Fane poised over her, a belt in hand.

  But mostly, I see Sail. I see his heart being pricked with the blade of the captain’s dagger like a finger on a spindle, his blood dripping out in threads of red, tied to the puddle on the ground.

  I can still feel the scream that came out of me when his body slumped down, caught by my hands and the bitter arms of Death.

  My throat is raw and sore, abused from the night that seemed to never end. First it wailed in shocked misery, and then it squeezed, closing out any hope of breath.

  My throat clogged when the Red Raids strung up Sail’s body to the mast at the front of the ship, making an evil mockery of his name, suspending him up on a sailless ship.

  I’ll never forget the way his rigid body hung there, his unblinking blue eyes being pelted with wind and snow.

  Just like I’ll never forget the way I used every ounce of my strength to push his body overboard so the pirates couldn’t continue to abuse and disrespect him.

  My aching ribbons throb with the memory of slicing the ropes that held him, of dragging his cold corpse across coarse wooden planks.

  He was the first friend I’ve had in ten years, and I only got to have him for such a short time before I had to watch him be brutally murdered right in front of me.

  He didn’t deserve his end. He didn’t deserve an unmarked grave in the emptiness of the Barrens, his body entombed by an ocean of snow.

  It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, his voice echoing in my ears and piercing right through my heart. He tried to reassure me, tried to hold my spirit and courage up, but we both knew the truth. As soon as my carriage toppled over and the Red Raids captured us, it wasn’t going to be okay.

  He knew, but he still tried to defend me, to guard me, until his last breath.

  A painful sob rips up my throat, snagging against the soreness like string caught on a hangnail. My golden eyes burn as another droplet of salt slips down my windblown cheek.

  Maybe I’m being punished by the great Divine—the entity that makes up all of the gods and goddesses of this world. Maybe what’s happened is a warning that I was overreaching, that I need to remember the terrors of the outside world.

  I was safe. At the top of a frozen mountain, up in the highest point in a golden castle, I was safe inside my gilded cage. But I got restless. Greedy. Ungrateful.

  This is what I get. This is my fault. For having those far-reaching thoughts, for wanting more than I already had.

  I feel my wilted ribbons quiver, like they want to rise up and brush against my swollen cheek, like they want to offer me comfort.

  But I deserve none. Sail won’t get comfort from his mother ever again. Rissa won’t get comfort in the arms of the men she’s paid to bed. Midas won’t have comfort with an army marching toward him.

  Outside, the soldiers of Fourth Kingdom travel through the snow, a dark force moving across the empty landscape. They’re a river of black leather and sleek obsidian horses, cutting across the land of perpetual cold.

  I can see why all of Orea fears the army of King Ravinger—of King Rot. His magic aside, these soldiers, even without being clad in their battle armor, are an intimidating sight.

  But none so much as the commander leading them.

  From time to time, I glimpse him riding his horse outside, the line of vicious spikes along his spine curving down like cruel frowns. Black eyes like bottomless pits, waiting to ensnare anyone who looks into them.

  Fae.

  A full-blooded fae right here. Not in hiding, but leading an army for a cruel king.

  Our earlier conversation replays in my head, making my palms go clammy, making my hands shake.

  I know what you are.

  Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you.

  My mind stuttered when he said those words, mouth opening like a gaping fish. He merely smirked, flashing a glimpse of his wicked fangs, before jerking his head to this carriage and locking me inside.

  But I’m used to being locked away.

  I’ve been in here for hours now. Worrying, thinking, letting tears and ragged breaths fill the space, letting my mind catch up on everything that’s happened.

  Mostly, I’ve just allowed myself to react while no one’s here to see.

  I know better than to show weakness to the soldiers outside, especially the commander.

  So I let myself feel it all now behind the privacy of the wooden walls, let my emotions roil, let the anxious “what nows” run through my head.

  Because once the carriage stops for the night, I know I can’t afford to let any of this vulnerability out for anyone to see.

  So I sit.

  I sit and I look out the window, my mind spinning, body aching, tears falling, all while I gently pull out the knots on my poor abused ribbons.

  The gold satiny strands that grow from the sides of my spine feel broken. They ache and sting from where Captain Fane tied them in brutal tangles. Every touch makes them flinch and has me grinding my teeth.

  It takes me hours of sweating and shaking in grimacing pain, but I manage to get the knots undone.

  “Finally,” I mutter as I set the last one down.

  I roll my shoulders back, the skin along the length of my spine twinging where each ribbon is attached, twelve on each side, from between my shoulder blades to just above the curve of my bottom.

  I spread all twenty-four strands out as much as I can in this cramped space, smoothing them with a soft touch, hoping it will help ease the hurt running through them.

  They look wrinkled and limp where they lie on the carriage floor and bench. Even their golden color is slightly muted from their usual luster, like tarnished gold in need of polishing.

  I let out a shaky sigh, my fingers sore from how long it’s taken me to tug out every knot. My ribbons have never hurt so badly before. I’m so used to hiding them, to keeping them a secret, that I’ve never used them like I did on that pirate ship, and it’s obvious.

  While I let my ribbons rest, I use the last shards of the gray daylight to check over the rest of my body. My shoulder and head hurt from my carriage toppling over and from being dragged out of it when the Red Raids captured me.

  I also have a small split on my bottom lip, but I barely notice it. The sharper pains come from my cheek where Captain Fane struck me, and my side where he kicked me in the ribs. I don’t think anything is broken, but each movement has me sucking in a breath through clenched teeth.

  A gnawing in my stomach reminds me that it’s hollow and angry, while my mouth is dry with thirst. But my most demanding feeling is how incredibly depleted I am.

  Exhaustion is a chain locked around my ankles, cuffed over my wrists, draped around my shoulders. My strength and energy are gone, like someone pulled a plug from my back and let it all drain out.

  Bright side? At least I’m alive. At least I got away from the Red Raids. I won’t be subjected to whatever Quarter wanted to do with me once he discovered his captain was missing. Quarter isn’t the kind of man you want for a captor.

  Although my new escorts are far from ideal, at least I’m heading toward Midas, even if I don’t know what will happen once we get there.

  Glancing out the carriage window, I watch dark hooves mottle the snow, their riders sitting proud on their saddles as they march on.

  I have to be strong now.

  I’m the captive of Fourth’s army, and there will be no room for fragility. I don’t know if the bones in my body are as gold as the rest of me, but for my sake, I hope they are. I hope my spine is gilded, because I’m going to need a strong backbone if I want to survive.

  Closing my eyes, I reach up and press my fingertips against my lids, trying to rub away the sting. Though as tired as I am, I don’t sleep. I don’t relax. I can’t. Not with the enemy marching outside and those terrible memories hovering over my head.

  Was it really just yesterday morning that Sail was alive? That Digby was barking out gruff orders to his men? It seems like weeks, months, years ago.