The Treasure Keeper

gold.

A ring for every finger, gold, gold, gold. Even a pair of anklets, opals that sparked green and blue and pink from their milky depths.

When it was done, she blew out the candle. She inched down between the chilly sheets and closed her eyes again, this time letting the metal slowly warm her entire being, her mind drifting with the songs of the stones, drowning Paris, drowning her, until at last she could sleep.

But the ghosts in the glass never ceased watching. They glided back and forth and back, drawn by the living radiance of the dragon who was their only voice in the Other world, their only eyes and hands and means of vengeance.

She slept with her back to them all night, as if she knew.

Chapter Three

Legends of the Others often preach of how we hoard and guard our trove. They paint us as snarling fiends crouched over chests of stolen jewels, coins of gold and copper and silver piled recklessly about, plundered from terrified innocents. They say we like to dwell in caves— freezing damp caves, can you believe it?—and ruthlessly devour any humans who dare to venture near.

Yes, I know. That part might be somewhat true.

None of them realize the whole truth, though. Of course, we do guard what's ours. But we don't need to steal gems and gold. Not usually. We're given the Gift of their music, all the harmonies and chants and descants that soar to the stars, far more dulcet than any human composition. And in return, we give them the Gift of our protection. Our veneration. There's no stealing. If we unearthed all the diamonds and rubies and amethysts and emeralds—all the rocks and ore and crystals and boulders that constantly clamor for our attention—there would be little left to shore up the mountains of the world, would there?

So we accept only the very finest of these things for ourselves, to adorn our bodies and our homes, to keep close to our hearts.

And if the humans occasionally happen to beat us to the finest . well, I suppose nature should have given them fangs and talons to defend it.

One certain way to tell a drakon from an Other is the manner in which they wear their jewelry.

No matter how many gemstones embellish them, humans merely bear their weight.

A dragon may wear a solitary ruby tear, and still we sparkle with its might.

No doubt you've noticed how good you feel when you touch certain minerals and stones, the hum of their voices thrilling up your spine, surrounding your senses. Diamonds, so hard and cold and glittering, are the ones most like us, I think. Perhaps that's why we use them most often in our baubles; why they comprise the majority of the ancient treasure guarded by our tribe. Some of our diamonds are as old as our history itself. They have names and stories. They have heartbeats.

Think back. Can you remember a time, ever in your life, when you did not wear even a single diamond pendant around your neck? The Alpha ensures that every drakon child receives at least this one small gift at birth, the first of many to come.

We were clever to have settled in a place that offers us so much earthly wealth. The silver mines of Darkfrith are vast and deep, and keep us all well adorned. And really, who deserves those metals more than we? Who appreciates the cut of a sapphire, the clarity of an emerald, better than the dragon for whom they sing?

Now imagine being without your lovely gems. Imagine having to endure the loss of warm gold and cooling silver, of fiery copper too. Imagine all you have is darkness, and iron around your wrists.

And the shards of a once-mighty diamond that sing and sing and sing in your head, pushing out all your better thoughts, keeping you dull and alive and only very distantly wishing you were dead.

The diamond was once named Draumr. And the dragon trapped in its ruined world was named Rhys Langford.

* * *

I wish I could tell you only joyful stories of our history. I wish I could assure you that the many Gifts Nature has blessed upon you will be your salvation against all comers. Yes, we are More than the beings surrounding us. We are Better, and what graces we exhibit today we have earned, I promise you. Our sinuous beauty. Our native intelligence. Our ability to steal the shadows for a hunt.

But we are not invincible. And to prove it, Nature took the very same stars and lava and sky that melded and made us, and from them forged the most exquisite and sinister stone ever to come to be:Draumr.

Nature is the veriest Bitch sometimes.

Once Draumr belonged to a dragon-princess of the Carpathians, many centuries past. To be clear, it belonged to her Zaharen family, and then was stolen, and then, at the cost of her life, she stole it back. Draumr sparkled like a drop of arctic blue sky, frigid cold and absolutely flawless, nearly too wonderful to behold. Its name means dreaming diamond, and here's what more you do not know about it. It was the sole stone carved from this Earth that had the power to enslave us. Yes, enslave us. Anyone who held it could command us. Any low, simple human scum.

You may well imagine what disasters befell us then.

Why was it never destroyed while the Zaharen drakon still possessed it, before it was ripped from our castle by human hands? There's no certain answer for us today. Perhaps our ancestors were more trusting than we, thinking no Other would dare to even attempt to take it. Perhaps they were overly confident, or overly foolish. I don't know. But it was taken, more than once, found again by us, and finally shattered into evil little pieces.

You'd think that would break its power, would you not?

You'd be wrong.

Even those tiny pieces, scattered and floating like thin blue needles through the warp and woof of the universe, have the power to harm us still.

Poor pretty Rhys. He found that out too well.

Chapter Four

The body of the creature was kept in the cellar. She was unhappy about that, because the cellar had been in full use before the thing had been brought here, and like any good cook, she regretted its loss. Unlike many other cellars, this one was pleasantly large and well designed, and tiled all the way around in limestone. A wine rack had been built along one wall, and on the opposite, convenient shelving for all the many cheeses and jellies and kitchen herbs she enjoyed. True, the darkest corner was constantly damp and had a patch of blackish mold, but she'd devoted two barrels of mushrooms growing in sand to it and they'd been doing very well, in fact. Everything had to be removed to the upper level once the creature came, and now the mushrooms had shriveled, and cheeses were cracking, and the herbs were beginning to taste more like grease than rosemary and fennel and dill.

But at least she didn't have to go down there any longer. She'd seen the body once, and that was enough.

It was kept in manacles that were oddly glinting, as if they'd been sprinkled with tiny blue stars. There was a blanket tossed over most of it, hiding the face, but just one glimpse of those gold-clawed, twisted hands frozen in the air had given her a nervous stomach for a week.

She let the others manage it. She had other matters to attend to.

_***

He had been born into a world of glorious secrets: in a bedchamber of ivory and gilt, in a mansion of glass