Dragon’s Empire – 5. Society of Shadows. Natalie Yacobson

offended. I remembered well that most of our troubles came from my former companions, such as Deborah. When she tried to take revenge, Vincent had a hard time, and now he feared a repeat of the same situation.

      Vincent paced from corner to corner, contemplating what to do if this time the nails of the headless vigilante began to scratch at the window of the house in Lara. Rose fidgeted nervously with a shiny object, which I recognized without difficulty as Lady Selina’s locket. The necklace had vanished without a trace.

      «It broke off when Vincent tried to take it away,» Rose explained.

      «Haven’t you enough jewelry?» I asked without reproach or sarcasm. I really wanted to offer her something that would make her realize that the habit of stealing could be left to poor people like Vincent. I took the candelabrum, blew on the candles to make them flare, and beckoned her to follow me.

      «Come along. I want to show you something.»

      Rose was skeptical, but in the end, curiosity overcame fear. I wouldn’t lure her into a trap in my own castle, or take her away from the only witness to tell her off. If I had to threaten or swear, I didn’t hesitate to do it in front of Vincent.

      I led her up the spiral staircase to the basement floor, but not to where my lab was located, but even lower, to the bowels of the earth. Beyond the curving spiral staircase there was a pair of doors with bas-reliefs. There were doors to the unknown. Just as I felt now, Rose, when Baron Raoul led me into his dungeons, to the terrible treasure hidden in them. The doors in front of which Rose stood were not chained, but behind them in an underground well slumbered a serpent – the guardian of his master’s savings.

      «Come in! Do not be shy!» I grasped Rose’s arm with my free hand and pulled her through the doors, past the well, into the arched doorway, beyond which a dazzling glow pervaded the darkness. Here, in the dungeon, I kept not only the treasures I had inherited with the castle, but also what I had managed to gather or accumulate myself during my adventures. Besides a pile of gold coins and uncut, large gems, there was everything to attract any woman. But I wanted no one, noble ladies, young ladies, actresses, courtesans. All the women I met on my way were sooner or later victims, so why give them jewels when sooner or later they would end up at the bottom of the well anyway.

      «And this is all yours?» Rose gazed admiringly at the chest with its lid folded back, where various necklaces gleamed, but hesitated to touch any of them.

      «No. It’s not mine. It’s all yours,» I corrected her. «You can take anything that interests you.»

      In one day Rose could not have carried one hundredth of this treasure, but even if I had not been so rich I would have offered her everything I owned. To me, the treasury was just a dead sheen of bars of gold and scatterings of gems, everything that reminded me of the past. There is a belief that dragons hoard treasure only to keep the memory of a bygone era alive in a changing, human-populated world. After all, precious ores are something that has existed on earth since the primitive world. The antiquity of gemstones determines their value to the dragon. Looking at the accumulation of opals and diamonds, I recalled my father’s treasury, certainly less rich, but no less brilliant.

      I never spent long hours in my treasury, nor did I spend hours reminiscing or sleeping on piles of rubies. I had only to look at the walls of amber and turquoise, at the large carbuncles and the chests of bracelets and necklaces and pearl beads, trinkets that I had despaired of using, for only a girl would wear them.

      I would have liked to see how all these earrings and pendants and clips and rings would have looked on Rose, and how the heavy necklace of diamonds she was considering would have snowballed around her neck and shoulders and covered most of her corset. All these things, which were priceless to people, I would have given her as mere toys, but apparently in tribute to old habits and the modesty Odile was trying to instill in her, Rose chose one simple sapphire necklace.

      «It turns out we’re not as poor as I thought we were,» she said with delight as she watched her find shimmer in the light from the candelabrum. «The mother said that if I stayed with you I would either starve or die a violent death. I guess she didn’t know you were rich.»

      «I never told her that,» I agreed.

      «Besides, I only came to her to ask for the locket and she must have thought we were living a modest life,» she whispered and shook her head when I suggested her to try on the tiaras.

      «I don’t feel comfortable picking up so much at once, I’d rather come back here again,» she suggested. «Just to make sure it’s not all a dream.»

      She glanced again at the chests with emeralds and diamonds, at the collection of crowns, any of which would have made a mortal monarch jealous, and at the gold coins that didn’t fit in the chest and were piled unnecessarily in the corner by the door. I touched the twisted malachite pillar that supported the ceiling and, like the walls, was decorated with stones.

      «What is all this worth compared to the happiness of seeing a living creature near you that can love you?» I asked, as if nature itself dictated that a dragon live alone near a pile of treasures, cold and useless. «In the company of it all I felt lonely, you came along, and I realized that someone needed me. So, it’s all rightfully yours. Consider it a reward for bringing back to one ruined heart the desire for life, for explaining to a fallen angel that he is still capable of flying. Not only to fly, but to rejoice in flying. Remember, no matter what burning city you find yourself in, to carry you from there, my wings will always sustain the two of us.»

      «Yes, maybe,» Rose shook my hand, as if she wanted to seal some kind of oath. «But I don’t have wings, so I can only offer you my heart.»

      «But that’s more than I could ever hope for,» I laughed, remembering that the first time I’d seen her I’d thought I was the cursed, evil creature, the one who couldn’t expect anyone to treat him kindly and had to ruin everyone. Then I decided to hide and let Rose choose a better life than with me, but fate decided otherwise.

      Rose decided to take a couple of other things with her after all, a crown with pearl pendants and a wreath of diamonds.

      «And I know that the prince would be happy to have even a thousandth part of what you are so contemptuous of,» she remarked playfully, her skirts rustling happily down the stairs.

      «It is a dream of usurer,» I said, and thought to myself that I had made a very good point. Rothbart was accustomed to sue everyone and everything as if they owed him money.

      «It is a dream of usurer?» Rose said. «I’d rather call him a buyer-up of human souls, like the ones they write about in fairy tales. Look, all those shadow servants act as if they’d sold themselves to him for nothing more than a promise.»

      «Maybe,» I couldn’t help but agree that it looked that way from the outside.

      «Vincent and I should be glad that you haven’t picked up your mentor’s habits.» Rose overtook me on the stairs and was the first to enter the hall. The light from the candelabrum I held high above her head was enough to keep her from stumbling down the stairs.

      «So we’re going to find a ravine to take the head of your former sweetheart to,» she asked in the tone of a spoiled child.

      «Rose, I’ve only talked to that woman two or three times in my life, and believe me, those conversations have left a very unpleasant impression on me. How could you possibly know anything about my plans?»

      «And this woman, or rather this fairy, she went mad after you drove her away. Didn’t she?»

      «I think she was insane before she met me, saying something about some secret, about a crown left in a deserted city. Now that crown is mine, but happiness is not in the crown.»

      «Pray that your tutor understands that,»