Treasurekeeper

by Ripley Harper

Fear ripples down my spine, my entire body now prickling with adrenaline. I push it down. There is a way out of this. I will only have to be brave for a little while longer.

  I can do this.

  But my mouth is so dry that I have to swallow a few times before I can get the words out. “I want you to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “I want you to... You know.” I look up at him, my heart racing in my chest. “Just do it. Do it now.”

  Zig takes a step backward. “What exactly are you talking about?”

  I don’t answer him immediately. My blood is rushing through my veins, my cheeks are hot, my fingers prickling, my stomach hollow. Am I being crazy? Is this really what I want?

  Two choices.

  A slow lingering death. Face like a skull. Hands like dried-up bunches of bones. Yellow teeth in a bleeding mouth. Screams that turn to moans when you get too weak to cry. Agony.

  Or I become a dragon. A monster with glowing reptilian eyes and scales that shine like jewels. An enormous dragon, bigger than anyone has ever seen, with wings that never seem to end and a body like a gargantuan lizard. A dragon that will enslave anyone who looks at it and probably devour anyone it ever allowed close.

  Two choices.

  Until now.

  Now, there’s a third one.

  I swallow my fear. Make my choice.

  “I want you to do it now.” My voice sounds clear if a bit shaky. “I want you to go get your sword of horn and skin and bone, and then I want you to come back here and drive it through my heart.”

  “What?” Zig looks so shocked that I almost give up on my plan.

  But there’s no turning back now. I get up, determined to see this through.

  “Stay where you are!” He staggers backward, away from me, as if I’ve suddenly changed into a poisonous snake.

  “Please Zig. You’re the only one who can do it.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “No!” I feel my entire body flushing hotly with fear and nervousness and a kind of sick desperation. “Don’t you see? I’ve got more than two choices.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a way out! A third way. A way that means I won’t have to choose between a death like my mother’s or turning into a monster. I’ve got another choice.”

  He makes that sign with his thumb again, takes another step back. “This is a trick!”

  “It’s not a trick. I promise you. We can stop it. Tonight. This can all end now.”

  “Why are you saying this?” Zig looks so bewildered that I reach out a pleading hand to him, then clasp my fingers together in a gesture of prayer as he flinches away.

  “Please. I’ll do whatever you want. But it has to be tonight. I don’t know if I’ll have the courage for this tomorrow.”

  “This is not courage. It is the most craven cowardice!”

  “Maybe. But Paula and Jacob will still get better. And I won’t hurt anyone else ever again.”

  “Why are you doing this?” He makes his strange sign over and over, all the while staring at me as if he’s seeing a ghost. “I don’t understand. Why are you saying this?”

  “What’s not to understand?” The thickness of my voice makes me realize I must be silently crying again.

  “You want to die?”

  I roughly wipe the tears from my cheeks. “I just want it to stop. I want another choice.”

  “This is not a choice.” He takes another step back, crosses his arms over his chest and hardens his jaw. It’s clear that he’s getting over his initial shock.

  I don’t have much time and I have no pride left.

  “Please.” I fall on my knees in front of him. “Help me, Zig. I beg you. You’re the only one who can.”

  His body goes perfectly still. “You think that this is what I am?” he asks, his tattooed face now completely unreadable. “Someone who would murder a crying, defenseless girl in teddy bear pajamas?”

  “I’m not a girl, Zig. I’m a monster. You’re the one who taught me that when everyone else was lying to me.” I look down at the top I’m wearing. “And it’s not a teddy bear. Nom Nom is a koala and he’s really evil—” My voice breaks on the last word, but I’m way past caring.

  I have to make him see.

  And maybe he does, because after I wipe the tears from my eyes, I look up to find him gone.

  Chapter 4

  And so, even today, of all those made Outcast, the Pendragons remain both the most hated and the most feared. Hated, because their despicable crime broke every rule, not only of our Order, but also of common decency and basic morality, and feared because this terrible transgression gave them powers of Seduction and Enthrallment so great that, as of yet, none could truly stand against them.

  From A Brief History of The Order of Keepers (1961), by Harry Charles Shawcross.

  I spend the next hour in an agony of anticipation, not sure if I’m more afraid of Zig returning or not returning. When I finally hear a soft knock on the door, my whole body is shaking and my heart is pounding in my chest.

  But the knock should have been a clue. It isn’t Zig.

  It’s Jonathan Pendragon, looking disheveled and sleepy and ridiculously handsome in sweats and a t-shirt. “Hi,” he says, smiling lazily. “Can I come in?”

  “This isn’t the best time,” I tell him nervously. “I’m waiting—”

  “Zig sent me.”

  “What?”

  “He wanted me to come and talk to you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He nods, closing the door behind him as he walks into the room. “Can I sit down?” He sinks into an armchair before I can answer.

  “Are you…” I clear my throat. Push the fear down. “Are you going to help him?”

  “Help who? With what?”

  “Help Zig. With—” I can’t bring myself to say it. “You know.”

  He shrugs. “All I know is that he woke me up five minutes ago and told me to come here straight away.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “He said he thought you could do with a friend.”

  “What?”

  “I know. I also thought it was pretty weird.” He flashes his trademark, insanely charming smile at me before playfully widening his eyes. “But he’s not the kind of guy you say no to.”

  “Do you… Do you know if he’s coming back?”

  “He’s standing outside your door right now.”

  I fly to the door, fling it open. Zig is in his usual position, leaning against the opposite wall, his pose seemingly relaxed even as he thrums with menace.

  “So are you going to do it?” I whisper, closing the door behind me so Jonathan won’t hear us.

  “No. I thought I made that perfectly clear.”

  “But you have to.”

  “I don’t have to do anything you say.”

  “Please Zig.” I feel my eyes starting to leak again.

  He makes a harsh, frustrated sound as he closes the gap between us. Then he grabs my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “Pull yourself together Sarkany. This is beneath you.”

  I’m so surprised that I can only gape at him. Zig hates touching me, and in all the time I’ve known him, I don’t think he’s ever called me anything except ‘monster’.

  “You’ve had a shock,” he grates out between clenched teeth. “Deal with it. Life is messy and hard and none of us are getting out of this shitshow without a lot of pain. But that doesn’t mean you can just give up.” In one smooth movement he turns me around, opens the door, and pushes me back into the room. “Talk to Pendragon. He’s lived a human life too. You might find you have a lot in common.”

  “What was that all about?” Jonathan asks as the door slams closed.

  I realize that my mouth is hanging wide open. “I have no idea.” I walk to the foot of the bed, sit down heavily. “But if I didn’t know any better, I’d have said Zig just gave me a get-a-grip speech.”

  “Yeah?”
He smiles lazily.

  “He sounded almost normal. He even cussed.”

  His smile widens. “Jesus. What did you do to the guy?”

  “Nothing.” I don’t trust Jonathan enough to confide in him. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Luckily, he doesn’t push it. “So is there anything you wanted to talk about?”

  “Talk?” I ask dumbly.

  “Yeah. Talk. It might do you good, seeing that we’re such old friends and all.”

  I reluctantly return his wry little half-smile. Jonathan and I have never been friends.

  “No. I don’t want to talk.”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  I shrug.

  “In that case I’ll stay for a while.” He leans closer and lowers his voice to a whisper. “If I leave now, Zig might get mad, and to be honest that guy scares the crap out of me.”

  We share another smile—a real one this time—and despite myself I feel my knees weakening.

  Oh boy.

  Now, all the Pendragons are excessively gifted in bloodmagic, but while Jack Pendragon’s strength lies in the deep bloodmagic skill of Enthrallment, his son’s natural gift is for the other deep skill, Seduction. It’s astonishing: if you walked past Jonathan on the street, you’d see nothing but an athletically built, conventionally handsome guy no different from a thousand other good-looking guys in a thousand other towns, but the moment he focuses his attention on you, his bloodmagic mimics the feeling of falling in love so closely that his handsome face suddenly becomes stunning, his green eyes mesmerizing, his touch irresistible.

  This is not an unpleasant feeling, to tell the truth, and there have been times when I’ve secretly been thrilled by the effect of his bloodmagic on my body. But tonight I just don’t have the heart for it.

  “Jonathan? Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you turn off all that—” I make a vague motion toward his smile, his eyes, his body, “—at least for a little while?”

  A slight frown. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” When his face remains completely blank, I sigh. “Your bloodmagic. Dial it down. I’m having a tough night and I really can’t deal with that too, on top of everything.”

  “Really?” He sits back in his seat, clearly intrigued. “I thought you wanted it. That it was the reason you sent for me.”

  “You thought I sent Zig?” I raise my eyebrows all the way to my hairline. “To bring you to me for… what? A bit of recreational Seduction?”

  He doesn’t even blink. “It’s the middle of the night, Jess. And you sure as hell won’t be the first girl to ask.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  He lifts a shoulder. “Seduction can be like a drug. Most people really like the feeling; it takes away pain and it makes you forget about your problems.” Another dazzling smile. “For a while at least.”

  Despite the permanent numbness around my heart, his smile makes my toes curl. “Jonathan. I’m serious. Turn it off.”

  “You sure?”

  His glittering green eyes scorching into mine. My breath suddenly faster, my stomach tighter. His athletic body lazy and gorgeous. The air between us simmering with electricity.

  “Please.”

  He nods. “Okay.”

  And just like that, in the space of a heartbeat, he’s just another mainstream attractive guy and the air around me is normal again, and heavy with sadness.

  “That better?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jess. Come on. I can literally see the light leaving your eyes.” He gives me a look I can’t quite read. “I don’t mind, you know. If you need to forget about things for a while, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”

  I welcome the tiny little spark of anger that flares up inside me. “You don’t have to pimp yourself out to me, okay? And you don’t have to feel sorry for me either. I’m fine.”

  “No,” he disagrees. “You’re not fine. You’re obviously right in the middle of a serious depressive episode. Don’t feel bad about it; trueborn daughters often become depressed. In the past suicide was their most common cause of death—it’s one of the main reasons they have keepers.”

  “Lucky us.”

  “It’s not an easy life. But it has its consolations.”

  “Like being seduced by pretty boys who feel sorry for you?”

  He grins. “Now you’re just making it sound cheap.”

  I roll my eyes a little but I don’t say anything. I just don’t have the energy for an argument.

  “But since you’re not in the mood, I might have something else to offer you.” He stands up and reaches out a hand to me.

  I don’t take it. “Look. I don’t know what Zig was thinking, bringing you here, but I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”

  “I’m not going to seduce you, okay? I got the message loud and clear, and to be straight with you, I’m kind of tired too. It’s almost three in the morning, in case you haven’t noticed.” This time there’s no bloodmagic in his smile, but it’s still a pretty good one, perhaps because it seems sincere, for once. “Come on. I want to show you something. I promise it’ll be worth it.”

  I take his hand and let him pull me out of the room, mainly because right now I’ll do anything to distract myself from my own thoughts. When we open the door, Zig is waiting, his body language unmistakably threatening.

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Jonathan says.

  Zig doesn’t move. “She’s had enough surprises.”

  “She’ll like this one.” Jonathan raises his eyebrows slightly. “As far as I know, her keepers have never allowed her to go any further than the gardens.”

  Zig narrows his eyes, then nods briefly.

  I leave the house not knowing where I’m going and not caring.

  They lead me out of the enormous mansion, through the formal gardens and into the woods. It’s the darkest time of night and I find myself shivering in the light sweater I hastily pulled on before we left. We’re following a narrow footpath barely visible in the dim light of the crescent moon, deeper and deeper into nowhere. In the still of the night, everything around us seems to be teeming with life: there are birds singing, tiny, unseen creatures scuttling, frogs croaking, owls hooting, crickets chirping. And then, a moment of almost complete silence as we step through the trees and into a clearing.

  “Oh!” I hear myself gasp, the sight in front of me so impossible that my legs buckle with the shock of it. I sink to my knees. Stare in awed silence.

  Water. Everywhere.

  Tons and tons of it. More water than I’ve ever seen. All of it fresh and pure and summoning me with a call so strong that every cell in my body is suddenly aching with a delicious kind of hunger I’ve never known before.

  “What…?”

  “It’s our lake,” Jonathan says, obviously pleased by my reaction. “The reason my family settled here in the first place.”

  “But…” I try to think, but my brain feels scrambled, my body shaking with need. “The lake is so polluted it’s become a health hazard. Pendragon Enterprises had to fence it in for safety reasons.”

  He gives me a sly smile. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

  I look at the still lake in front of me. The tiny sliver of a moon shining above us has left only the thinnest silver path on its inky surface—the rest is a boundless black deep. Hidden and silent and endless.

  “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

  “Want to go for a swim?”

  “Really?” The thought sends my heart racing.

  “Really.” He points to a slight overhang a few yards from us. “You can dive in there. The water is far deeper than it looks.”

  I get up and take a few shaky steps towards the lake. But then I hesitate. I’ve been exposed to too much of Jonathan’s bloodmagic to be completely unselfconscious in front of him. “I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”

&n
bsp; “A better man would’ve told you to bring one, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.” Jonathan’s smile becomes less mocking, almost wistful. “But the first time you swim in a lake, you should be naked anyway.”

  When he sees the expression on my face, he laughs. “Will it help if I turn my back?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  He turns around with a slight sigh.

  “You too,” I tell Zig, who is staring at me impassively, grinding his jaw.

  He doesn’t move.

  “Please Zig.”

  He makes an impatient sound, but he turns his head to the side, barely.

  And then I’m wriggling out of my clothes and running to the water, my yearning so overwhelmingly intense that I cry out in pleasure as I dive into the night and finally feel myself sinking down

  down

  down

  *

  The water is a cool haze of darkness and light and weight and depth and pleasure and belonging.

  I cannot get enough of it.

  *

  I have been in deep waters, before. Many times.

  I have sunk into secret lakes in faraway countries and made it my home for centuries. I have danced in rivers unseen by human eyes, joyful and free and divinely lonely. I have dwelled in ancient, long-forgotten seas in that slow dreaming dawn before the vast wildernesses and unchartered seas of this world were tamed by human hands.

  I was never made to live in the dead cities of humans, suffocated by their lifeless metals and toxic plastics and soulless concrete. I am a creature of the water: of the marsh, of the swamp, of the river, of the lake.

  Of the ocean.

  Here be dragons, they said, when they ventured too close to my secret home, the briny deep where humans dared not linger.

  Here be dragons!

  *

  When my sisters join me, I welcome them gladly, my body loosening and stretching into its full, glorious, watery size. I have pined for their company these past weeks, lost in the dull gray pain of my human sadness and confusion.

  They delight in my pleasure, weeping with relief, and their tears give back to me, in a gorgeous kaleidoscope of jeweled tones, all the colors I have lost. Ruby and amber and emerald and sapphire and turquoise and jade.

  Oh! The splendor of it!

  Glittering and glorious and unbearably precious, their beauty pierces right into the deepest part of my most secret heart. So many colors, all so bright and so beautiful. Colors of joy and warmth and happiness and belonging.