“C’mon. I’ll show you around the rest of the hoard. It’s straightforward and less flashy than Grandfather’s cavern beneath Enimura, but it has everything I need.”
After a dreamy sigh and a final look at the mirrors, she rose to her feet. “And a teleportation chamber to anywhere you could want to travel.”
He led her from the translocation chamber and into the passage where the branching corridors led to different areas of the hoard. “That too. It shaves days, or even weeks off my travel time. In a step, I can cross the world to paradises in different lands, and from there, I fly under my own power to the nearest civilization. I’ve seen the savannahs of Nairubia and the rolling valleys of Utopia in the same day, although they are three thousand miles apart.”
“It must be nice to never need a boat.”
“Not always, but there are times when I enjoy a leisurely voyage. I’ve taken a pleasure cruise or two over the years for the sake of getting out of the hoard,” he confessed.
A wistful smile flitted upon her face. “Maybe one day, if we all come out of this alive, I’ll go on a pleasure cruise too.”
“You will. I promise that. I’ll buy the ticket myself, luxury fare to Utopia.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
Veering left toward one of the more extravagant rooms, he led her into a spacious cavern with bits of quartz and glittering stone sparkling in the walls. Every so often, he came and freshened up all three of his hoards, beating out mattresses and laundering sheets, because it pleased him to have his choice of clean homes regardless of which kingdom he resided in.
“This is one of the larger bed chambers.”
“I don’t need this much space.”
“It’s also closest to the hot spring,” he added.
Her eyes lit up then, sparkling with interest. “Hot spring?”
He couldn’t help the big smirk that came to his face, even when she swatted his chest with the back of her hand. “Follow me.”
She followed him into the next chamber, practically stepping on his heels.
Tables fashioned from lightning struck silverwood held beautiful pieces of work carved from gold-veined marble. Both of his parents had been artists, talented in different spheres of study. His father loved clockwork and woodwork, but magic and stonecraft had been his mother’s great loves.
The kitchen lay to their right, although it was outdated by current standards, lacking a modern oven. A gentle downward slope carried them through a wide arch leading to a vast space, large enough for even a dragon to inhabit. A mineral smell hung in the warm air, and an open cenote in the cavern ceiling provided the last vestiges of evening sun. Soon, stars and moonlight would bathe the room in shades of silver.
Rosalia crouched beside the lip of the pool and ran her fingers through the water. Moss and plant life grew around the edge, and a few warm water lilies floated on the surface. Those hadn’t been present during his last visit.
“It’s magical here. Every inch is magical.”
“The hoard or the bath?”
“Both.” She dragged her fingers over the surface and exhaled a contented sigh, just a tiny breath.
“You’re welcome to visit the spring whenever you want or any other area of the cavern for that matter. This was the home of my parents. I grew up here, and as it is my hoard now, I invite you to make yourself at home.”
“I think I will. In the morning, not now. I’ll never judge the sailors at the Pearl again. If I had to do so much work every day for weeks at a time, I’d stay perpetually drunk too once I was on land.” A furrow drew her brows. “Not that I’ll ever see that again.” The pain returned to her eyes, raw and open grief that implored him to step forward and drag her into his arms. She came against him quietly and pressed her cheek above his heart. Silence. He kissed her brow tenderly, relieved when she burrowed closer.
“Shall I lead you back to your room?” Xavier asked after a while.
After scrubbing her face with one hand, she leaned back. “I can find the way, I think. But what will I wear?”
“There should be something appropriate in my mother’s wardrobe. You aren’t much different from her in size. Come morning, we’ll look. Afterward, we’ll have our meeting with Queen Morwen, so it would be for the best if you get some rest. She’ll want us bright and early.”
“All right.” She moved to the doorway then paused. “Xavier?”
“Yes?”
“Is she scary?”
“Only when she’s given just cause to be.”
Rosalia nodded. “All right.”
After she disappeared into her room and drew the heavy door shut behind her, Xavier retired to the study and pulled out a sheaf of parchment.
There were letters to write, and far too many things to do for him to rest just yet.
2
The Golden Rule
The elven royal palace was something out of a dream, a construction of pink and ivory marble with proud pillars decorated by spiraling vines. No less than a hundred thumbnail-sized buds were in different stages of blossoming into pastel flowers.
Rosalia walked alongside Xavier past a dozen guards standing watch at the palace gates, crossed an enormous courtyard filled with flowering bushes and trees showering the grounds with fragrant petals, and ascended at least three dozen stairs before they reached the palace doors.
Queen Morwen awaited them in the grand hall, and her beauty exceeded Rosalia’s expectations. She was grace personified, moving as if her every step had been choreographed and rehearsed beforehand, and when she approached, palpable waves of magic swam out from her like the evening tide. Instead of a silk gown, she wore functional attire—a leather cuirass, matching bracers, and dark leggings reinforced with leather guards.
Rosalia didn’t dare to breathe. How did one address royalty? Better yet, how did one speak to a queen with enough power in her pinky finger to obliterate her with a touch?
“Greetings and welcome to Arlellia. Greendale Palace in your native language.” Before Rosalia could force her uncooperative tongue to work, the queen stepped forward, took her by both hands, and kissed her cheeks. “You are the spitting image of your mother. How proud she would be of you now.”
“I… I can’t believe you truly knew her.”
Queen Morwen’s gray-green eyes crinkled with mirth and kindness, set within an oval face framed by a radiant spill of strawberry blonde hair. “I did. She was not merely my right-hand woman, but also my dearest friend, and not a day goes by I don’t think of Dahlia and all she did for this kingdom. But please come in, my dear. I’m told you’ve had a very trying week.”
“Thank you for having us as your guests this morning, my queen. I believe Rosalia is a little star-struck at the moment.”
Now wasn’t the time to freeze up. Xavier only grinned at her though. The ass, taking amusement from her discomfort and awkwardness. She swallowed down the hard lump in her throat and managed to say, “Th-thank you.”
“I’m honored to have you. Zaviriel has said much about you since his initial arrival, and I am glad to see he returned with you intact.”
“Thank you for sending him with Captain Elurin.”
Queen Morwen only smiled and patted her arm before taking it, linking them together. “Come. We have much to discuss, the three of us.”
The queen led them through an entrance hall spanning as much space as the central market square. They entered another chamber where sculptures of noble elves flanked both sides of the hall, marble statues below a fresco spanning the entire ceiling, the detailed art depicting an elven village beside a sunlit hill covered in flowers.
“This is one of my favorite rooms.” Her voice and touch soothed the butterflies in Rosalia’s stomach. “But it’s a little...pretentious for a conversation between friends.”
Their path continued into another corridor and beyond a pair of ivory double doors that let into a garden paved with slate gray tiles accented
by colorful blue and green jewels. Wings had been etched into the stone surface to make each gem resemble a fairy.
A path extended from the veranda to a gazebo. There were cushioned benches surrounding a little round table bearing a covered platter. She removed it to show three tall glasses of pale purple liquid and a tray of thinly sliced meat, cheeses, and cookies with delicate white icing. The queen stretched her legs along a bench and propped her elbow against the arm.
Xavier took another bench, and Rosalia settled on a third. She plucked a cookie from the pile then sipped from her glass. The cool scent of lavender wafted off the lemonade, and the first cookie melted in her mouth like sweet butter with a crisp vanilla shell.
“Menathara makes these little delights each day, and there aren’t enough of us to eat them.” Her smile widened. “And if I know Zaviriel, he brought you without feeding you.”
“He bought me a smoked fish on a stick from a stall along the way,” Rosalia grumbled. Xavier had rushed her out of the hoard and into the market because she’d overslept and had been insensible an hour past the time he wanted her to awaken. There had barely been enough time to bathe.
Rosalia gobbled down three more cookies, reached for her glass, and blinked when the volume appeared to be no less than it was when they arrived. She glanced around for signs of an invisible servant.
“Now, shall we begin to discuss this artifact?” the queen asked.
Rosalia moistened her lips. “May I ask a question first?”
“Of course.”
“Why have you given us such a warm welcome? It’s appreciated, but the elves have nothing to gain from accepting us. We’re thieves. Burglars. We’ll serve no purpose but to rob your people. This second chance almost feels too good to be true.”
Queen Morwen sipped from her glass. “The Golden Rule of Balance,” she replied. “Certain misfortunes must exist for the world to remain in harmony. Burglary is as old as religion, prostitution, and murder. One cannot abolish it from the world, but you can control it. When our ancestors founded the three guilds, they understood the necessity of power and darkness to balance the law, temples, and pleasure gardens.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Thank me by recovering this thing you took.” Rosalia’s shoulders sagged, but the queen held up a hand and continued in a placid tone, voice soothing as misty summer rain. “We don’t blame you. You did as you were commissioned to do within the legal scope of your guild. You were abused. Given what has happened, I believe it is correct to assume the king, or someone high in command in his court, had something to do with these events. Only a king could order the execution of an entire guild. No one in his court would dare to do it without his approval.”
“They knew the location of every hideout, Your Majesty, save one. A gang of young thieves who dwelled in the sewers managed to avoid detection.”
“Then his spymaster failed to perform a thorough job. I can only assume one or more of your people was captured and tortured until they revealed everything your enemies required.” She traced her finger over the rim of her glass. “This wasn’t done on a whim. There were weeks, if not months of planning.”
“Agreed,” Xavier said. “Through the luck of the gods, they haven’t realized I’m involved. No one but her master knew why I sought her after the burglary.”
Rosalia nodded. “I never mentioned you that night to anyone. Only that there was a dragon treasure keeper, and I never said which merchant I visited. It’s standard thief practice to keep your best marks to yourself.”
Morwen pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Ilyria will stand behind you. We have as much to lose as anyone else if he manages to activate that blasted thing.”
“Would it truly open a gateway to Gehenna?”
“Darling,” Queen Morwen said, “the tales of the mirror aren’t empty myths or tall tales. If it isn’t found, this fool will plunge the whole gulf into chaos and mystery. If not the entire realm. It was for that reason that I sent your mother to Saudonia to acquire it in the first place.”
With hours to burn until their audience in Nemuria’s Undercastle, Xavier could think of no better way to spend the time than taking Rosalia on a tour of the Pleasure Gardens. For as much as Saudonia claimed to loathe the elves and all things related to them, Valanya’s entertainment hub had inspired the creation of the Twilight Gardens.
At any hour of the day, performers could be found on the streets, whether it was an elf practicing elementary parlor tricks on a street corner, or a musician playing on one of the many terraces.
“Compared to this place, the Twilight Gardens have as much class as a dwarf telling fart jokes while playing the banjo,” she muttered.
Xavier laughed. “I actually saw that once a couple years ago.”
Rosalia wrinkled her nose. “See?”
They were skimming the edge of the Pleasure Gardens and Merchant Avenue now. Soon, he’d bring Rosalia to one of the many tailors on Silk Row to outfit her with a replacement wardrobe worthy of the treasures she’d lost in the fire. Nothing could replace her dearest friend, but he’d at least return some of the material items she’d lost.
Rosalia trailed beside him, lost in thought, or perhaps overwhelmed by the experience of visiting a foreign kingdom for the first time. She wore his mother’s sundress well, the yellow and deep cocoa brown pattern of sunflowers stunning against her skin, her shoulders bared by the low ruffled sleeves. When the wind blew, it kicked the calf-length skirts up around her thighs and revealed a pair of perfect legs. He struggled not to stare. Thank the gods he hadn’t loaned her the brown one with the hip-high split, otherwise he’d have never uttered a coherent word in her presence.
“A trinket for your pretty wife, my lord?” a corner merchant called to them in Elvish.
“She isn’t...” The words died on his tongue. He glanced at Rosalia. Her eyes were on him and filled with questioning. “Would you like a trinket for your hair?” Xavier asked in Saudonian.
“A what?”
Xavier took her hand in his and guided her to a pop-up stall with racks of silver circlets and gilded bangles, none of them fashioned from true precious metal. Solarite. “These. Would you like one?”
The merchant spun one of the rotating racks to display a dozen, gem-studded creations. Xavier chose a circlet then tucked the ornament amidst Rosalia’s hair, nudging it into place until the three cobalt jewels were centered against her forehead. The merchant passed her a small handheld mirror afterward.
“How much for it,” Xavier asked while Rosalia admired her reflection.
“One lyra only for you, Master Bane.”
Xavier chuckled. “So I have been recognized.”
“There aren’t many in the city who wouldn’t recognize you, Master Bane. Please. With my compliments. Your wife is a beautiful one, a good reason to remain from the city for so long.”
Rosalia’s radiant smile stirred something in Xavier’s chest.
“She isn’t my wife,” he said with both reluctance and regret, only to add in a quieter voice, “but perhaps soon she will be.”
3
A Thousand Emerald Stars
Given a choice between a dozen different entertainment venues and places to eat, Rosalia chose a lovely bakery that specialized in decadent pastries, baked cheeses, and spiced desserts of all kinds. They’d been sitting there for an hour, sampling flights of elven wines during their dinner. The sky was lit in orange and gold above them, leeching into the approaching lilac of twilight.
“I can’t eat another bite,” Rosalia complained, pushing away the remnants of her plum pudding. It had been served with a delicious duck strudel, its crust the perfect combination of flaky and buttery. “I don’t think I can even move from this seat.”
Xavier chuckled. “Mind if I finish it then?”
“I’d ask how you have room for more, but...dragon.” She rubbed her rounded stomach and wondered if there was time to return to the hoard for a nap before the meeting with
Grandmaster Nemuria.
Spying Xavier’s watch chain, she pulled the timepiece from his vest pocket and snapped it open while he stared at her.
“You could have asked the time.”
“Or done this,” she said sweetly. “You like it when I take liberties with you.”
His eyes smoldered, reminding her for the first time of that night in his stateroom aboard the Destiny. Until now, she’d wondered if she had imagined the entire thing, if it had been wishful thinking, a product of her exhausted imagination, or whatever it was Captain Elurin had served them in his cabin.
Then he looked at her this way, eyes filled with unspoken promises, and she practically melted in her seat, feeling so hot she thought the chair beneath her would combust.
After the meeting with the Thieves Guild leader, she’d have to be the one to bring up their intimate evening and ask what the hell it meant.
A flash of green sparkled to her left. She jerked that way and stared, but nothing was there.
Xavier’s dark brows nudged together. “Is something wrong?”
“I thought... Nothing.” She leaned forward and claimed one last stewed prune from his plate to accompany the last sip of her pearl wine. It was full-bodied and lush, a taste of tropical fruits and melon that bubbled and tickled the roof of her mouth. He didn’t complain when she took a second. He just cracked a knowing grin.
Another sparkle shimmered at the edge of her vision. None of the other elves in the vicinity reacted. Neither did Xavier. He merely sipped his wine and reclined in his chair.
It happened again, three times, a fourth, seven more glowed to her direct left, and there were more above her. A sliver of sun remained, but with the loss of it, the sky was suddenly lit by one emerald explosion after the next, twinkling in and out.
“Xavier, either this wine is doing things to me, or there’s some kind of magical show happening right now and no one seems to care.”
“We’ve all seen it a thousand times before, Rosa. It’s a nightly event here.”
Fool's Gold: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 2) Page 2
