The Treasure Keeper - Шэна Эйби

The Treasure Keeperby Shana Abe

Prologue

 Something Dark is coiled around your heart. Something scaled and glistening, and ferociously beautiful. It has been with you all your days and nights, all your years, in all your thoughts, shaping every single movement: your hands, your lips, your respiration. It lives because you live. It lives because magic is real.

It gives you grace when Others are clumsy. It gives you strength when Others crumble apart. It gives you animal splendor, and cunning, and the means to walk the earth on two legs in open disguise. You are secret smoke and claws, a cocked ear to the music of metal and stone, fangs and luminant eyes, wings for flight. You are the zenith of creatures; you are the hunter and the reaper, and all the Otherswhether they witness your true face or notinstinctively glance away when you pass.

Their skin crawls; they don't know why. Their souls heave a shudder. It is because of you.

Yet you are not above the laws of the universe. As with every facet of life and death and even magic, there is a price for glory, and that price for you is this: the Dark Thing eats through your blood and tendons like acid. Although for the sake of your very existence you must restrain it, it demands constant release. Sometimes the physical need for Change racks you so fiercely you are lost; you cannot taste your food or wine, you cannot suck in the filthy city air, you cannot move or speak or look even the lowest urchin in the eye until you surrender and cut the Dark Thing loose.

Because you're not like the slow and dense Others who trudge through their tiny lives just beside youno, not at all.

You are a dragon.

Drakon.

* * *

Did it hurt, your first time? Of course it did. It hurts us all, even me. This is how it happens: You're minding your day, or drowsing through your night. You're young, you're strong, and the sun threads gold through your hair, and the moon celebrates the luster of your skin. You are standing or seated or incumbent, you are breathing or talking or eating. The only necessary constant in every instance is that your eyes be open, because it won't happen without your sight. So the world spins on the same as every other day, every other night, and between one contraction of your heart and the next, you are devoured.

You're vanished. Jewelry flashing and falling, your garments drifting into a heap on the floor. It's that swift.

Without your will, your human-shaped body has Turned into something else, something diaphanous. Ephemeral.

You are smoke.

And aye, it hurts. It's as if with the Turning of your flesh your very essence is scraped away raw, skin ripped from sinew, sinew torn from bones. You want to scream but you no longer have voice; no one hears. You're alone. Even if you're surrounded in that one lethal instant by those whom you love, you're alone, because their hands only slip through you. There is nothing they can do to help. You must Turn again, you must fight the agony and Turn back to what you were beforeor else you're truly gone.

Too many headstones dot our burial grounds from children who die just like that, bright lives snuffed into wisps of vapor that rise and thin and never return. No coffins to bury, no bodies beneath the sod.

But you lived, didn't you? You knew what to do, and you lived, and after that ... the pain diminished. By your third or fourth Turn, you had control, and all you felt was searing joy.

Are we not magnificent?

_{* * *}

You won't remember our origins. None of us do, except perhaps in the most fevered of clan dreams. But I know our past, a very good deal of it; certainly more than you'll hear from anyone else.

We're not from here. We are not native to this soft and mild green isle. Ages ago we were churned to life from the molten union of earth and sky, from smoking lava and diamonds and a crescent range of faraway mountains that are now called Carpathians.

It was a good place for us. The magic that whipped us into perfection had also perfected our home: thick misty woods, glacier-fed rivers roaring hard and clear, melting into streams. Mounds of pine needles and sweet resin throbbing in the trees and delicious animals that fled too slowly at our approach.

Gold sifted through the streams, swirling into pools with beckoning laughter. Veins of copper and silver fingered up, up through the bedrock, trying to reach us. Diamonds speckled the forest floors, so fat and numerous we could pluck them like summer berries for our pleasure.

Each one welcomed us. Each one begged for our touch.

So we thrived. We hunted and soared and eventually built a castle for our clan, one set upon the highest, bleakest peak, carved from pure quartzite, studded with gems. We named it Zaharen Yce. The Tears of Ice.

Imagine it a moment, sparkling in the sun like distant pillars of salt, the songs of all the stones lifting and calling and weaving lush dreams around you from dawn to dusk and back again.

Close your eyes. You can almost hear it, can't you? So can I.

Humans, as you know, perceive little beyond the most primitive of sounds. But they are spawn of the earth; they crave diamonds and rubies and precious metals nearly as much as we do, although for different reasons.

Zaharen Yce drew them to us like a flare.

Siege after siege befell our people. Arrows. Ambushes. Poison left to steep in the rotting carcasses of our once-abundant prey; drakon too starved and desperate to detect it.

We lasted as long as we could. We had much to defend, after all. Much to lose.

And yet . we did lose.

Now we live here. Now we look like them. We wear corsets and silks, powdered wigs and rapiers. We attend cotillions with rouge on our cheeks; we sip tea and port and ale and try never to breathe very deeply when surrounded by the stench of mankind.

Consummate actors, we drakon. To ensure our survival we've learned to mimick a creme de l 'humanite, and we do it with such skill and guile we deceive nearly everyone, betimes even ourselves.

But we are not humans, and nearly everyone is not everyone. Those are the Others who hunt us still.

Chapter One

Journal of Mlle. Zoe Cyprienne Lane

Presented to Me Upon the Occasion of My Thirteenth Birthday

Myers Cottage, Darkfrith York, England

May 1, 1766

No rain.

Cherry Cake with Breakfast. Spotted Scones and Cider after Supper.

From Mother:The Journal. An Embroidered Tucker.

From Uncle Anton:A Tome of Verse: Songs for Gentle Girls.

From Cerise: An Ink and colored Portrait of my favorite rooster, Maximillian. (From me to Cerise:A Polished Silver Nugget in the Shape of a Heart from the River Fier.)

From Lord Rhys Sean Valentin Langford, second son of the Alpha (!):A bouquet of Pure Whyte Roses (the marchioness's garden?). A Small Carving of Maximillian from Pine (bloodstain on the left wing? dirt?). A Woven Ring of his Hair (!!).

Roses to Mother. Hair Ring to the dust bin. I rather like the carving.

Journal June 13,1766

No rain. Quite hot.

Lessons to-day in the village from the Dreaded Council for All Drakon Children. (I do think that at Thirteen Years of Age One ought not to be called a Child, and ought to be excused from these events, but the Council Begs to Differ.) I don't know why they bother repeating the same shabby old rules year after year. We've heard them enough by now to choke on them: We must not Leave the Shire! We must not Speak of the Gifts! We must not Reveal our Secrets to the Others! We must Think Only of the Tribe!

Rhys arrived late, as ever (no one even chided him. I suppose it must be lovely to be a Lord), and insisted upon squeezing into the seat next to mine. Then he kept pretending to tip his Inkpot upon my skirts when None were Looking. Vexing. I don't care what he said afterward, I don't believe he would have stopped without my kick to his shin. I will Concede, however, that it was unfortunate the Ink spilled upon his breeches instead.

Cerise claims She Saw it All. Grew very red and said that I was a shameless flirt. I told her to find a looking glass before casting names at me. Everyone knows she's a Goose, no matter that she's the elder by three minutes.

I cannot fathom a person less Likely to be my Twin.

Perhaps she is a changeling.

Journal June 19,1766

No rain.

Full moon, couldn't sleep. Mother made me extinguish the lamps early. The smell of smoking oil simply fills my face; I can hardly breathe with it. When I opened my window the stars tried to siphon me up into the sky. Saw Uncle Anton flying, the marquess, Mr. Williams, Mr. Grady, at least five more. We are so very lovely by moonlight. I do hopeI do I DO HOPE I shall fly too someday. I know that females no longer Turn into dragons, not since the marchioness, but I could be the first. I want it so much.

I shall be pink and gold and silver. Those are my favorite colors. I shall have a mane of glorious silk.

Rhys boasted he can already Turn. Liar. Lord Rhys of the manor house surviving his first Turn? I certainly would have heard about that.

June 21, 1766

Cloudy.

With Rhys in the woods. Should not have gone there with him, but he said he would prove he could Turn. And he did.

Thirteen is young. I suppose he's a half year older than that but most in the Tribe Turn after they are sixteen at least. I have time yet before I need worry.

His eyes are very green. I wonder that I never noted it before. June 24, 1766

Still Cloudy. No rain.

Rhys says the most foolish things. My hair is like Ivory. My voice is like Dusk. My eyes are like Pitch.

Pitch. Indeed. I told him that comparing my eyes to the color of tar was uncouth. He changed it to Obsidian and Tried to Kiss me again. I did not Let him.

June 25, 1766

Wind Rising. Clouds Darkening.

He keeps trying to get me to Go Back to the Woods with him. I know it's a Terrible Notion. But I want to. He tracked me to-day to the Lending Library, which very much needs to have its windows wiped. It was murky and we

I do not know why I feel these things around him, my stomach upset and my heart pounding all queer. It's quite unpleasant, actually.

He's Graced me with a Pet name. No one's ever done such a thing before. "ZEE." As if my given name is too difficult to manage, all two syllables of it.

Zee.

His smile is so fetching. He never bothers with a hat or gloves so his skin has tanned with the sun. I did not go with him to the Woods.

Cerise more and more waspish every day. She has at least Five beaux. I can't imagine why she would begrudge my One.

June 26, 1766

Storm to the East. Not here Yet.

I had a Dream Last Night that he came to my window as a dragon, dark glimmer and gold. I dreamt the dragon was tap-tapping on the glass, like raindrops, steady and soft, but when I woke, he was not there. Only those storm clouds, and not a drop of rain.

The air feels so heavy I could tear at my hair.

Addendum

HE LOVES ME. !!!!!!

He wrote it on a slip of paper during Council Lessons. Pressed it into my hand as we were Leaving, along with a rose petal he had hidden in a pocket.

Lord Rhys Langford of Chasen Manor Loves ME, of all the maidens of the shire. Me, the daughter of the seamstress. Me, who once put a clot of mud in his tea when he wouldn't stop teasing me about besting him in Latin and Arithmetic. Me, and I'm not even Pretty. Cerise says my eyes are too strange and my lips are too big and I'll certainly never Develop as she has.

Me.

What a load of piffle. All that just to steal a kiss in the woods. It's really rather pitiful, isn't it? (I shall save the petal here, between these pages.) Addendum Addendum

Cerise found the paper. I had dropped it by accident in the Hallway after Supper, and came upon her just as she was picking it up. I could hardly disguise from Whom it Came. Master Baird says Rhys's penmanship flows like a Sultan's robes in the wind, right off the edges of the page. Most Distinctive.

She was red again, even more red than her hair. She was trembling. I stood there and felt as if a great hammer had smashed upon my head.

Ceriseis in love with Rhys. Enormously shocking!

But she is. She's weeping in her room right now. I can hear her through the wall, though she's trying to be quiet.

August 1, 1766

I've thought on it a great deal. I've thought and thought.

Cerise and I have been at odds nearly our entire Lives. She is Comely while I am not; she is well liked while I am not. She is fashionable, and droll, and buxom, while I am ... not. It's a very great Wonder that we should have shared a womb at all. But I look at the portrait of Maximillian she made for our birthday, now hung above my bed. I look at the lines very carefully drawn, and how steady her hand was with the colors. How she got every stripe in his feathers just right, and the red comb, and the cock of his head. I think about how long it must have taken her to complete it, especially since Maximillian despises Cerise and must have spent a great deal of his portrait time hiding behind the coop.

She is my Twin. When she weeps I feel it to my bones.

August 2, 1766

Cloudy. Warm.

I told Rhys to leave me be. I told him I did not love him. I gave him back his carving of Maximillian, just so he knew I was Sincere.

August 4, 1766 Cloudy. Hot.

He persists.

August 19, 1766

Cloudy. Hot, hot,when will it rain?

He leaves gifts for me on my sill. He follows me about. When I walk to the village, he is there. When I walk to the downs, he is there. When I feed the chickens, he is there, and it is a Very Big Fuss because now that he can Turn, all the animals scatter in fear of their Lives. Mother Heard the Fuss and now she's cross at both of us. The hens won't settle if he's near; they remain frightened for days. No eggs.

I hardly think it's fair I was punished for that. I'm trying to get rid of him.

September 1, 1766

I had the same Dream last night. Rain was softly falling, and he came to my window, tapping on the glass. Only this time when I awoke, it was so hot I was perspiring, and the rain was really, truly falling, drawing into silvery tears down the panes.

And behind the tears was the dragon, watching me with glowing green eyes.

No Dream.

I walked to the window and looked back at him. His scales were slick and shining, an emerald so

dark it was nearly black, and his talons and mane and wings were metallic gold. He looked from me to the brink of the eastern forest over his shoulder, then back at me. I understood him as clearly as if he had spoken the words.

Come with me. Come to the woods.

Instead, I pulled the shutters across the window, latched them, and returned to bed.

December 24, 1769

Snowing!

It's wonderful to have everyone around in one house, even if it is for just a few days. I love the scents of the holidays, cinnamon and roast goose and pine needles covered in ice. Mother's cough has improved. Even Cerise laughed at the runny mess I made of the plum pudding.

Saw Lord Rhys back from Eton today in the village, shopping, I think. He was there with all three sisters and his brother, and their father. The Marquess of Langford tipped his hat to me and wished me a very Happy Christmas. I, of course, wished them all the same.

February 2, 1773 Cold and Sunny.

I cannot fully describe my emotions on this day. I'm very happy for Cerise, of course. She deserves every Felicitation and it's a joy to see her so flushed and pretty. Thomas is no doubt a good man, a strong dragon, and their child will be doubly blessed.

I can't imagine having a baby. I can't imagine being wed. I think of Love and feel only a rather empty sense of curiosity. I've been kissed before, and I liked it. I've been squired beforeto dances, to soireesand I liked that too. But I feel so strange these days. I look up at the sky and I feel as if I have forgotten something important.

Not the Turn. I suppose I never really believed that would happen. Yet when the clouds gather and blow, it almost seems like they're taking a part of me with them. I long for the rain, all the time, and I don't know why.

Hayden James came by today for tea bearing a posy for me and a bouquet for Mother's sickroom. He's blond and tall and quite handsome. But he spent an entire two hours talking with me about the weather. Even I was bored.

May 11, 1774

Temperate. Clear.

I should have anticipated this. I mean, I did anticipate it. I just never truly believed he would work up the nerve to ask.

Hayden is very dear. I do like him. Perhaps I even love him. I enjoy his quiet company, and his thoughtfulness, and the way his eyes light up to the most perfect blue when he smiles. I appreciate that he still brings lilacs to Mother's grave, and that he worries about me living alone here in the cottage. It's very kind, if unnecessary. I have my work (although I am a poor substitute for Mother's skills), and family about. I have ones who care. We are a tribe, after all, and no one is ever truly alone in Darkfrith. Just ask the Council.

I suppose that if I am to note that Hayden's character is rather reserved, I must also truthfully declare that his manners are always the pinnacle of courtesy. If his demonstrations of physical affection for me are somewhat . restrained, at least I know he values my virtue.

I've tried to close my eyes and picture him in the cottage with me, taking tea with me every day for the rest of our lives. Our sons and daughters around us, yellow-haired and merry. What a relief it would be to finally slip into the domestic ease enjoyed by the rest of the tribe.

Madam Zoe James. Madame Zoe James.

He is a fine man. I must think about how to answer him. My least desire is to hurt him. May 12, 1774

Rhys. Langford. Is. An. Ass.

Saw him at Market this morning in the village. Heavens knows what he was doing at Market, since he surely never has to purchase anything of his own. There are servants to shop for him, after all. No doubt he's just been sent down from Cambridge (again) and decided to rake up some trouble here at home for a change.

(What would I give for a chance to leave this shire and attend school! You can bloody well wager I'd not get caught doing anything to send me back here, but of course only the hallowed family of the Alpha is allowed to leave!)

He spies me before the bakeshop buying bread and saunters over. Yes. Saunters. He wears his hat cocked back and his brown hair untied and his breeches too tight and has this smile, this so Charming and Sweet smile, as if he's just happened upon a Dear Bosom Friend. Which I am not.

"I understand I am to congratulate you," he says.

"Oh?" I reply, because I can't imagine to what he's referring. Cerise's second child? Surely not Hayden, as I have not yet spoken with him.

"Indeed," he says. "Hayden James, eh? Decent sort, if a bit dull. I wondered if any of the fellows here would ever pluck up the courage to end your reign as the Old Maid of the Shire."

I did not throw my bread at him. I merely gave him my coolest smile and answered, "As long as it wasn't you. Oh, but that's rightyou did try, didn't you?"

And then I sauntered away.

May 13, 1774 Cloudy. Drizzle.

We have set the wedding date for June of next year. May 28, 1774

Something grave has occurred. I don't know what. There's a hum racing through the shire, through the tribe, an awful sort of excitement. I know there was a letter delivered today to Chasen Manor. Susannah Cullman, the third scullery maid, caught a glimpse of it on the salver before it was delivered to the marquess and is telling everyone it was stamped from a foreign land, written from the hand of a princess. And then I heard it was actually from Lady Amalia, the marquess and marchioness's youngest daughter (who, as everyone knows, was supposed to be at boarding school in Scotland).

Whatever it is, it's not good news. I was in the garden pulling weeds when I first felt it. It was clement today, sunny with the smallest of breezes. I was on my knees in the bed of mint and thyme, enjoying their fragrance and the warm pungent dirt, listening idly to all the little rocks beneath me when all at once, without warning, a great cloak of Deep Blue Darkness rose up to wrap around me. I don't know how better to depict it: soft, encompassing, infinite. I froze, trapped in my body; I could still feel the tips of my fingers and my toes, my face, that one particular bone of my corset that is pushing out of its seam into my ribsbut everything else was gone. I was suspended in indigo space. There might have been stars, but the sensation of blindness filled every sense. No smells, no sight, no touch or taste. Utter, perfect silence.

A cold wind shivered over me; my skin prickled like I was stark naked in snow. I caught the scent of pure panic, of fear. There were still no sounds around me but the feeling of danger! discovery! hide!

And then three single words, echoing as if coming from the center of a great bell, yet very clear:Lia. Maricara. Drakon.

When I drew breath I was back in the garden. I held a mint leaf in my hand, torn from its branch. The leaf was crushed, and the smell of the damaged leafthe sight of the green juices upon my fingersnearly turned my stomach.

I don't know what that was. I don't know what to think. May 30, 1774

Hayden has the ear of the Marquess of Langford. He's of a good family, reliable and trusted, and came to me late tonight after an emergency meeting with the Alpha & Council to tell me what he could of what's occurred.

I can hardly pen the words. There is another tribe ofdrakon! None of us ever, ever once suspected such a thing. They live in Transylvania, in the far, far hills. They are hosting Lady Amalia even now, though God knows how she got all the way out there, or even how she found them at all. And here is the most amazing news of all: They are ruled by a princessa female! Princess Maricara of the Zaharen.

It's a strange and marvelous miracle, that there are more of us. That a woman could lead.

Hayden disagrees. Grew rather fussy about it. Pointed out the danger behind this discovery, that this new tribe threatens our existence. That they may be wild, or feral, or taking risks that could be of immense danger to us, leading to our exposure. I admit I didn't really consider that ...

Told him he was right. Offered him tea and gingerbread (only a very little scorched!) and watched his natural Mild Humor return. He unbent as far as to kiss me Good-Night. On the lips. Very nice.

I did not mention the incident in the garden. It seemed insignificant, in light of everything else that has occurred. Perhaps I'll bring it up later.

It was probably my imagination. June 5, 1775

This was to have been my wedding day. Feels like Every Other Day. Nothing special. Worked tonight with Cerise in their tavern; they do need the extra hands. It's a dirty, messy job, and my gowns end up reeking of tobacco and ale and gin. I don't enjoy it. But she's always so grateful for the help. And in truth, I appreciated the distraction, although Cerise could not know why. I never told her the exact date.

Hayden says perhaps soon, perhaps even next year. He's still so worried about our future. Says

until the threat of the other drakon is contained, it would be Irresponsible in the Extreme to Wed (he means, I know, to Breed). He's deeply involved in the Council's plans for these "Zaharen" drakon. I do wish he'd tell me something of it. But he won't. Or can't. One man has already left the shire, and no one has panicked about it, so he's not a runner. Luke Rowland, about our age, unwed. It isn't hard to conjecture he's been sent after the rogue dragons. But again, no one will discuss it.

Today by the rye fields we shared a picnic I had preparedmy private little No-Wedding Feastand Hayden murmured something about how my hair shone like moonlight under the bright sun. Which didn't even make sense, if you consider it. Managed not to laugh or cry. I only tipped my head and asked him calmly, "Well. Are you free June next, Mr. James?"

He understood me. He's very wise when he wishes. He took my hand and kissed it and said, "My heart is yours today, June next and the next, and always. It is more my body which concerns me."

I replied, "And me," which was really rather bold of me, but he only smiled. "You are my love" is all he would say. That tells me practically nothing, does it?

March 28, 1776

He drops by every afternoon for tea. He is absent all the rest of the time. I have told him I need more, but he only averts his eyes and repeats the same word: "Soon." I know he is vital to the plots of the Alpha and the Council, to our future as a tribe. But he is vital to me as well.

I don't have "soon" any longer. I am not a wife. I am not an unmatched dragon maiden. I am affianced, and alone. Always alone. It's a bit too much like purgatory.

August 3, 1777

Today I was washing dishes in the tavern and the Most Peculiar Thing happened. I wasn't paying much mind to my workreally, who enjoys washing dishes?I was looking out the window to Cerise's little garden, admiring the green, the cuttings she's planted, Mother's lavender growing still, despite the damp, in the far corner, when I felt a faint, faint tingling across the skin of my hands.

I looked down, and

I don't know what happened. I don't dare even put it into these pages.

It was lunacy. It was not real.

November 15, 1777

It was Worse than I anticipated. I did not cry. I fancy Cerise cried for me quite enough when I discussed this with her yesterday. But my eyes were dry, as were his when I informed him of my decision this afternoon.

I simply could not go on like this. He is half a stranger, half my heart. I understand his hesitations. There are undercurrents at work of which most of the tribe remain remarkably unaware. I might be as well, but for him . and the blue-dark Feelings that cloak me from time to time. The sense of danger galloping closer; of rising, enclosing threat.

I never wanted this half-life with him, to exist strictly in his leisure time and Sunday shadows. I confess it: I want true love and diamonds and passionate declarations. I want a mate who breathes my breath and strokes my skin, who holds my hand without reservations, who returns home to me every evening with open arms and happy anticipation. I want to be able to look up at him with the same adoration I glimpse in Cerise's eyes whenever she glances at her husband. And I want to see that adoration reflected back at me.

As I look over the previous paragraph I realize how childish it sounds. I'm ashamed of my weakness, that I'm not good enough or kind enough or patient enough to wait for Hayden any longer. It's been over three years now without any promise of a wedding date. I cannot change what's in my heart.

But I was so nervous to speak to him, my hands shook. It was very hard to give him back his ring.

Naturally, Hayden was a gentleman about it all. He kissed meadieu, very gently, on the cheek.

August 24, 1779

Sunny. Scattered Clouds.

It's been so dry this year, so dry and warm. I remember how I used to watch the clouds. I was younger then. I dreamed more. I suppose I believed in more as well.

August 25, 1779

Gray day. Clouds thickening.

Cerise wants me to go up to the manor house for the Tribal Socials the marchioness hosts every month for the singles of the shire.

I told her exactly the truth. I'm twenty-six years of age. How foolish would I look surrounded by a flock of giddy adolescents?