“Can’t believe I let you drag me out here. Honestly! And now you want me to climb, what—?”

  Marvan looked up the steep cliff. High above, his Sight Advancement let him see the ledge Sarina had been talking about, even though the sun had already well and truly set. He gauged the distance and continued, “Twelve hundred feet or so? In the dark and cold?”

  “Come on!” Sarina said, her eyes shining with excitement. “We both know you can do that in a few hours at most, and with you going ahead, I can do it, too! I’m telling you, this is the place!”

  “And if it is, that’s just another, much bigger problem than if it isn’t!” Marvan countered. But if Sarina said that there was treasure here, there was. She had a Major that let her practically sniff it out, and she hadn’t been wrong yet. Three expeditions to the north, all of them successes. Well… for the survivors. But that included the both of them, which was what mattered.

  “The dragon’s not here,” Sarina insisted. “It— uh, she, I guess, lives under some inn in the Merchants’ Quarter. My guy in the guard says she hasn’t left it for days, and then she didn’t even leave the city. We’re fine!”

  Gods, her eyes were intense tonight. How was he supposed to keep any kind of resolve when she looked at him like that? He tried. Oh, how he tried. “The risk—” he said, but his resistance was failing and she cut him off again.

  “The risk is minimal,” she said, moving in close. Then she put her arms around his waist, and he was lost, surrounded by her warmth and scent. “A few hours up, another few hours at most there, and then down. And you’ve heard the same things I have! As much gold and silver as she could carry to protect the city from the other dragon, that’s what they say! Even if the amount is exaggerated ten times over, this is a dragon’s hoard! A real one! Imagine, love! We’ll take as much as we can carry, and that will set us up for life. Think about it! We could go anywhere we want. Never work again. We could get a nice house, maybe with a servant or two, even.” She pressed herself into him. “We could finally have that baby we’ve talked about. And then a sibling or two for her. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “A little girl running around, while you carry our boy at your breast?” Marvan asked, running his fingers up her back.

  “We’d never have to face another damn monster, never dig into another ruin,” his wife whispered into his chest. “We could just live. Grow old together and watch our children raise families of their own. Don’t you want that?”

  “You know I do.”

  Without warning she grabbed his head in both hands and pulled it down to her, then kissed him hard. It was a kiss that left him breathless, and her with only enough to pant out, “Then let’s get up there and make it happen!”

  One day, Marvan would have to learn to tell his wife no. But not that day. Not when she looked at him like that.

  As Marvan and Sarina climbed, they tried to keep an eye on the sky while at the same time staying hidden. If the dragon were to come, they reasoned, it would come from the south-east, where the city was; or possibly directly from the east, which was the direction the ledge faced. Thus they’d chosen the north-eastern face of the cliff; once they got high enough it would be easy enough to move sideways to the ledge.

  Their plan both was and wasn’t successful. Yes, they remained hidden. No one saw them climbing up that wall in the dark. But no matter how carefully they watched the skies they didn’t stand a chance of spotting the dragon, as it glided in to land, silent as death and as dark as the sky above. Nor did they hear it speak to its two passengers; between the wind and the distance, the open sky swallowed its voice.

  Sometimes, fortune does not favor the bold.

  The climb was long, and the climb was hard, but they were both strong and skilled. Marvan was better, of course, with him having a Major that turned him into a human mountain goat, but his wife was no slouch, either. On top of that, they had the best equipment, the latest picks and pitons out of Marbek. Marvan knew with absolute certainty that there was exactly one person on Mallin who could scale a mountainside better than his wife, and that was him.

  The climb was long, but it was still only two and a half hours or so before they reached the ledge. There had been an abundance of holds and good cracks and seams for the pitons, and they’d made excellent time.

  Reaching down, Marvan grasped Sarina’s wrist and hauled her the last few feet. She didn’t weigh much despite the muscle she’d packed on, and he was strong even without a strength Advancement.

  “The view from here is incredible,” he remarked as he looked out toward the sea, and the faint light of Karakan far in the distance.

  “Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” his wife said, poking him playfully. With only the moonlight, she wouldn’t be able to see much. The fact that she dared to follow him up this wall in the dark at all amazed him.

  “Hey,” he said, “why don’t we move to Marbek? When we’re rich, I mean? If we have money it should be easy enough, and Marbeki is barely different from Karakani. We could get a house with a view. Maybe with a small terrace garden. We could have a tree, like this hardy little fellow. I’m sure Dalman would help us if we asked.”

  “I’d like that,” Sarina said softly. “But first we need to get that gold! Come on, let’s get the torches lit. I’m not going in there without light!”

  Getting their smokeless torches lit was quick. That done, they entered the wide, triangular crevice that led from the ledge into the mountain, just like Sarina had thought it would. The crevice was less than a hundred feet deep and showed signs of being lived in; swallows nested in the ceiling, a small ring of stone surrounded a pile of ashes near a soot-stained wall, and small, black scales lay here and there on the floor. Marvan wondered about the firepit; what would a dragon want with that? Were they not the first visitors to this place? But that was not important just then, and the ashes were long cold anyway.

  A side passage led deeper and that was the way they went. The air grew humid, and soon glow slime appeared on the walls. Marvan put out his torch; one would be enough for the both of them.

  Sarina’s certainty that they were in the right place grew as they got deeper. “I can feel it!” she said in a high-pitched, barely restrained squeal. “This is it! I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s like I can taste the gold in the air!”

  “I believe you!” Marvan chuckled, his heart full at his wife’s excitement. How could he ever have argued with her? Even if this was just a cave, empty except for some slime and bat shit, seeing her like this would have made the climb worth it. “How much deeper?”

  “Not sure. Half-way maybe?” Sarina stopped and looked at a crack in the wall, wide enough for a person if they turned sideways a bit. “Hmm, no. Not there. I feel something from there, but it’s much weaker than the main passage. Old, maybe? Let’s keep going!”

  They’d barely moved past the crevice when, without a sound, an arm like an iron bar wrapped itself around Marvan’s throat from behind, two legs locking immovably around his waist. His hands went to the arm and he tried to shout a warning, but all that came out was a gurgled croak. That was enough for Sarina to turn and see what was wrong, but even as her eyes widened and her hand went for the dagger on her hip, a shadow, a Sorrows-begotten shadow, laid a blade against her throat.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  There was a whisper that Marvan couldn’t hear, and Sarina became absolutely still. Then he almost pissed himself as that shadow filled out, gaining detail and color and resolving into a tall, dark young woman holding a fine steel dagger under his wife’s chin. The woman looked at him pointedly, and he stopped struggling against the arm that was choking him.

  The woman said something in a language that was full of short, hard syllables — Tekereteki, perhaps? That would fit with her skin — and the pressure around his neck decreased. He took a coughing breath as his airway opened up again, but didn’t try anything. When he looked into that young woman’s eyes, shining a metallic gold in the light of the torch that Sarina still held, he saw only anger and death. He was not going to risk setting her off, not as long as she was one twitch from taking the only thing that mattered to him.

  “What are you doing here?” asked a voice in his ear in perfect, unaccented Karakani. It was very pretty, he reflected. Clear and musical, not at all a voice you’d expect from someone who’d been about to choke you out from behind. “And how did you find this place?”

  “Treasure seekers, ladies!” he stammered out, his eyes jumping between the blade the other woman held and her cold, angry eyes. “That’s all we are! I’m sorry, if you got here first—”

  “How,” the woman repeated in hard, clipped syllables, “did you find this place?”

  “I—” Sarina said, wincing as even that small movement of her throat was enough for the blade to nick her skin. She continued more softly, “I have an Advancement. It led me here.”

  “Have you told anyone else?” the angry young woman hissed.

  “No!” Marvan blurted. Sarina looked at him with horror. Perhaps he should have lied. Perhaps he should have said that they had a whole pack of friends who knew where they were, and were expecting them back by morning. But his instincts told him that truth was the only way out, that any attempt to deceive these two women would lead to him seeing Sarina’s life blood spill onto the stones, and he couldn’t risk that. The tall young woman looked angry, yes, and willing to kill, but not eager to. “No,” he repeated. “It’s just us. And I swear that if you let us go, we’ll never come back.”

  “There are easier ways to make sure of that,” the voice in his ear said darkly. “How did you get in?”

  “We climbed. The passage we came from leads to a ledge on the mountain side, perhaps twelve hundred feet above the forest. We climbed to it.”

  The young woman raised one eyebrow. “Mercies,” she said. “That is some climb. Our sister might actually like to talk to you. But we have a problem. The fact that you know about this place at all is unacceptable, and we need to do something about that.”

  The voice behind Marvan spoke in what he thought was Tekereteki, and the two women exchanged a few sentences. Among the unintelligible strings of sounds he thought he heard “Draka” more than once, a name that filled his heart with fear.

  Draka. Lady Draka. The dragon. They were speaking about the dragon.

  A low moan escaped him, completely out of his control. Lady Draka, the dragon, was said to have some human companions. Among those were two Tekereteki women, adventurers that he might have seen at the Guild once or twice. And there was a brother, too. At least he was pretty sure about that.

  It didn’t matter. This was indeed the dragon’s lair. And her friends, servants, or cultists, whatever they were, were here.

  Marvan was about to attempt a desperate escape when the young woman spoke. “We are going to tie you up until we decide how to handle you. My sister is against simply killing you, and I will bow to her age and wisdom.”

  Behind him the woman with her arm around his throat snorted with amusement.

  “I imagine you have rope or something like that in your pack?” the young woman continued. “It would be better not to have to shred your clothes.”

  “We do,” Marvan said.

  “Good. Here is what will happen. I will release the woman. You will both sit down against the wall and wait patiently for us to bind you. Take one step deeper into this passage, and I will not hesitate to kill you. Try to run and my sister will run you down, and then I will not hesitate to kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes!” Marvan said quickly.

  “And you?” The young woman inclined her head to look at Sarina, and shifted her blade a hair’s breadth.

  “I understand, yes,” Sarina said, nodding sharply.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarina said heavily, an indeterminate time later. Marvan had tried to speak with her, but she’d gone silent. She often did, when something didn’t work out. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, my love,” he replied, leaning into her. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “Still. I brought us here. I insisted. I just— there is so much treasure here! All I could see was a nice little house with an atrium, and you bouncing our child on your knee, and now—” her voice broke. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

  “I don’t know. But I think they’d have done it already if they were going to.”

  “What other option is there?!” Sarina sobbed, and it broke Marvan’s heart to hear her so torn by fear and guilt. “They serve the dragon! You know it as well as I do! How can they let us go when we know where the dragon’s hoard is?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He was on his knees, bound wrists to ankles behind his back just like his wife was, but he could still move to nuzzle the top of her head. “I don’t know. But I think they would have done it already if they were going to.”

  Sarina turned her face into his chest and sobbed. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

  “I love you,” he whispered back. “I love you so much. Forever, no matter what.” Despite what he’d told her he had no idea how many more chances he might have to say that. He wanted to make them count.

  “—and they just walked down here?”

  Marvan startled at the sound of a new voice, coming from deeper into the passage. It was recognizably female, a little deeper than most, breathy and powerful.

  “Climbed the mountainside and came down the passage,” the woman who’d choked Marvan said. He’d seen her as the women tied Sarina and him up. She was small enough to embarrass him. He had at least a foot on her, yet he knew that he wouldn’t stand a chance in a straight fight.

  “And you’re sure you want to do this?”

  “It is that or kill them,” the younger woman said. They were coming close now. “I will, but I would prefer not to. This is better.”

  “Uh-huh,” the first voice said. “And this has nothing to do with those streaks I saw on your face before, or how puffy your eyes were?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” the young woman replied primly.

  “I’ve read most of your novels by now, but sure. If you say so.”

  Beneath the voices came a soft dragging sound, accompanied by muted clicking. Clicking, as though of…

  Around the bend came the two women. With them came first a black-scaled head, then a neck, and then the rest of the Sorrows-beloved dragon. Over seven feet at the shoulder, big enough that it walked with its head lowered to keep from scraping the ceiling in places, it filled the passage with its presence.

  “Sarina, my love,” Marvan whispered. He nudged her awake with his nose, and she groaned, then startled. “I love you, all right? Whatever happens, I love you. Remember that.”

  “I love you too,” she said, looking into his eyes. Then she turned and saw the dragon, and whispered, “Oh, Mercies. Oh, no.”

  The dragon turned its slitted golden eyes on them and bared its teeth, and the bottom dropped out of Marvan’s stomach. “Oh, good,” it — she — said. “You’re awake. You know, when Mak and Herald told me that we had guests, I thought they were pulling my leg. Or should that be ‘tail’? But here you are. And from what you’ve told my sisters, you’re after my hoard.”

  “Oh, no,” Sarina said again, her voice devoid of hope.

  “Oh, yes,” the dragon said. “Normally I’d kill you myself. Every instinct I have is screaming for me to tear you apart for finding this place. But, lucky you! Herald has decided to make you her own problem, so here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to leave you with Mak. She’s going to release you, get you some food and water, and let you relieve yourselves if that’s something you need. Meanwhile, Herald and I are going for a short errand. That means that it’ll just be the three of you here, so to make sure that you don’t do anything so incredibly stupid as to try and overpower my dear sister here, Mak is going to give you a small demonstration.”

  Marvan’s every nerve tensed as the shorter and older of the two women drew a dagger, but she never approached. Instead she pulled back her sleeve. She pressed the edge of that dagger against the thin, soft skin on the inside of her forearm until it dented. Then, with a jerk so quick that Sarina jumped where she knelt, she cut her own wrist.

  Only, nothing happened. No blood spurted. Her skin was whole.

  “There, that should tell you what you need to know,” the dragon said. “Both of you together are no threat to Mak, all right? She’s stronger, faster, and tougher than you, so don’t be daft, yeah?” Then, without waiting for a reply, she said, “Come on, Herald. Let’s get you juiced up,” and continued up the passage, claws clicking and tail sweeping the ground behind her.

  and get 8 chapters early. You also get all eighty-plus finished chapters of my other story, , and anything else I’m trying out.

  Join us if you want to chat with other readers, or just hang out!