Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It has been a matter of some debate among the drakon today as to whether the stone Draumr ever truly existed.

It is debated with the utmost civility, of course. Dragon-ladies in lace and corsets sip their tea in fashionable parlors and keep their voices to a throaty murmur. They sit with their ankles crossed and smile at each other and occasionally show teeth that gleam very white.

Our men do very nearly the same, standing about in magnificent card rooms, rapiers of Spanish gold and gemstones affixed at their hips, their elegant hands weighted with rings of carnelian and topaz that burn with subtle song.

They reach no cohesive conclusions.

How could they? These dragons never heard the lure of the diamond, not truly. Every now and again perhaps someone will lift her head from the details of her day, her attention snared as a few languorous notes seemingly appear from nowhere to wrap around her, to twist into her bones with devastating bliss. Born from echoes, dissipating into echoes, they're gone nearly as soon as her lips form that first, delighted gasp.

She'll retire to her bed that night and ache as she remembers how it felt. She'll wonder if she's feverish, if it had been naught but a dream.

It was the dreaming diamond, after all.

And yes, it was real. So many of us no longer believe, but I was there. I fell prey to its malevolence more times than nearly any other of our kind, and by the very last time Draumr and I clashed, I had mastered it enough to wield its power myself.

Had I that diamond today—even a portion of it—who knows what I might do.

Ultimate pleasure is an eloquent motivator.

Pain, of course, is as well.