Gold Dragon Codex (16 page)

“And then what? I go on the run, with the guards
from your barony chasing me around until I leave the valley? I wouldn’t be any help to you then, kiddo.”

He was right. Sandon frowned. “I’ll find a way.”

“Good luck. Now, get out of here. Whatever you did to drag those guards off won’t last forever.”

The soldier was right. Sandon had probably overstayed as it was, and the guards would soon discover the rocks on the bellpull and be coming back to their posts. “Thanks, Kine. I’ll be back.” Sandon shoved his mother’s journal back into his vest and backed up to the stairs. He shot the soldier one last apologetic smile and trotted up the stairs toward the hallway above.

Sandon slipped out and crept along the hall, doing his best to appear at ease. He was in this hallway to head downstairs, yes, that’s it. This is just another hallway in the castle, nothing more. Look, a painting! He hadn’t seen that painting in a while.

A hand seized Sandon’s collar, jerking him to a halt. The boy froze, looking back over his shoulder with a guilty squeak.

“Sandon.” Vilfrand and one of the guards had come out of a side hallway, and the captain looked as mad as ever. “There were stones hanging on the alarm-bell ropes. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Uh … no, Uncle Vilfrand.” Sandon raised his
hands and shrugged. “Nothing at all.”

“Uhm-hm.” Vilfrand shook him lightly. The captain stared down his nose at the youth, dark brows furrowed in annoyance. “Your father is looking for you. Let’s not make him wait, shall we?”

A thread of rebellion wove its way through Sandon’s mind. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to Baron Camiel, not right now, when he had so many questions and no answers. “I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll see my father after lunch.”

“This is too much!” Vilfrand put his hand on Sandon’s shoulder, shoving him forward. “Show your father the proper respect or I’ll have you washing dishes for a year! What’s gotten into you?”

Scowling, Sandon jerked out of Vilfrand’s grasp. “I’m the heir to this barony, Vilfrand. You’re going to be the regent tomorrow, but for now, I’m still the baron’s son.”

“How dare you dishonor your father.” Vilfrand’s brows knitted even further together, his black mood oppressive. “I’m ashamed of you—but he’ll be more so, once he hears about this. I’m giving you one more chance, Sandon. I know that you’re upset about your father’s decision to allow Lazuli into the valley. I’ve given you multiple opportunities to act like a grown-up, and you’ve continually disappointed me. Now come with me to
your father, and I’ll forget all about this particular act of cowardice.”

Sandon clenched his fists. His thoughts were racing in his head, and it took every bit of control he had to keep them silent. You bullied my mother the same way, didn’t you, Uncle Vilfrand? the boy thought angrily to himself. When she wanted to be on her own, you followed her around and kept an eye on everything she was doing—all because my father told you to do it. She was right. You’re nothing but Camiel’s watchdog, doing anything he wants you to do, no matter how awful. Did you arrange to get the poison for my father too? Was it your fault that he didn’t know how to use it? That he gave her too much and she died? Did you and my father plan this whole thing in advance so that you could get your hands on the barony’s money? Its secrets? Did you know about the gold dragon and its hoard before my father proposed?

Has my father been working with the blue dragon all along?

“Well, Sandon?” Vilfrand crossed his arms, his blue-eyed stare meeting Sandon’s scowl.

“Fine.” Curtly, Sandon spun on his heel, marching toward the front hall and his father’s office. “I’ll do what you ask me to do.

“This time.”

he early afternoon sun slanted down through the high windows of the keep, illuminating the great hall with dusty shafts of light so thick that they seemed to hold up the roof. Vilfrand and Sandon walked through the high-ceilinged hall, where a brisk wind sighed through the wide doors blocked open to allow fresh air into the center of the keep. Sandon could hear Gallia in the kitchen bustling about loudly with her pots and pans. He and his uncle kept their backs to the clatter, walking past the long feast tables toward the wood and stone arch that led into a hallway. That hallway opened into the baronial throne room, a room much like his father’s study upstairs, but much larger and more formal. There was a pair of thrones made of dark wood and worked with the blue and gold of Hartfall at the far end of the room. They were dusty now, rarely used, and the smaller of
the two was covered with a long woolen cloak worked with faint traces of silver.

The sides of the room had many shelves lined with papers, books, trinkets, and tokens of the barony’s long and illustrious history. On a hook behind the thrones hung the ancestral battle horn. It was a massive horn, coiled like a ram’s, the ends shod with bronze and the handle made of intricately worked leather. Perhaps once it had been golden, but now it was dull with age and covered in dust, turned a dim coppery yellow that reflected no light. It had small cracks throughout the curling length—signs of age and use—and the leather strap looked dry and brittle. Sandon sighed when he saw it and wrenched his gaze away to the solitary figure in the room.

The baron stood by the high bookshelves to one side of the chamber, lifting a book back into its place. He was alone, looking much smaller than usual against the formal backdrop of thrones, and he still wore the same clothes that he’d been wearing the night before. He smiled at the sight of Sandon and moved to sit on his throne and gesture his son forward. “Come here, Sandon. We have a lot to talk about, and nightfall comes all too quickly.”

Sandon did as he was told, kneeling on the cushion that was set before the throne. His father waved the
gesture aside, reaching to take his son’s shoulders and offer the boy the throne by his side. Sandon settled into his mother’s big chair uncomfortably, feeling the scratch of the wool cloak and the plush softness of the chair seat below. His father stared at him long and hard before he spoke again.

“Starting tonight, Vilfrand will be regent of the valley. By our laws, Sandon, you can’t take the crown until you are eighteen, so Vilfrand’s rule will last four years. Your uncle’s been by my side the whole time I’ve been baron. Listen to him. Watch what he does. Learn the things I didn’t have time to teach you, and rule well when you become baron yourself.”

Baron Camiel sat back, organizing his thoughts. “There’s something you need to know—a secret of the barony. I’m going to tell both of you so that Vilfrand has them at his fingertips when he rules, but I want you both to keep the few treasures we have left very safe so your sons and daughters can have them too, Sandon.”

“Treasures?” Sandon paused, blinking. “I thought the barony was out of money. Do you mean things … like the horn?”

“The horn?” Baron Camiel’s upper lip wrinkled sharply. “That old thing is a useless piece of junk. It’s no treasure. I don’t even think it’s magical.”

“But the dragon—the good dragon …”

“Sandon,” his father sighed. “I know it is hard for you to give up hope, but the good dragon died, years ago. It’s gone. We have to take care of ourselves now.” He placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Worry about the dragons we do have, and stop hoping for the ones who have left us forever.”

Sandon winced at his father’s words. Yes, the gold dragon was gone, but the valley wasn’t undefended. The golden construct could fly again if he just knew how to make it work. “The vault,” Baron Camiel was saying as Sandon dragged his attention back, “has three locks on it, and an internal safe that has a separate locking system. This key opens all three.” He held out a silvery key on a cord around his neck. “I’ll give this to Vilfrand before I go out tonight.”

“And the password to the vault?” Vilfrand asked, nodding.

“Password?” Camiel tilted his head. “What password?”

“To the inner vault,” Vilfrand said. “Is there one?”

“No, not at all. There’s just this key, but it’s very important. The vault is protected by a powerful spell. That spell was cast hundreds of years ago by the gold dragon that protected this valley, and only this key can open the vault.

“Of course, there isn’t much left in there now. All the steel is gone, given as tribute to Lazuli. There are a few heirlooms and items that are typically passed down from ruler to ruler, but none of those are expensive or made of unusual materials. The baronial crowns are long gone, though we have spares fashioned of leather that can be used for formal occasions. There are a few cloaks left that bear Hartfall’s heraldry, along with Sandon’s grandmother’s quilts. I think we still have some marble pieces down there, small statues of important people in the valley’s history, and the almanacs tracking harvests back over a hundred years. A few sentimental things, of course, like his mother’s wedding dress and a set of ceremonial banners that are a bit ragged now, but they flew over the barony’s men when we battled against hobgoblins a few hundred years back. Nothing worth money, of course.”

“Camiel,” Vilfrand interjected, his face a study of worry. “Are you certain of that? You’ve checked everything? Perhaps there’s something—a box that hasn’t been opened. A set of swords that can be melted down …”

“We’ve been over this before, Brother.” Camiel sighed, raising a hand to still the captain’s arguments. “We have nothing.”

Sandon felt his uncle’s worry doubling his own,
but also, he wanted to test his father’s dedication to this plan. He just didn’t trust his father. Was Camiel really willing to give himself to the blue dragon as tribute? Or was this a trick to flush out the baroness’s last secrets? If his father knew about the dragon’s “lost” hoard, and if he thought that Sandon knew, he’d try to talk his son into finding it, wouldn’t he? “Dad,” he said seriously. “If there’s any chance we could find something else to give Lazuli, I’m willing to try.”

“The creature that cast the spell on the vault was very clever.” Vilfrand pulled out his pipe and tamped it on the heel of his hand, clearing the barrel of a faint dusting of ash. “It’s possible that it found a way to hide other things. I’ve never been in there, of course, but I consider myself to be very sharp eyed. If I could get in there and look around, perhaps I could find something?”

The baron sighed.

Vilfrand kept pushing, refusing to give up, and Sandon silently blessed him for it. “Camiel, this is your life we’re talking about. I refuse to give up without trying every possible angle to keep you from that blue dragon’s maw. I know that you hope he will leave after he takes you, but I have no such certainty. Camiel, you’re being a stubborn, self-centered—”

“Vilfrand!” Camiel’s eyes blazed. “I am still your
baron, and brother or not, you will treat me with the respect that my crown deserves.”

Vilfrand’s eyes fell to the ground. He said nothing, skin reddening along his neck and cheeks. Sandon felt sorry for his uncle and found himself getting really angry. As stiff as Vilfrand was, even when he was yelling at Sandon, he had the best interests of the barony at heart. Letting the Blue into the valley was a terrible idea, the kind of idea someone would think of only as a last resort—or if they weren’t afraid what the dragon would do once it got here. Sandon looked at his father. Which was he? The naively trusting leader or a man working with Lazuli for some sinister plot of his own?

The boy narrowed his eyes. If Camiel knew Sandon could tell him where the gold dragon’s hoard was, what would he do?

Camiel lowerded his voice and continued, “Vilfrand, your concern for me is touching. Give that same loyalty to my son, and I will rest knowing that the barony of Hartfall is in good hands.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Go into the kitchens, will you, Brother? Fix something to eat and take a few minutes to calm down. I’d like to have some time alone with Sandon.” Camiel
turned his pale blue eyes, more like the summer sky than his brother’s stormy ones, to his son. Vilfrand nodded in deference before he turned his back to the thrones. Sandon heard his booted footfalls fading into the corridor long after he could no longer see his uncle’s form. For a long moment, he faced his father, eyes narrowed and fists clenched.