Chapter 2
I spent the first hour after the dragon left sorting the gold coins scattered on the ground by the year they were minted.
During the second hour, I got all the jewelry organized. Necklaces went with necklaces, rings with rings, brooches with brooches. Then I sorted each pile by material.
By the third hour, I moved on to sorting the random odds and ends.
There was an oriental folding fan, a thumb-sized ivory tower, a bronze mirror with some script I couldn't read on the back, and seven daggers in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
I sorted them by their place of origin.
As dawn crept in, I started sorting through the stack of books piled against the wall.
Some pages were already yellowed and curling at the edges, so I gently smoothed them out, then lined the books up by language first, and by age after that.
The sun rose.
Golden light streamed in through the cave entrance.
I stood in the middle of the cave, wiping sweat from my forehead.
The whole place felt completely transformed.
Gold coins were arranged on the left, sorted by year from oldest to newest. Jewelry was displayed on the right, organized by material and origin.
The miscellaneous treasures were spread out along the back wall, and the books were stacked near the entrance, within easy reach.
I even used a charred stick to make some simple labels and stuck them up on the walls.
That was just my occupational quirk.
I'd spent four years at the castle organizing Amanda's private collection.
The wind changed again.
The dragon was back.
It had a deer in one claw and a mouthful of wildflowers clenched in its jaws. I had no clue where it found them.
I didn't have time to wonder about it.
The dragon landed at the cave entrance, dropped the deer, and peered inside.
It froze.
Its gaze slowly swept over the neatly arranged gold coins, the jewelry sorted into categories, the miscellaneous treasures grouped by where they came from, and the handwritten labels stuck to the walls.
Then it looked at me.
I stood in the center of the treasure cave, holding the last crown, still in my hands, not yet put away.
We locked eyes for what felt like forever.
The dragon gently placed the wildflowers on the ground.
It walked into the cave with its head lowered, making a slow circuit around the treasure hoard.
At each section, it paused to inspect my handiwork. When its breath washed over the gold coins, the top one spun out of place.
Instinctively, I reached out and nudged the coin back into position.
The dragon stopped and stared at me.
There was a strange, unreadable emotion flickering in its slit-pupiled amber eyes.
Then, this legendary silver dragon, once the terror of the continent, shrank itself down as small as it could go, lay down at my feet, and nudged its head against my knee.
Its rumbling was so loud that it made the whole cave tremble.
My hand hovered awkwardly in the air. I wasn't sure if I should actually touch it.
It bumped its head against my knee again, a little more insistently.
I finally let my hand rest on its head.
The scales were cool and smooth. As my fingers brushed over them, I found a spot where one scale was noticeably lighter than the others.
The dragon's rumbling suddenly cut off for a moment.
And then it picked up again.
It was louder than before.