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Excitement at the luck made him smile. This might finally be it. They could find the scepter and get their answers. “Thanks.”

As he suspected, the room was full of precious objects along the walls, down the center, and even some hung from the ceiling in what he might call bird cages. Thane passed by gaudy goblets, small and life-size statues of people and animals made of solid gold. A cat with emerald eyes in a crouch had a wooden name plaque under its paws but it was a language he didn’t know. A golden egg the size of Thane’s torso sat on a perch of silver. Rubies and sapphires and emeralds were artistically placed like starbursts. The thing must be worth a fortune. The voices of the others got quieter the further they moved away. It must be in here. He rushed from one treasure to the next and after he’d circled the entire room with no luck, he rubbed his hand through his hair.Shit.

“Something I can help you with?” asked a deep, rough voice.

Thane slowly turned to find a stout shifter with a black beard that reached his pot belly standing in the doorway. As with all the others he’d seen, he was tall, pushing seven feet and broad. His dark-brown eyes trailed Thane head to toe, sizing him up, assessing a threat.

“No. I was using the chambers.”

“You ain’t a thief are ya? One thing dragons hate more than anything are thieves. We covet our treasure, elf.” He took a step into the room, his heavy boot like an anvil dropping.

Thane arched a dark brow, now assessing him as a threat. He didn’t like the dragon’s tone. “You think I don’t have everything I could ever want. I’m a High King of Palenor. And treasure isn’t something elves covet, dragon. I have more important things to worry about than shiny objects that don’t kill my enemies.”

The dragon took another step forward, looking around the room, seeing if everything was in its proper place. He cocked his head to the side in an almost birdlike way. “Best catch up with your friends,High King. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the riveting tour now, would ya?”

The two watched each other closely as Thane stepped by him; he didn’t turn his back until he was a ways clear of the treasure room. The others were moved onto the far wall now, gathered around a dark painting of bloodied, broken and tattered dragon wings on the back of a pale white, nude female. He couldn’t quite say why but it made him sad. He’d seen more than his fair share of death in real life, but this captured the horror of war in a beautiful but haunting way. The nearly transparent, ghost of the female’s face looking back at them was being pulled in wisps upward as if the wind stole her spirit.

Layala stared at it with wide eyes, the way a child marveled at something new. “Who is she?”

“This is another one by Sir Drevor,” the tour guide said, folding her arms behind her back. “He titled it ‘Taken Too Soon’. If she was real, we don’t know who she is. Another tragic loss to war perhaps, a senseless murder. Dragons can be—temperamental. Some speculate it was his wife.”

“If he’s alive,” Fennan said, “Why don’t you ask?”

“His mind isn’t what it once was,” Prince Ronan answered. “He doesn’t speak anymore, but he paints.”

She stepped to the next painting. “This one is quite different from the others. It was done only twenty years ago, featuring our own Crown Prince Yoren.”

Thane slipped his hand into Layala’s and gave a shake of his head. She frowned and sighed. No luck today it would seem. When her jaw dropped open though he followed her gaze to the painting. It was perhaps five feet high and three wide. The background was smudged and unclear almost like a fog was over it, like the artist couldn’t see where Prince Yoren stood. The beige color vaguely resembled a wall or high building. But it wasn’t the background or Prince Yoren himself that took him by surprise. Thane’s gaze pinned to the gold chain and the piece that hung against Prince Yoren’s chest. It was the Scepter of Knowing. There was no mistaking it. And when he thought back on it, he remembered seeing a gold chain around the prince’s neck, but the end of it was always tucked under his clothes.

“This one is titled, ‘The Guardian’.”

“Who is that in the painting with him?” Piper asked.

At the bottom, the backs of two heads of dark hair were unfocused, smudged, and parallel to each other, maybe admiring him. Or even possibly standing against him. Prince Yoren held two swords at his sides.

“The anonymous artist left it against the museum door. So, we don’t know.”

Feeling it more than seeing it, Thane knew Ronan watched him, stared even, as if he suspected something. “The Guardian,” Thane murmured. So Prince Yoren was the guardian of the scepter and Thane would have to take it.

It had taken another hour by the time they got through each painting, coveted treasure, and statue. The tour guide handed them each a small silver coin with the image of the museum stamped on it on their way out the door. A souvenir.

Thane paused at the top of the steps to drop the coin in his pocket then looked up to Ronan staring again. The others were already halfway down the long set of stairs.

“You want the Scepter of Knowing. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it the moment you spotted it in the book.”

And yet Ronan had handed him the book… Thane met his light-blue gaze. There was no anger or bitterness, no surprise or accusation. Thane didn’t deny it. What was the point? Ronan knew.

“And if I did?”

“Well, then you have to battle the guardian for it. No one takes a dragon’s treasure without a fight.” A slow feline smile. “And the arena is filled with the skulls of those who’ve tried.”

* * *

The chair Layalasat in felt cold, hard, and uncomfortable. The dim firelight cast long shadows across the room, over the dragon queen’s face. Ronan escorted them directly here after the museum. The smirk on his face made Layala nervous, as if he knew something, she did not.

And whether the queen was furious or amused, Layala wasn’t sure. The softness of her glossed red lips contrasted the narrowed glare. She sat on the edge of a massive cherry oak desk. With her legs crossed, she bounced her top foot and stared at Layala like she might have the plague.

No one had said a word since they stepped into the room. Prince Yoren stood with his arms folded, legs spread wide in a stance not easily knocked off balance, and Prince Ronan sat with his feet up on his mother’s desk behind her.