Diamond in the Rough - Vivienne Savage Page 0,1

worst day, they still weren’t evenly matched, but for the sake of his safety, he had pretended he was almost at his best and let the powerful aura of his magic ebb from him like an inexorable tide.

“We returned with the proper paperwork and authorizations,” the watch sergeant began in a droll voice, feigning boredom with the whole affair despite the excitement gleaming in his eyes. This was a man overjoyed with a minor victory. “Once again, Bane, we’ll need your keys and—Are you…quite all right, sir? You’re…you appear to be a little under the weather.”

Xavier smiled through the pain. “I am indeed. I must have caught something while exploring the desert for alchemical reagents,” he informed the sergeant. He plopped the heavy key ring in the man’s open palm, which the sergeant stared at before briskly passing off to another watchman and wiping his palm against his trousers. “For all your sakes, let’s hope it isn’t contagious.”

“Contagious?” The watchmen to the rear of the officer fidgeted in discomfort. The sergeant eyed Xavier’s threshold with all the trepidation of men who didn’t fancy visiting the healing house for a remedy to an exotic desert illness. The prices were highway robbery, but they’d be fed a foul concoction brewed by some elderly priestess, and they’d be on the mend in a fraction of the time.

Magic did not come free, nor did the convenience of curing the flux in twenty-four hours, as opposed to a weeklong trial of vomiting and fever.

Xavier didn’t tend to fall ill often, and when he did, he brewed curatives of his own or retreated to his hoard and slept it off.

“Well, gentlemen, don’t let my sniffles and cough hold you. You’d like to ransack my storerooms, yes?” Xavier smiled thinly, without pity as they shuffled in place. He departed the shop and gestured with a broad sweep of his arm to the open doorway, indicating they were free to enter and do as they wished. All of the draconic power in the kingdom wasn’t enough to hold an army at bay, and it was far too early to play his hand.

While they investigated his storefront and rummaged through his belongings for proof of wrongdoing, Xavier slipped into the shade of a palm shading the walking path. The irony didn’t escape him. His father would have laughed at the sight, a rainbow dragon cringing from the sunlight and cowering in the shade. The dry weather and heat did little to aid his cough.

“Master Bane,” the jeweler called from the stoop of her shop, her fair brow pinched with obvious concern. “What’s happened for the city watch to visit you again? Was there a theft?”

Xavier shook his head. “No. Far from it.”

She lingered, leaving one hand on the door. “Should we be worried?”

“No. I merely seem to have fallen on the wrong side of the law by happenstance. It’s nothing of concern for you,” he assured her.

Though Xavier tried to will her away with all of his might, the friendly jeweler stepped down and crossed the narrow stretch of dry grass between them. “Just the same, it would honor me if you came in and rested. It’s the hottest day of summer, say the weather mages. You’ll catch heat sickness.” Sharp eyes raked over him, taking in his appearance. Her mouth quirked and lips pursed together as she studied him with the critical eye of a mother. “If you haven’t already.”

“It’s nothing, Moiranna. Just a little cough I picked up while out in the desert. You know how it is.”

“Then you should especially be careful of your health now that you’ve already subjected your body to the heat. Come in. Please.”

Rainbow dragons, as well as their other hot-blooded cousins, didn’t catch heat sickness, but she wouldn’t know that. Were it anyone else, Xavier would have viewed the offer under the heavy lens of skepticism while wondering what benefit she hoped to receive. Such was unnecessary with Moiranna. No one kinder worked in the merchant square. More than that, Xavier had attended her wedding to one of the most prosperous metalsmiths in the district only three years prior, a ceremony attended by almost every shopkeeper in the Gardens. Whatever kindness Moiranna offered, Xavier knew she always did so out of genuine compassion.

“All right.”

He spent the remainder of their search sipping tea for his ragged throat, wondering what, if anything, the watchmen would find while rifling through his belongings.

As long as Rosalia remained in the hoard, Xavier had absolute confidence that