Chapter 15 ROSE
The vault even provided a small natural chimney that was large enough to allow the smoke from a small fire to escape.
Derrick quickly built one while I spread out the blankets I’d brought and set out honey and bread.
He took one of the golden pitchers, promising to fetch water, while I wandered through the incredible trove, hoping to spot something practical.
Everywhere I turned, something glimmered back at me—gems, chalices, and strange relics carved from ivory or bone, coins punched with ancient faces too faded for any mint, and in the dimmest part of the cave, a heap of what looked like the battered remnants of a crown, perhaps three or four melted together into a demented, many-pronged beast. It was all too much, and almost none of it was immediately practical, except for the gold plates, thick, heavy, but flat enough, and the goblets, which were so encrusted with stones that it almost seemed a crime to pour water into them.
I found a bottle which, by some miracle, had not shattered under the centuries’ weight.
I opened it, sniffed—the smell indicated a sort of liquid between wine and resin, mingled with the sharp ghost of fire—and set it aside, thinking it would serve as lamp oil, or maybe medicine if things got dire.
But what struck me most, tucked behind a pile of chalices, was a stack of bolts of cloth.
Not silk, but something rougher, shot through with metallic threads so that even in the low light each fold caught fire.
I ran it between my fingers; it was coarse, yes, but sturdy, and if I layered it with the softer blankets, it could serve for a bed.
I set to work immediately: rolling out the bolts, improvising a nest in a shadowy corner that looked least likely to attract magical vermin, and using the plates and cups as weights to keep the fabric from sliding on the stone.
My hands moved quickly, almost feverishly, as if action alone could shield me from the mind-melting reality of what surrounded us.
By the time Derrick came back, I had re-fed the fire, arranged the bed, and even found an iron poker—shaped like a snake, grotesquely realistic—that could serve as a makeshift weapon and fire prodder both.
He paused in the passage, arms full of dried wood and a tangle of roots, and the golden pitcher dangling from his fingers.
He stared at the space I’d made. For a moment, he said nothing, just looked from the golden cups to the little nest of cloth, and then back at me with an expression so vulnerable it made my chest squeeze tight.
“Rose,” he said finally, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe me. “You’re amazing.”
I felt my face go so hot it nearly steamed.
“It’s nothing,” I mumbled, hastily spreading the last bolt over the others.
“Just… making it a little less like a dragon’s grave and more like a home, I suppose.
” I didn’t dare meet his eyes, not with the way he was looking at me, and the silence that followed was both awkward and warm.
I took some of the kindling from his arms and busied myself with the fire, and only as I watched the resinous roots crackle and pop as they fed the hungry flames did I realize how hollow my stomach was.
Derrick set the rest of his load down, lifted the pitcher, and filled the cups with the clearest water I’d ever seen.
He handed me one, and though it felt criminal to drink from a goblet rimmed in rubies, I took it and sipped.
The cold water was so pure and sharp, it made my teeth ache.
We sat side by side, knees almost touching in the little golden pool of firelight, and for the first time since we’d entered the cave, I felt a little bit safe.
We ate the honey and bread, washed down with the water, and it felt like we were having the greatest feast ever.
But the weight of the hoard pressed in on me.
I looked around, taking in the endless piles, and finally voiced the question that had been gnawing at me since we’d first crossed the warded threshold.
“What are you going to do with all this? You’ll never haul it all out.
I don’t think ten armies could carry it. ”
He didn’t answer right away, just took a long pull from his own cup. Then he said in a voice so low I almost missed it, “Me? Nothing. None of this is mine. You and Snow—you’re Alarion’s daughters, whether you like it or not. This is yours. I only ask to be allowed to keep the heart.”
I almost spat my water. “Snow and me?” I stared so hard my eyes watered, counting up the coins and cups and cloth bolts and knowing, in my bones, that even a handful of gems from this place would keep a villager fed for a hundred years.
“That… this is too much. Derrick, we—” I lost the words, tried to find my tongue, failed, and shook my head instead.
“We don’t… who would need all this? What are we supposed to do, start our own kingdom? ”
He smiled—a little, sad twist of his lips—and set his cup down. “You could, if you wished. But I think you’d find it more burden than blessing. Gold breeds curses. I’d melt the lot if it would break the spell.”
I picked at the edge of one gold-threaded blanket. “I can’t… I couldn’t… this isn’t real. Not for us. When we get out, we’ll go back to our house and garden. We don’t need any of this.”
Derrick’s hand brushed mine, and the heat of it startled me. “You don’t have to take it,” he said. “But you should ask Snow. She has a right to decide too.”
He was right, of course. Snow would be horrified, or maybe she’d just try to give it all away to the nearest orphanage or convent.
I could almost hear her voice now, soft and trembling, We’re not dragons, Rose.
We can’t keep a hoard. The thought made me smile, just a little.
Maybe it would be enough to know the wealth was here if needed.
Or maybe we’d leave it, walk away, and let the wilds reclaim it as they had every other kingdom that rose and fell in these woods.
That was a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, there were only the two of us, the fire, and a strange sort of peace that appeared to be brought on by successfully running for one’s life.
I curled up in the nest of gold cloth, and Derrick stretched out on the far side, close enough that I could feel his body’s warmth radiate through the night air.
He patted the spot next to him, and that was all the invitation I needed.
I snuggled in close, putting my head on his chest and listening to the strong beating heart underneath.
His fingers moved slowly up and down my arm.
The touch was light, but it created a fire underneath my skin that began to spread.
I remembered the kiss by the creek. Remembered how it had consumed us until Derrick had broken it off and run away.
The memory still stung, the way he had pulled back, leaving me hollow and aching.
A part of me feared he might do it again, that he would put distance where my heart begged for closeness.
But his touch… gods, even the whisper of his fingers across my arm was enough to set me alight.
The fire he left in his wake spread deeper, until every part of me throbbed with the need to be closer, to be his.
I tilted my head, searched his face, and found his gaze already fixed on me. Gold-brown eyes burned into mine, bright even in the dark. There was a question there, a plea he hadn’t voiced, and it unraveled my fear.
Before I could stop myself, I pushed up, closing the space between us. He met me halfway. Our lips touched, soft at first, almost reverent, and the world stilled. The vault, the treasure, the shadows, all of it vanished. There was only Derrick. Only us.
The kiss deepened; heat rose until my whole body trembled with it. His hand slid to the back of my neck, steadying me, pulling me into him as though he couldn’t bear to let me go.
I had been afraid of this moment, of wanting too much. But as his mouth moved against mine, tender and hungry all at once, I knew there was no fear left in me. Only longing. Only love.
He was the first to break for air. His forehead pressed into mine, and for a moment, he just breathed me in, as if the world had gone thin and I was the only air left.
His fingers traced my jaw—one rough knuckle, slow and gentle—and in his eyes I saw not hunger but awe, a wonder so raw I felt my insides clench around it.
“Rose,” he said, voice frayed with need. “If you want me to stop—”
I shook my head fiercely. “I want… I want all of you. If you’ll let me.”
He closed his eyes like the words wounded him, but his mouth cut any protest short. The next kiss was ferocious. My hands found his shoulders, the corded muscle bunched tight beneath the old shirt, and I clung as we tumbled back across the blanket, a tangle of arms and longing.
He moved like he was afraid I’d break, but there was no gentleness in the way my heart hammered, no fragility in the ache that throbbed between my legs.
He laid me out in front of the fire and hovered above, gold eyes solemn as a vow.
I thought he might pull away, might force patience on this fever, but instead he ran a hand up my side, from hip to ribs, making me shiver and arch beneath his touch.
I was shaking and shameless, already begging for more.
His lips left a burning trail from my mouth to my neck, over my collarbone, down into the hollow between my breasts.
He worked loose the laces of my shift, slow, never looking away from me.
The garment slipped down, and my skin pebbled against the sudden chill.
I tried to cover myself, stupid with sudden embarrassment, but he caught my wrists.
“Don’t,” he whispered, “please.” Like I was the miracle, not him.