Treasures and Trinkets: The Dragon's Brood Cycle

By Josh de Lioncourt

Before she was a prisoner in Marianne's crystal mines or just another face among the multitudes in the city of Seven Skies, Maddy had a different name and everything she could want—governesses, gowns, and gold to fill her pockets. And though she wasn't the son her father had wanted, it was inevitable that one day she would inherit his title.
But Maddy's predictable world is turned upside down when an extraordinary servant girl challenges everything she's ever known; there's a wider world beyond the comfortable confines of her castle, full of wonder and magic, and Maddy finds that the one thing she doesn't have is the only thing she really needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Draconis Entertainment
• Release date: Feb 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393837534

Book preview

Treasures and Trinkets

A Dragon’s Brood Tale

by Josh de Lioncourt

Published by Draconis Entertainment

2020

Copyright © 2020 Josh de Lioncourt

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real events, locales, mythical creatures, or actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental or are used fictitiously.

Historian's Note

The events recounted herein begin concurrently with those related in Haven Divided: The Dragon’s Brood Cycle, Vol. 2. After the young urchin boy Daniel caused a catastrophic diversion in Marianne’s crystal mines to help Emily and Corbbmacc escape (Haven Lost: The Dragon’s Brood Cycle Vol. 1), he was captured by a band of desert slavers known as Reavers. Maddy, a caustic and fiercely independent young woman also held prisoner in the mines who had developed a close bond with Daniel, set out with a fellow prisoner, a sarqin named Galak, to rescue Daniel, eventually meeting back up with Emily Haven and her friends, although that reunion is still in the future.

Familiarity with Haven Lost and Haven Divided is recommended, but not required, to enjoy this tale.

Maddy gnawed the bone in her hand and stared moodily into the dancing flames of their campfire. The meat from the bird they’d roasted was long gone, but she wasn’t ready to stop gnashing her teeth. It was a feeble distraction, but she’d learned to make do since leaving home. In a while, perhaps, she’d take out the crystal she’d been carving and let her hands take over for her teeth.

There was no point dwelling on what had happened to Danny. They were on his trail, and he’d either be all right when they caught up to the Reavers who had taken him, or…

Even just brushing against that thought chipped away at the carefully constructed crystalline armor around her heart. Worrying away at Danny’s plight in her mind wouldn’t get them any closer to him, and grief or self-recriminations would only slow them down.

And she didn’t want to slow down. She wanted to get back to what she was supposed to be doing. Absently, she touched the palm of her left hand and the invisible mark that burned there.

The high, piercing caw of a risp sliced through the stillness of the dwindling twilight, echoing off the mountainside and rolling out over the expanse of desert that lay ahead of them.

Kitsper got your tongue? Galak asked, his tone more subdued than she was used to hearing from him. There was still a hint of gentle teasing though, and she knew he was trying to draw her out. He was always trying to draw her out. Why couldn’t the great lummox let her be?

Not really, she said at last, tossing the bone into the fire and watching it blacken. She pulled her pack into her lap and dug out the long narrow piece of crystal she’d taken from the mines, running her fingers over the smooth edges she’d already finished and letting them linger on the rough patches she had yet to shape.

Across from her, Galak’s furry form sprawled beside the fire, his great bulk casting an even larger shadow in the light of the flames. He stretched like an overgrown cat, causing his joints to pop and crack.

I’m still hungry, he grumbled.

Maddy snorted. You’re always fuckin’ hungry.

Not always, Galak protested. Only when there’s not enough to eat.

Then there’s never been enough to eat.

There was a pause before he answered. Yeah, that sounds ‘bout right.

Maddy snorted again. Somehow, Galak always made her laugh, no matter how dark her mood or the bleak paths her thoughts had wandered down. It was both wonderful and irritating.

Tell me a story, he said, crossing his gargantuan ankles and pillowing his great shaggy head on his arms.

What?

Tell me a story, he repeated. That’s what my mama always did when I was hungry to make me forget.

I don’t tell stories, Maddy said more sharply than she’d intended. There was a sharp ping inside her chest—a pickaxe against stone—and she felt another flake of crystal fall away. No, she’d never been the storyteller. Lessa had been the storyteller. In her lap, her fingers moved faster over the crystal, feeling for the lines she would soon be drawing out.

Ah c’mon, Galak whined, the deep rumble of his voice completely at odds with his tone.

I don’t tell stories, she said again, more gently this time.

Well, then, not a story. Just something that happened to you once. You don’t have to make it up. I won’t know the difference.

Maddy sighed, lay back beside the fire, and looked up at the stars. There’d been a few flurries of snow higher up on the mountains, but now that they were coming back down and approaching the desert, the air had that pleasant coolness she had always associated with the autumn nights leading up to Samhain.

Oh, how Lessa had loved Samhain. But Lessa had loved all festivals, hadn’t she? Lessa had loved life. Where was Lessa now? Out there somewhere.

Again she found her fingers worrying the warm spot on her palm, and she forced herself to stop.

After she and Galak found Danny, it’d be time to resume her search for Lessa.

All right, she said finally. On the other side of the fire, she heard Galak