The jet landed at another private airport on the edge of town, and a limo stood waiting to drive us into the city. Once inside I leaned back against the cold leather seat and crossed my legs, deliberately not looking out the tinted windows. I was resolved to appear as cool as possible, and not like a gawking, starstruck tourist who had never seen the glamour of Las Vegas.
I nearly broke that resolve when the limo pulled up in front of the biggest hotel I’d ever seen in my life. It soared above us, blazing with millions of lights, so bright you could barely see the sky overhead. Inside, it was even more difficult not to gape at the enormous foyer tiled in gold and black, ringed with silver-threaded onyx columns, a marble fountain in the center of the opulence. A retinue of well-dressed humans greeted us in the glittering foyer, with instructions that “Mr. R.” was waiting for us, and to please follow them.
We did, trailing the escorts across a crowded casino full of flashing lights, bells and, of course, people. The place was enormous. The gold tile we walked on reflected the millions of lights, and the whole casino had an air of fantasy and surrealism, where time didn’t exist and you could lose hours, or even days, without knowing it. Humans sat at tables with columns of colored chips, or fed bills into the rows of flashing machines that lined every aisle. Everything screamed wealth, riches, luxury, and for a moment, I felt a glimmer of envy through the fascination.
I wanted this.
The humans led us to the elevator bay, escorted us into a box and bowed as the doors slid shut. They did not, I noticed, press any buttons, and neither did Mr. Roth or Mr. Smith. But, after a moment, the elevator shuddered and started to move. Down.
It continued down for a long, long time. No one spoke, and I concentrated on remaining still and keeping the calm, serene expression on my face. When the elevator finally stopped and the doors opened, I saw a short cement corridor, a lone florescent light and a single door at the end of the hall.
I caught Mr. Smith’s eye as we stepped out of the elevator. His gaze was a warning, cold and ominous. This was it, I realized. The moment where all my training, everything I’d learned about Talon and its inner circle, came together. It was either sink or swim, impress or disappoint. Through that door, my future with Talon hung in the balance.
I met my trainer’s stare and gave a short nod. I was ready. Today was the day I started making a name for myself. Mr. Smith watched me a moment longer, then turned away, following Mr. Roth toward the end of the hall.
We stepped through the door into a massive, dimly lit cavern. A huge, yawning chamber that soared up into the darkness, hiding the ceiling from view. The floor was cement, but the walls, as far as I could see, were of natural rock and stone. The air in the cave was unnaturally warm, surprising for being so far underground, and smelled faintly of smoke, though I couldn’t see any fires. There were also no overhead lights, no florescent bulbs or lamps, or even candles. In fact, the only light came from a group of enormous flat screens near the back wall. Over two dozen televisions, bolted to a network of steel frames, formed an immense, flickering semicircle of noise and images. Each huge screen showed something different: sports, world events, news stations in several different languages. A few of them appeared to be casino security, cycling through different areas of the hotel. More than one screen showed nothing but the Dow, tracking the rise and fall of stocks. Horses sped down a track, police sirens wailed and an attractive Asian reporter babbled at me in Japanese.
It was a chaotic flood of imagery, a hundred different things happening all at once. So I didn’t immediately notice what lay beneath the circle of screens. Then Mr. Smith put a warning hand on my shoulder, stopping me from advancing any farther into the room, and I dropped my gaze from the televisions.
My mouth nearly fell open, and I bit my cheek to keep from gasping in shock. An enormous pile of gold lay sprawled on the floor beneath the screens, the light glimmering off the metallic surface. In the darkness and shadows, it was difficult to see how big it really was, but I guessed it was at least forty feet long and fifteen feet high, a virtual mountain of gold in the middle of the cavern. So this was why Reign was so touchy about other dragons being in his territory. He was sitting on a literal treasure hoard. Old-fashioned indeed.
And then, the mountain moved.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and my mouth did fall open this time, as the entire hoard shifted, unfurled two colossal leathery wings and sat up. A head rose on a long, snaking neck, and a tail uncurled to double the length, as an eighty-foot golden dragon turned with a scraping of claws and scales and fixed us with a massive yellow eye.
My legs were frozen. I couldn’t move. I could only stare at the creature before me, torn between awe and utter panic. Besides my sister, I’d only ever seen one other of my kind in its real form, an adult who wasn’t even half the size of this dragon. He had to be a Wyrm, one of three dragons in the world who had passed the thousand-year mark, who had survived so long that they were the size of buildings. Everyone in Talon knew of the Elder Wyrm, the oldest and most powerful of us all, but the identities and locations of the other two were a jealously guarded secret. Reign was ancient, a lesser god gazing down at three tiny insects scurrying around his feet.
I suddenly realized why Talon allowed him his…idiosyncrasies, as Mr. Roth put it. Who would dare to tell him no?
“Well.” The deep voice reverberated through the cavern like thunder, making the walls tremble. “Here you are, then.” Reign pulled himself to his full impressive height, dwarfing everything in the cavern as he stretched, before sinking back and curling his tail around himself. His scales, like antique coins, glittered as he lowered his head to regard me with a blood-chilling smile. “Welcome to my casino,” he continued, giving me a clear, terrifying view of his fangs. “I trust the accommodations are acceptable?”
He was talking to me, I realized, not my trainer or Mr. Roth. Which struck me as very odd. Why would one of the most powerful dragons in Talon take the time to address me and not my superiors?
Be polite, Mr. Roth had said. Always a good plan when staring down an eighty-foot dragon who could swallow you in one bite. “Yes, sir,” I managed, grateful that my voice didn’t shake. “You’ve been more than accommodating. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. Your hotel is very impressive.”
Reign sniffed, but he seemed pleased. “I see they’ve trained you well,” he rumbled, and raised his head to observe the other dragons, standing patiently to either side. “Though I wouldn’t have expected anything else. But I have little time for pleasantries. Let us talk business.”