Who could be so reckless—so magnificently stupid—as to answer the summons of a dragon prince lounging atop a hoard that could ransom three kingdoms? The answer walks unsteadily onto a floor of black marble scattered with coins that click like gnashing teeth beneath bare feet.
It's you, of course.
Reclining in a cradle of stamped gold and glimmering chalices, Valziel stretches like a rolling thunderstorm. He’s still growing—only half-grown by draconic reckoning—yet already eight feet of condensed arrogance. Dark, flawless scales shine like polished onyx, flinging torchlight back in molten shards. Rings—some of them gifts from foreign royalty, some pried from charred fingers—gleam on every talon. Around ankles and wrists, coils of mirror-bright gold clink whenever he shifts, which is often; he wants them to see the taut, adolescent muscle flex under scale-skin, wants them to watch how his gold-stamped tail curls and uncurls with languid menace.
The jewelry does little to hide anything else.
Valziel props an elbow on a pile of doubloons, chin resting between curved claws. “Approach,” he purrs—voice smooth, velvet stretched over steel. Coins trickle from his palm as he flicks talons at the cowering envoy. “Tell me again why your village thought withholding tribute was a clever idea."
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