Page 7 of Guardian's Dilemma

I flew over to the woods and circled it. I knew exactly where Alfie would go if he was there, because he had a little den that he and Morgan had built before Morgan left us. Alfie still went to play there, on his own.

I dipped low over the trees and listened, scanned for movement, and reached out with my magic. My magic wasn’t the most flashy but it was designed to protect. That was why I was the Guardian.

Alfie wasn’t there, which meant he was safely tucked up at the castle, so I turned and flew around the boundary to where I’d felt that strange pressure. The spells were unharmed.

Just to check, I landed and walked right up to them, my long neck stretched out, my sharp dragon’s eyes scanning for any sign of weakness. My spells were layered up thickly in this place. In fact, my spells were thicker here than anywhere else along the whole boundary, these days. My dragon snorted and a small stream of smoke blew out of our nose at the memory of Alfie being shot. We’d come straight here and layered the protections up and up, making them so strong that nobody could get through, nobody could see through them and definitely no bullets could get through again. Anywhere within sight of Alfie’s woods was so thickly layered in protection that I doubted Lord Somerville himself would be able to get through them, and he was our elder and the most powerful of us.

But I was the Guardian and it was my duty to protect my clan.

I searched that whole stretch of boundary but saw nothing that could make me nervous. It didn’t stop the strange feeling that tingled around me, though. Something had happened; I just didn’t know what.

I went back to the vaults, wondering whether to call the castle or not; my instinct was to report this, put everyone on the alert, but I didn’t know what I’d say. Lord Somerville didn’t like to listen to vague nonsense.

My instinct won. Whether that was my dragon, right at the heart of me, I didn’t know. What I knew was that I was built to protect, and I couldn’t leave it alone. I walked into the vaults and stopped in the entrance hall. It was a large underground structure, designed to be secure and hidden. It was the place where we kept any valuable items until we wanted them on display at the house, and it was where we kept the bulk of our wealth in gold and jewels.

People think it is in a dragon’s nature to hoard but actually it is their nature to protect what is theirs. They are as possessive of boring, everyday things as they are of gold. A real dragon would fight just as hard to protect the crockery in their cupboard as they would a mound of gold, if they loved it just the same.

It’s just that, as Somervilles and one of the oldestuasalbloodlines, we had a lot of gold.

Before I could go and check on it, though, I shifted back into human form and dressed. I’d shed my clothes in the entrance hall before I left, and I pulled them on quickly – a loose shirt and black training leggings – and grabbed the phone in the centre of the bundle, too.

I took a second to think before I dialled Rhod, Lord Somerville’s PA. I always needed just a second to remember who I was talking to and what they were allowed to know.

“Glimmer, any news?”

I paused. “I have nothing concrete to report.”

Rhod shuffled some papers. “Are you saying you have anything else to report?”

“Not yet. Just an… uneasiness.”

“You know I can’t tell Lord Somerville that you want to lock everyone down because you feel uneasy.”

“I know, and I’m not asking you to. I’m just warning you that I might report something else later, if it turns out to be something worth reporting.”

“Very thoughtful of you. Would you like someone to come down to the vault to help?”

My dragon prickled at the suggestion. “No. I don’t need help. I’m the Guardian.”

Rhod sighed. “So really you called just to tell me that nothing was going on?”

My dragon was restless inside me, which was unusual. It was moving a little, almost as though it was trying to get out again. My dragon’s instincts were always sound. I trusted my dragon. Which meant there really was something going on here.

I just didn’t know what.

I spoke quietly into the phone. Only a dragon would be able to hear me. “I’m alerting you to a possible intruder, Rhod. Whether you tell Lord Somerville or not is up to you, but I want eyes on Alfie at all times. When I’m happy that there’s no danger, I’ll call you back and tell you that. Until then, Alfie goes nowhere alone and I don’t suggest anyone ventures too near the boundary.”

With that, I hung up. Rhod would see to it because he was that type. He always did his duty, which I admired him for. It was just that his duty was paperwork and boring administration and, sure, someone needed to do it, but it meant he didn’t understand the deep need inside me to see my treasure protected. His duty was to keep inventories of paperclips. My duty was to keep my clan safe. There was a big difference, in my opinion.

Slowly I moved deeper into the vault, heading down the long passage that sloped underground. There was something here that wasn’t… right. Only I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. It wasn’t a scent in the air or an object out of place, but my dragon snorted inside me and warned me that it was ready to push up to the surface at any moment. It wanted to protect me, and it was sure there was danger here.

Chapter 4: Kingsley

Icould hardly believe it. I’d found the dragons’ hoard. They stored them in vaults, often in basements in their castle, but this one was separate from the castle, half a mile away if I were to judge.

I’d been in one before, during training, but that had been long-abandoned. Or, rather, it was the territory of a dragon clan we’d wiped out nearly thirty years before I was born. It was kept by the Council, though, as a training ground to teach us how dragons organise their clans and what their territories look like.

I was glad I’d been in there – several times, in fact – because otherwise I might have got overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place. The vault went deep underground and became chilly, the only light was the bulbs running along the corridor. It looked like they hadn’t updated this place since the fifties. Probably they didn’t want to have anyone enter it to update it, since dragons were so possessive about gold.

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