Hidden Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 7) by Genevieve Jack (best book club books .txt) 📕

Sylas told himself that Dianthe would get over it. She just needed time to allow everything he’d told her to sink in. Once she realized how dangerous things were for all of them right now, she’d thank him for doing what he had. Out of an abundance of caution, she had to stay out of rebellion business.

He reentered the tent alone and took a seat on one of the benches that surrounded a central table where Colin had set his mysterious bag. His siblings and their mates did the same. Leena, the scribe Colin had brought with him from Rogos, stood silently by his side. Sylas didn’t know much about Rogos. No one did, which was why Colin had gone on his mission to begin with. He wondered what her role in all this was.

“Where’s Dianthe?” Raven asked, sliding in beside him with Charlie on her hip.

“Headache,” he said. “She needed to lie down.”

The corner of her eye twitched skeptically.

He quickly looked toward Colin. “What is this breakthrough you speak of, brother?”

“And tell us who did that to your arm?” Gabriel pointed his chin toward the wavelike pattern on Colin’s skin.

Sylas was wondering the same thing. It looked a hell of a lot like a burn, but dragons were impervious to fire and impossible to tattoo. Sylas had never seen marks like it before on his kind.

Colin raised an eyebrow. “I did it to myself when I reached into one of the sacred pools of Niven in Rogos.”

A collective gasp rose up from his siblings, and Sylas flinched. The substance in the sacred pools was said to be absolutely lethal. It burned dragons like acid burned humans. It burned anything like acid. Any creature that fell into one of the pools never came out again.

“Hurt like a bitch, but it was worth it. Thanks to Leena’s help, I was able to retrieve this little beauty.”

He reached into the bag and pulled out an orb. Sylas took a step closer to get a better look. Perfectly smooth and round, the thing might have been made of glass or polished crystal. It shone bright royal purple with a swirl of bubbles spiraling in its interior.

“What is that?” Sylas asked. He spied an object at the very center. Metallic and oddly shaped, it had a circular center with projections like a cogwheel.

Raven stood to get a better look, leaning over the table. Charlie reached for the orb and Raven pulled her away. “It’s definitely enchanted. I can feel the magic coming off of it from here.”

“Strong magic,” Nathaniel said, cozying up to her side with Clarissa behind him.

Sylas thought the magical individuals in the room might crawl right into the orb given their heightened interest.

“Not too close.” Leena’s arm shot out between them and the orb, her body growing tense at Colin’s side. Her pointed ears twitched with her annoyance.

“The orb is most definitely enchanted,” Colin said, “and as you can see, given that I pulled it from a sacred pool, a scribe has accompanied me here to ensure I treat it and the scroll that led us to it with the respect it deserves.”

Leena gave a shallow bow.

“But what is it?” Sylas asked again.

“It’s a key,” Leena said. She drew a scroll from her pack and unrolled it on the table beside the orb. “Or rather, we believe what is inside the orb is a piece of a key. We believe, based on the writing and illustrations on this scroll, that there are five parts.”

A tingle crawled across Sylas’s skin and he met Colin’s eyes, so much like his own. “A key to what?”

Colin made a noise deep in his throat. “A potential weapon.”

“It took Colin and me months to find this.” Leena smoothed the scroll.

Sylas glanced down at the parchment and found illustrations of five orbs. Each held a different shape inside, surrounded by strange symbols he recognized as Elvish but could not read. “What does it say?”

“Elvish scribes have been chronicling the history of Ouros for centuries. I wasn’t sure when exactly the book was brought to this world, so we had to search hundreds of scrolls to find one that referenced it. This is that scroll.”

Beside him, Raven became agitated. “Book? I thought Colin mentioned a weapon.”

“It’s a grimoire,” Colin explained. “The most powerful magical text to have ever existed. If the rebellion had that book, we’d have a real chance of ending Eleanor’s reign.”

Raven bristled, her face paling. “You don’t mean the golden grimoire, as in Hera’s golden grimoire?”

“One and the same,” Colin said. “How do you know of it?”

Raven’s gaze darted to Gabriel. Something unspoken passed between them. “A premonition… It’s a long story. Where is the book hidden? How do we get the other parts of the key?”

Leena cleared her throat. “The scroll says that the grimoire was brought to Ouros at the beginning of Eleanor and Brynhoff’s reign by Medea, who became the witch queen of Darnuith. Her mate, Tavyss, was the older brother of Brynhoff and challenged him for the throne. When Eleanor and Brynhoff did not comply, Medea attacked Paragon in the fourth century. She and her dragon mate were killed during the uprising despite having the grimoire. Medea was pregnant at the time with their young. The scribe who wrote that noted a common belief at the time that Eleanor or Brynhoff somehow tricked Medea and Tavyss into letting their guard down and took advantage of it.”

“If they killed Medea and her mate, why doesn’t Eleanor have the grimoire?” Raven asked.

It was a good question. It was unlike Sylas’s mother to allow any source of power to slip through her fingers.

“I think I can answer that.” Nathaniel held up a finger. “Mother did not start practicing magic until after we were born. It is very possible she didn’t recognize the power of the grimoire or else didn’t see it for what it was. Perhaps this witch Medea disguised it in some way.”

Leena nodded slowly. “The witch had two sisters—”

“The original three sisters.”