The Dragon’s Appraiser: Part Two by Viola Rivard

1
    M adja nibbled on her bottom lip as she examined the small golden tablet. Although time had faded the ancient symbols engraved on its face, the grooves were still deep enough that a scholar could easily glean their imprint with a piece of parchment and some charcoal.
    “If I had to guess, I’d say that this was part of a Basheti book of law. Quite rare, quite rare,” she said. “You see, Emperor Vardeksema was the only person in history to unite all of the city-states of Bashet. He created fifty-seven books of law, one for the governor of each city-state. The laws were supposed to unify the uncivilized people, but the emperor’s plan backfired. Because he engraved the laws on solid gold, the governors all sold the tablets, paid for mercenaries, and then revolted. To this day, even just one of these pages would be worth at least a hundred and twenty silvers in the marketplace.”
    That was where she lost the dragon.
    “Why would anyone trade gold for silver?” Sevrrn asked. “Your economy sounds absurd.”
    Typically, Sevrrn sat atop an ornate throne. Each morning he would lay an array of objects in front of his gilded seat and stare down at Madja as she gave a thorough appraisal of each one. But for the past few days, he had forsaken his throne, choosing instead to sit on the coin-littered floor beside her.
    Madja liked to think it was because he was beginning to see her as an equal, or even because he simply enjoyed being beside her. More realistically, he did it to give himself better access to her. After all, it must have been tedious for him to have to get off his throne each time his insatiable libido overcame him.
    “Silver is the most common currency in trading. If this were merely a hunk of gold, it would only be worth one point seven times its weight in silver—about fifty-eight coins. It’s the historical and scholarly principles of it that give it value. Does that make sense?”
    “I suppose to a human, it would,” he said absently.
    Madja recognized his mounting indifference and doubted she would even get to the next appraisal before he’d be on her.
    She was right.
    “I grow tired of this,” he said. “Let us do something else.”
    In one fluid motion, Sevrrn was in front of her, his long arms placed on either side of Madja to cage her in. Beautiful as he was, Sevrrn could never be mistaken for anything but a calculating predator. Any other person would have cowered beneath him. There had been a time when Madja would have as well, but after two months of his antics, she knew how to manage the lascivious dragon.
    “Do you ever think of anything besides sex?” she asked.
    Sevrrn took the question into serious consideration, his garnet eyes turning thoughtful. “Perhaps on occasion.”
    Suppressing a grin, she pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m not really in the mood for that right now.”
    Golden brows drawing together, Sevrrn looked at her as if she had just said something inconceivable. “Why not?”
    She gave a small shrug. “I suppose I have a lot on my mind.”
    Disappointment flashed over his face as he sat back. For all his age and power, one thing the dragon god was not yet adept at was hiding his emotions.
    “Such as?” he asked.
    “Well, mostly I’ve been thinking about visiting town. Remember when I asked you if we could go to the marketplace?”
    Sevrrn grew tense. “No.”
    “And here I thought your memory was—”
    “I meant no, you will not go.”
    “Can you at least consider—?”
    “No.”
    Madja took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She had played this scenario out in her head hundreds of times in the past few months, meticulously planning out how she could convince him to let her get out of the lair for a few days. Of all the arguments she’d been prepared to counter, she still didn’t know to deal with outright rejection.
    “I’m going crazy in here, Sevrrn,” she said, hoping she sounded every bit as weary as she felt. “I need to go be around other