Rysn knew for a fact that this was mostly for show. In a world of Shardblades, the real defense of the vault was in the layers of guards who surrounded the building, and—more importantly—in the careful auditing of its contents. Though novels were full of stories of the vault being robbed, the only real thefts had occurred through embezzlement.
Rysn moved her dial to the proper number, then pulled the lever in her room. The vault door finally opened with a resounding thump, and she scrambled her dial and called for Wmlak. Her porter entered, then pushed down on the back handles of her chair, lifting the front legs so he could wheel it out to meet the others.
Vstim stood by the now-open vault door with several soldiers. Today’s inner door guard—Tlik—stood with crossbow at the ready, barring entry. There was a slot that let the men stationed in the vault communicate with those outside, but the door couldn’t be opened from within.
“Scheduled accounting of the queen’s personal vault,” Rysn said to him. “Daily passcode: lockstep.”
Tlik nodded, stepping back and lowering his crossbow. Vstim entered with ledger in hand, trailed by a member of the Queen’s Guard: a rough-looking man with a shaved head and spiked eyebrows. Once they were in, Wmlak wheeled Rysn through the vault door, down a short corridor, and into a little alcove, where another guard—Fladm, today—waited.
Her porter brushed off his hands, then nodded to her and retreated. Tlik shut the vault door after him, the metal making a deep thump as it locked into place. The inner vault guards didn’t like anyone coming in who wasn’t specifically authorized—and that included her servant. She’d have to rely on the guards to move her now—but unfortunately, her large wheeled chair was too bulky to fit between the rows of shelves in the main vault.
Rysn felt a healthy dose of shame in front of her former babsk as she was taken—like a sack of roots—from her chair with rear wheels to a smaller chair with poles along the sides. Being carried was the most humiliating part.
The guards left her usual chair in the alcove, near the steps down to the lower level. Then, Tlik and the guardsman the queen had sent—Rysn didn’t know his name—took the poles and carried her into the main vault chamber.
Even here, in this job where she sat most of the time, her inability was a huge inconvenience. Her embarrassment was exacerbated as Chiri-Chiri—who wasn’t allowed in the vault for practical reasons—flitted by in a buzz of wings. How had she gotten in?
Tlik chuckled, but Rysn only sighed.
The main vault chamber was filled with metal racks, like bookcases, containing display boxes of gemstones. It smelled stale. Of a place that never changed, and was never intended to change.
The guards carried her down one of the narrow rows, light from spheres tied to their belts providing the only illumination. Rysn carried the captain’s rope in her lap, and fingered it with one hand. Surely she couldn’t take this offer. It was too generous. Too incredible.
Too difficult.
“So dark!” Vstim said. “A room full of a million gemstones, and it’s dark?”
“Most gems never leave,” Rysn said. “The personal merchant vaults are on the lower level, and there’s some light to those, with the spheres everyone has been bringing lately. These, though … they’re always here.”
Possession of these gems changed frequently, but it was all done with numbers in a ledger. It was a quirk of the Thaylen system of underwriting trades; as long as everyone was confident that these gemstones were here, large sums could change hands without risk of anything being stolen.
Each gemstone was carefully annotated with numbers inscribed both on a plate glued to its bottom and on the rack that held it. Those numbers were what people bought and sold—Rysn was shocked by how few people actually asked to come down and view the thing they were trading to own.
“0013017-36!” Vstim said. “The Benval Diamond! I owned that way back when. Memorized the number even. Huh. You know, it’s smaller than I thought it would be.”
She and the two guards led Vstim to the back wall, which held a series of smaller metal vault doors. The main vault behind them was silent; no other scribes were working today, though Chiri-Chiri did flit past. She hovered down toward the queen’s guardsman—eyeing the spheres on his belt—but Rysn snatched her from the air.
Chiri-Chiri griped, buzzing her wings against Rysn’s hand and clicking. Rysn blushed, but held tight. “Sorry.”
“Must be like a buffet for her down here!” Tlik said.
“A buffet of empty plates,” Rysn said. “Keep an eye on your belt, Tlik.”
The two guards set her chair down near a specific vault. With her free hand, Rysn dug a key from her pocket and handed it to Vstim. “Go ahead. Vault Thirteen.”
Vstim unlocked and swung open the smaller vault-within-the-vault, which was roughly the size of a closet.
Light poured from it.
The shelves inside were filled with gemstones, spheres, jewelry, and even some mundane objects like letters and an old knife. But the most stunning item in the collection was obviously the large ruby on the center shelf. The size of a child’s head, it glowed brightly.
The King’s Drop. Gemstones of its size weren’t unheard of—most greatshells had gemhearts as big. What made the King’s Drop unique was that it was still glowing—over two hundred years after being first locked into the vault.
Vstim touched it with one finger. The light shone with such brilliance that the room seemed almost to be in daylight, though shaded bloodred by the gemstone’s color.
“Amazing,” Vstim whispered.
“As far as scholars can tell,” Rysn said, “the King’s Drop never loses its Stormlight. A stone this large should have run out after a month. It’s something about the crystal lattice, the lack of flaws and imperfections.”
“They say it’s a chunk off the Stone of Ten Dawns.”
“Another story?” Rysn said. “You are a romantic.”
Her former babsk smiled, then placed a cloth shade over the gemstone to reduce its glare so it wouldn’t interfere with their work. He opened his ledger. “Let’s start with the smaller gemstones and work our way up, shall we?”
Rysn nodded.
The queen’s guard killed Tlik.
He did it with a knife, right into the neck. Tlik dropped without a word, though the sound of the knife being ripped free shocked Rysn. The treacherous guard knocked against her chair, toppling her over as he slashed at Vstim.
The enemy underestimated the merchant’s spryness. Vstim dodged backward into the queen’s vault, screaming, “Murder! Robbery! Raise the alarm!”
Rysn untangled herself from her toppled chair and, panicked, pulled herself away by her arms, dragging legs like cordwood. The murderer reached into the vault to deal with her babsk, and she heard a grunt.
A moment later, the traitor stepped out, carrying a large red light in his hand. The King’s Drop, shining brightly enough despite its black wrapping cloth. Rysn caught a glimpse of Vstim collapsed on the floor inside the vault, holding his side.
The traitor kicked the door closed—locking the old merchant away. He glanced toward her.
And a crossbow bolt hit him.
“Thief in the vault!” Fladm’s voice said. “Alarm!”