Present Day
Sylvin did not lead her back towards their rooms, but rather caught her up against him in an alcove and turned her so that her back was against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned over so that his lips were near her ear. “You have noticed the colour lines in the tiles, but there is more than appears to the eye hidden in the architecture here.”
She searched the tiles, her view frequently interrupted by passing courtiers, and then lifted her eyes up the walls. They were across from a pillar intricately carved with filigree design, and she might have missed it if she had not known to look… The filigree formed, in a hollow no bigger than her thumb, the silhouette of a dragon – as if a dragon-shaped piece of stone had been removed from the pattern.
“The dragon,” she whispered. “I saw dragons in the painting of the roof design on the way to the audience chamber.”