Page 58 of A House of Gold
“Welcome to the real game,” he says quietly. “Try not to die.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He almost smiles. “Yeah. That’s what they all say.”
That night, I dream of Gramms.
She’s standing in the library, surrounded by books and scrolls and tablets covered in scripts I can’t read. Her silver hair is pulled back in a bun she always wore. Her gray eyes, so much like mine, are fixed on something in her hands. A book, leather-bound and old, with a symbol on the cover I’ve seen before.
A seven-pointed star.
She looks up, sees me, and her expression doesn’t change. “You’re too late.”
“Too late for what?” My voice echoes strangely in the dream-space.
“To stop it. To save them. To save yourself.” She closes the book.
“What? What happens?”
But she’s already fading, dissolving into golden light that swirls around me like a living thing. Her voice echoes as she disappears. “Finish what I started before they finish you.”
I wake up gasping, tangled in silk sheets that feel like chains. My heart is racing. My hands are shaking. And somewhere in the walls of the house, I swear I can hear laughter.
Not Croesus’s laugh. Something older. Something that knows exactly what I’m looking for.
Something that’s been waiting for me to look.
I don’t sleep again that night.
14
Croesus summons me a few days after I find my grandmother’s ledger entry.
The servant who delivers the message differs from the usual blank-faced attendants. This one is older, female, with silver hair and eyes that actually see me instead of looking through me. She waits while I change into something Croesus won’t sneer at and then leads me through corridors towards somewhere? It feels...official. Since I can find my way alone now.
We go up. I didn’t even realize the house had an up. Every time I’ve tried to find stairs, they’ve led me in circles or deposited me back where I started. But she navigates without hesitation, climbing spiral staircases made of gold-veined marble, passing through galleries where the walls themselves seem to breathe.
“Where are we going?” I ask finally.
“The Collection.” Her voice is soft, accented with something I can’t place. “Lord Croesus wishes to show you.”
“Show me what?”
She doesn’t answer. Just keeps climbing.
We reach a set of doors at the top of the final staircase. Not the dramatic double doors like the library, these are smaller,more intimate. Black wood inlaid with gold, carved with images of dragons hoarding treasure, kings counting coins, merchants weighing gold on scales. The doors to well, a collection, I suppose.
The servant pushes them open and gestures for me to enter. I do, and she closes them behind me without following.
The room beyond is vast and overwhelming in its density. Not empty space filled with floating souls, this is packed with…stuff. Every surface covered, every corner filled, every inch of wall space occupied by something rare or beautiful or priceless.
Paintings in ornate frames, their subjects watching me with eyes which seem too alive. Sculptures of marble and bronze and materials I don’t recognize, depicting gods and monsters and everything between. Display cases filled with jewelry glittering with more than reflected light. Rubies that pulse like hearts; diamonds that fracture light into impossible colors; emeralds that seem to hold entire forests in their depths.
Shelves lined with artifacts I’ve only seen in museums: golden masks, ancient pottery, weapons which predate recorded history. Medieval manuscripts rest beside modern hard drives beside clay tablets covered in cuneiform.
It’s beautiful; it’s overwhelming. It’s absolutely suffocating.
“Do you know what all of this is worth?”
