Gold
Gold.
The warm light of spring, gilding dust motes as they drift toward heaven. The deceptive warmth of desert sands, sapping strength from your limbs even as it lulls you to sleep. She is the precious one, held closest to the heart of him who made her; she is the lonely guardian of an incomprehensible treasure. Brilliant and jarring as acid on the tongue, fast as an amber-scaled snake and just as quick to kill. The only sister, standing out like a dropped coin in a bed of precious stones.
Mother and daughter, the mysterious feminine. Her brothers don't know what to make of her; she frightens and confuses them, keeping to herself what they are better off not knowing. Unknown and all-knowing, she is the good soldier, the consummate spymaster, heading a female fifth column in a world built by men.
This is the missing piece, the one who disappeared in the struggle. She is the gap in the incomplete series, lost only to resurface at the worst possible time. Ruthless and intelligent, but loyal before all of that, she is the one who remembers the real reason they were made. The perfect standard, the mold the others should have been thrown from, the one with her name on yellowing pages moldering on a lost planet.
Silence is golden, as she well knows.
