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This’ll fetch a pretty penny back home. If I don’t keep it.
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The first time Chloe Frazer notices something odd about the Queen’s Ruby bracelet, she and Nadine are winding down from their runaway train episode in the Western Ghats. Battered with cuts and bruises, and still speckled with hints of each other’s blood, Chloe keeps her promise to Meenu, the little merchant girl who tried to heckle her before, and spends a small fortune on Indian pizza.
Between the tusk of Ganesh, the Queen’s Ruby bracelet, and several other artifacts picked up along the way, Chloe figures that buying the crew dinner is a pittance compared to the finder's fee coming her way.
After convincing Sam for the last time that handing over the tusk to the Ministry of Culture is the best solution, he eventually backs off. Chloe is admittedly pleased with herself, and happily continues playing with the cheese on her pizza as Meenu and Nadine battle each other for the last slice.
“I was saving that!” Meenu exclaims with every ounce of intimidation in her tiny body.
Nadine grins and pushes the empty boxes and cans to the other side of the counter, flexing her bicep in the universal sign for arm wrestling.
“I’ll duel you for it!” she says with just a little more enthusiasm than necessary. Meenu eyes her up skeptically, but eventually jumps onto the countertop to exact her revenge on the muscled pizza snatcher.
Several fake losses from Nadine, and exaggerated grunts and groans later, the little victor proudly holds her cheesy prize aloft in a declaration of conquest. Nadine pretends to be devastated as the girl enthusiastically eats the last slice of their well-earned meal.
Chloe can’t stop the giggles from bubbling out, and Nadine’s eyes catch hers across the small shop. There is a warmth there that Chloe hasn’t seen since she first called the woman her partner, and a wash of heat floods her face and neck as the memory surfaces. She can practically feel her heart beating in her chest.
Wait. She can feel it. A palpable thump. But not in her chest. In her…hand?
Looking down at her wrist and the Queen’s Ruby bracelet, that familiar red glow has returned, signaling the presence of some treasure or ancient valuables nearby.
But that can’t be right. Usually the trinket glows when an ancient Hoysala relic is in the vicinity. Certainly the bracelet wouldn’t call out for just any old, valuable thing it comes in contact with.
That’s when Chloe also notices that instead of the high struck pinging noise indicating a Hoysala treasure, the bracelet is now emitting a deeper, more rhythmic tone. One that only continues to increase in tempo the longer she listens. Almost like a tabla or a drum being struck by a strong hand.
No, not like a drum. Like a heartbeat.
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The second time the bracelet activates in such a manner, Chloe and Nadine are alone in her apartment for the very first time. Despite Nadine’s assurances that the couch will perfectly suffice, Chloe insists that it gets cold in the living room and they should share her queen bed.
They’ve slept next to each other in more compromising quarters before, she reiterates, so there is no need for Nadine to put herself out on her account.
While all of this is accurate, the truth is that Chloe really likes having Nadine at her side, both literally and figuratively. She balks at telling her to her face, but the truth is, having a warm body beside hers again, being able to push up against a firm, chiseled back in the dark, and having the motion reciprocated with no questions asked, fills a space inside her she didn't realize was empty.
Sometimes on nights like these, when she is feeling particularly vulnerable, Nadine lets Chloe pull her into a loose embrace while they sleep. Never having taken it further, there is an unspoken understanding that this is fine, this is normal, and there is no need to label this unspoken thing between them. The mutual closeness feels satisfying and heady, and she hopes Nadine will be up for more of the same tonight.
Having already showered that morning, Nadine is curled on her side in Chloe’s bed when the thief finishes taking hers. Combing the last of the static out of her blow-dried strands of hair, Chloe doesn't bother taking off her necklace or bracelet before turning off the lamp and collapsing into bed with her partner.
Thankfully, Nadine seems just as eager to receive Chloe’s body heat as Chloe is to give it. Already half asleep, Nadine instinctively rolls over to face her and lies as close as possible without being smothering. One of Chloe’s arms worms its way under her to support Nadine’s head, and the other settles into a generous embrace across her shoulder.
Sighing into the contented beginnings of sleep, Chloe is stirred into wakefulness again at the telltale sound of the heart drum starting to beat. This time, she doesn't just hear it. While initially it seems as soft and unassuming as before, the rhythm eventually picks up, until Chloe starts to feel a light tingling that sinks into her skin at the wrist. It's almost like the grip of a strong hand squeezing hers.
The red light of the jewel is so bright, she can see it clearly beneath two layers of blankets. The tempo this time seems to alternate with the beat of her own heart, until both sounds fall into a complementary rhythm like subtle music to her ears. It’s steady, heavy, and comforting in a way, and also undeniably familiar.
The phenomenon may have lulled her back to sleep if not for Nadine shifting beside her. Looking down, Chloe gasps as her partner’s eyes bore into hers in the darkness, and the thrumming all around them becomes faster and more sporadic. A look of surprise, or confusion, is etched deeply into the features of her partner’s face. Nadine almost looks panicked.
Chloe realizes the jewel’s cadence is not just a fluke, or simply reflecting to the sound of her own heartbeat. Of course it’s not that simple.
Instead, the Queen’s Ruby is mirroring the thumping in Nadine’s harrowing chest, and she's already figured it out.
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“Shantala Devi was the wife of Vishnuvardhana, one of the most well-known kings of the ancient Hoysala empire. A beloved queen, Shantala Devi was a gifted mathematician, artisan, dancer, and musician, and cultivated a love for the finer arts in her people. She was said to have composed some of the finest music in her time, and to see her dance mesmerized everyone who witnessed her. Her husband allowed her to worship her native religion as an agreement to marriage, and her devotion to her faith was so devout, she earned the title of the “crest jewel of perfect faith.”
“Even though she was unable to bear him a son, her husband, the king, never considered her any less of a dutiful wife and ruler. However, when she saw that only the king’s concubines were capable of birthing her husband a male heir, she committed suicide, and it is said her spirit remained to forever protect her beloved city of Belur as a guardian goddess. A sculpture was erected in her honor at the Chennakeshava temple in Belur.”
Chloe sits contemplatively on the couch as Nadine reads the passage aloud from her miniscule cell phone screen. Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, she waits for Nadine to continue. After a pregnant pause, she voices her need for additional information.
“…And?”
“That’s it. That’s all it says.”
Chloe laughs out loud, and the next words out of her mouth ring with sarcasm. “Oh really? This queen goddess or whatever she is, a literal guardian deity of Belur, progenitor of a magical bracelet with the power to locate treasure, has two entire paragraphs dedicated to her on Wikipedia? How generous of them.”
Nadine shrugs and settles next to her on the couch. “You said yourself that your father didn’t even know a lot about her. A lot of the old stories and traditions from back then were passed down orally. If even his writings about her were sparce, maybe keeping quiet about the jewel was a Hoysala tactic to protect another obviously valuable artifact from being plundered.”
Leave it to Nadine to have the most common sense between them.
It’s a few days after they inadvertently discovered Nadine is the new beacon for the Queen’s Ruby bracelet. After some initial awkwardness, and some extremely overdue emotional honesty on Chloe's part, the treasure hunters learn that not only does the bracelet pinpoint Nadine’s location from anywhere in the apartment, she can practically walk down an entire city block before the thrumming signal weakens entirely.
From over their cell phones, Nadine had barely made it to Chloe’s favorite corner coffee shop before she could no longer detect the rhythmic signal in her ears.
All of this leading to the realization that, from Chloe's perspective, Nadine herself was the next treasure her subconscious sought. She had to be wearing the bracelet for it to work, obviously, but holy hell if this wasn't a soul-baring discovery.
Chloe lets out all the frazzled energy in her body in an exuberant breath and falls into Nadine’s lap on the couch. The former mercenary leans back with one hand and uses the other to wipe Chloe’s unruly hair out of her eyes. Despite wearing her customary ponytail, the thief’s smooth locks always manage to escape their confines and get in her face.
“Well, thanks to this bloody thing, I finally got you to admit that you like my face.” Chloe nuzzles further into Nadine’s thighs, looking up at her partner with a grin and angling her hips in such a way that it accentuates her most important asset. “And maybe a little more than that.”
Nadine’s face turns crimson in that moment, and the hand on the back of the couch comes up to cradle the back of her head sheepishly. That’s a look that Chloe knows she will never get tired of seeing. She pulls Nadine down into a restless kiss, and flips them so she is practically lying on top of her partner.
The pressure from Chloe’s body in this position is both new and exhilarating to Nadine. She embraces it without question, shifting her hips to let Chloe settle between her legs. The former mercenary moans contentedly into the room, her partner’s mouth trailing down to lavish attention on her neck and clavicle. She forgets any lingering embarrassment when Chloe returns to her mouth and continues their passionate preoccupation.
“I don’t want you to think that I wasn’t going to tell you,” Chloe murmurs between fervent kisses. “Like I said before, I’m not very good at the whole people thing…even less so with the committed relationship thing. I don’t exactly have a blooming track record.”
Nadine chuckles and strokes the base of Chloe’s spine, nails teasing along a strip of exposed amber skin. “My understanding was that you flirted with everything that moves, so I thought--hey!”
Nadine barely dodges Chloe flicking her nose with a finger, and laughs profusely at the pouting expression on her partner’s face.
“I will have you know that I flirt exactly the right amount for someone in my line of work,” Chloe exclaims. She giggles behind the frustration, hinting that she’s not adamant about exacting revenge. “Except in your case, maybe I didn't flirt enough…My technique is off, at any rate. I really lucked out in the partner department this time.”
Surprisingly, Nadine doesn’t try to immediately kiss her again, but pulls Chloe into a firm bear hug that only someone of Nadine’s strength could manage.
“Girlfriend,” Nadine corrects her. “And by the looks of it, I won’t be getting away any time soon.”
“You’d better believe it, Ross! I think I'll keep you a while.”