Page 30 of Dragon Cursed
"There you are," she said.
He couldn’t answer.Couldn’t look at her.His chest heaved.There were tears on his face and he didn’t know when they had gotten there.
"Alsander."Her voice was low.Steady."Look at me."
He looked at her.
She wasn’t afraid.She had never been afraid.She was looking at him with the same open, considering tenderness she had turned on his books and his table and the small green bottles on his shelves — as if he were another thing in this room she had been hoping to find.
"If you were trying to scare me, it didn't work."
"We noticed."
A quiet laugh moved through her, then it broke.She pressed her forehead against his and her hand slid up into his hair and held on.
"You're a very handsome dragon," she whispered.
"Yes."It was the truth.
She laughed again."There are others.Aren't there?"
"Yes."He had to swallow before the rest came."But not here.Not anymore.”
"Draquonir." She said it like she had known it her whole life."That’s what you are, right?I — I was told never to speak that name.”
Ice ran down his spine into the soles of his feet.
He pulled back enough to see her face.His hands found her shoulders as fear gripped his heart.
"Where did you hear that word, Poppy?"
8
"I—" Her brow creased.Should she tell him about her family’s journal?Tell him she knew about the other Secret Kingdoms?The knowledge passed down to her was sacred, forbidden knowledge.Could she trust him fully?Did she dare take the risk?There were others who knew.Other families like hers.Would confiding in Alsander put more than herself at risk?Would it endanger the other families?She didn’t think it her place to reveal their secrets, but she couldn’t stand the thought of lying to Alsander, either."I — I justknewit.The way I knew your name."
"You knew my name."
"When I woke up.I knew it when I woke up."That much was true.
He shut his eyes.
"Poppy.Listen to me."He opened his eyes.Made himself say it."The word you just said — the name of my kind.No human is supposed to know it.No human has been allowed to know it for ten thousand years.Longer.The laws of my people are older than your language.The punishment for a human who learns what you have learned isdeath."
She had gone very pale."Always?Has there never been an exception?"
"I don’t know."
"Alsander —"
"I do not know." His hands tightened on her shoulders."I have not seen another of my kind in centuries.I do not know if they are dead or if they have abandoned this place to me.Either way, you have spoken a word that could end you, and you knew my name when you woke up in a chamber you have never been in, and you walked up to a dragon in his own lair as if you had been doing it your whole life, andI do not know what you are, Poppy.I don’t know what you are."
She put her hand back on his face.Her thumb stroked his cheekbone.She refused to let him pull away.
"Then tell me what you are."Her voice was steady."Tell me everything.We can find out whatIam after."
The trust shining in her eyes broke him.
"I am the last guardian of this forest."He said it into her palm."My line was given the keeping of it a thousand years before your village had a name."
