Page 38 of Dragon Cursed
Drew another.
The weight on his chest that he had stopped noticing because he had carried it since before the woman in his arms had been born — that weight was lighter.
"What are you thinking about?"Her voice was soft against his collarbone.
"You."
"Liar."
A small laugh moved through him.It surprised him.He’d never laughed in this room.
"Myself," he amended."I was thinking about myself.I feel —"
He couldn’t finish.
She lifted her head.Propped her chin on his chest.Looked up at him through the tangle of her hair.The pendant at her throat caught the firelight and held it — a small bright bead of warmth between her collarbones.
"You feel what?"
"Better."
He said it plain.He had no other word.
Her brow tilted, considering.Then she smiled.A small smile, with something tired underneath it that he didn’t look at long enough to read.
"Good," she said."You should."
She put her cheek back on his chest.Her hand found his and laced their fingers together.He looked at the pale shape of her hand against his and couldn’t remember the last time another living thing had held his hand.
Not since Mairin.
"Tell me about her," Poppy said.
He went still.
"You don't have to."Her thumb stroked his knuckle."I just — you said her name once.At the shrine.I thought — I dreamed it.I don't know what was real anymore.But you said she was your sister."
She didn’t push.She only waited.
He stared up at the firelit stone.
He thought about how easy it would be to say nothing.To kiss the crown of her head and roll her under him again and let the words die unsaid the way they had died unsaid for three hundred years.
The thought passed.
It passed because he understood, in a way he hadn’t understood an hour ago, that he didn’t want her to stop knowing things about him.
"Mairin," he said.
The name was strange in his mouth.He hadn’t said it aloud in over a century.He had spoken about her, when he had to, but only as his sister, the keeper, the one who fell.
Mairin was a name that belonged to a girl who had braided wildflowers into his long black mane of when he was in dragon-form and laughed when he sneezed them out.
Mairin was a name that belonged tobefore.
"Mairin," he said again.The second time was easier.
"Tell me," Poppy whispered.
