Page 40 of Dragon Cursed
He couldn’t hear the soft drip of water from the seam at the back of the lair.
The constant drip had been there long before the cave had become his home, and no matter the season, the water had never stopped flowing, providing a steady supply of fresh water for generations.That water was one of the reasons he’d chosen to remain in this cave.For it to have stopped?—
"Alsander."Her voice was very small."What's —"
"Don't move."
He sat up.Pulled her up with him.Pulled the fur around her shoulders.Put his body between her and the dark at the back of the chamber where the shadows had begun to gather thicker than shadows ought to gather.Where the dark wasn’t behaving like dark.
The lair had been his refuge for three centuries.
Nothing had ever come into it that hadn’t been let in.
Something had been let in.
"Too late, little prince."
The voice was in the chamber.It was also inside his skull.
It was the voice he had heard once before.The voice that had taken his sister.
Alsander was off the bed before the second word.
He moved, naked, across cold stone, teeth bared, the dragon already up under his skin and clawing for the air.He put himself between Poppy and the back of the chamber.
"Get behind me."He didn’t turn his head."Stay against the wall.Don’t touch the floor with your bare feet."
"What —"
"Do it."
She did it.
The shadows at the back of the lair began to move.
They poured up out of the seam in the rock where the water no longer dripped.They pooled on the floor.They rose into a column.
The column folded into itself and folded again and a shape emerged.Not a body.Not yet.The suggestion of one.The hint of a tall man-shape.The long line of a shoulder.The shadow of a hand.
Its eyes were the worst.
The eyes hovered in the dark, without a face.
"You look better, dragon."
The voice was a slow thing.It tasted the words.
"I have not seen you look this well in three hundred years.I had begun to think you would simply rot quietly and save me the trouble."
"Laoch."Alsander's voice was flat."You and your decay are not welcome in this place."
"Am I not."The shadow tilted what might have been a head."And yet here I am.The wards on this lair were laid by your mother and your mother's mother.They have held against me for ten generations.They should have held against me tonight.Why do you suppose they did not?"
Alsander didn’t answer.
He could feel Poppy at his back.Her pulse was fast, but not panicked.The pendant at her throat warm emitted a small steady fire he could feel even through the air between them.
"No guess?"
