Page 79 of Dragon Cursed
"No."
"Is there another way that has been described in any of your reading?"
"No."
"Then I will do it."
"Child —"
"Auntie.Listen."
Poppy reached across the desk and took her aunt's thin warm hand.
She didn’t let herself think — not yet, not while she still had to be steady — about the things she was choosing to give up.The cottage in spring.The lavender she hadn’t had time to replant.The years she would never have with Alsander on the other side of this.The mornings she had imagined, almost without meaning to, ever since the first night in the moss — Alsander beside her in her own kitchen, his shoulders too big for the chair, his hands too big for her grandmother's cracked teacup.A child, perhaps.Some day.A small dark-haired baby on her hip with green eyes and a stubborn jaw, and Alsander's face when he held it for the first time, and the long quiet years of a life she hadn’t, until this moment, fully let herself want.
She had been keeping the wanting small.
She had been keeping the wanting small because she had known, in the deep place inside herself, that wanting too much was how this line had broken itself the first time.
Now she let herself want.Just for one breath.Just so she would know what she was paying.
Then she put it away.
She put her hand on Niamh's hand on the desk, and she breathed out slowly, and she went on.
"He has been alone three hundred years.His sister has been trapped three hundred years.The forest has been bound three hundred years.Three hundred yearsof ache because Mairin loved too much.We are the line that was made to undo it.We’ve all paid a price, Auntie.Every single one of us, fromCaoimhedown to us.I am the final daughter the line was made for."
Her voice was very steady.
"I can release Mairin and that thing living in the forest.I can save Alsander.I can right the wrong.I would rather die tomorrow doing the thing I was made to do than live to be your age never having tried."
"Poppy —"
"I am not afraid of this, Auntie."Her voice cracked, just for one word, and then steadied."I love him.I love him in a way I didn’t know was possible to love.Whatever I am giving up — I would have given it up for him a hundred times by now, and I have only known him aweek."
"A week."
"Tomorrow is a week, Auntie.A week.I would do it again."
Niamh's eyes were full.
She didn’t let the tears fall.She squeezed Poppy's hand.
"You will not tell Alsander?"
"No.He would try to stop me.He would die in my place, given the chance, and the prophecy is clear that the bearer must do the breaking herself.He would only break, watching, and the work would not finish.He cannot know."
"Agreed."
"You will —" Poppy's voice gave way.She tried again."After.You will look after him.If anything is left of him after.He will need —"
"He will need a great deal."Niamh's voice was firm."I will be there.I will be there at first light."
"Auntie —"
"Did you think I was going to let you go alone?As you said, we have all made paid a price.This is my fight, too, child.We are all part of this."
"Oh,Auntie."
