Page 48 of Dragon Cursed
He banked again, gently this time, and began the long slow descent toward the dark line of trees behind her cottage.
He landed in the wood behind her hill.
It wasn’t a graceful landing — there wasn’t enough room, the trees were too close — but the magic he had wrapped around her took the impact, and she felt only the small lurch of his great body settling.Then stillness.His wings folded.His head lowered.
The magic loosened around her by slow degrees and let her down.
She slid off his shoulder onto the moss.Her legs almost gave.
He was already shifting back.She felt the change at her side rather than saw it — the great black shape collapsing inward with a sound she would never grow used to.Then the man was on his knees beside her on the moss, the dark leathers back in place, breathing hard.
She reached for him before she could stop herself.
Their foreheads pressed together.His hands were on her face.Her hands were on his.
"You flew me," she said."Youflewme."
"I flew you."
"Thank you, Alsander.That was — incredible doesn’t begin to describe it.I’ll never, ever forget.Never.Thank you."
Alsander chuckled.“My dragon says you don’t need to remember.He will take you on his back whenever you wish.”
“Tell him I said thank you.”
“There is no need for me to tell him.He hears your words, Poppy.Always.”
They knelt like that for a long moment.
The first true light of dawn was beginning to touch the tops of the trees above them.Somewhere down the path, her cottage waited.Somewhere in her cottage, a chest beckoned.
He stood.Helped her to her feet.
They walked together up the path, his hand wrapped around hers.
The path turned.
The trees thinned.
The familiar shape of her own back gate came into view at the top of the rise.
She stopped abruptly.Her hand tightened on his.Hard.
"What’s wrong?"His voice sharpened."Poppy.What."
"My garden."
He looked over her shoulder.
The last time she walked out of this garden, the marigolds had been wilting.Not dead.Not without hope.She had thought, in her grief, that the garden was as bad as it could get.
It wasn’t.
Her bright, happy marigolds were nowhusks.The climbing rose by the door was a tangle of black sticks.The lavender her grandmother had planted.Allof it.Every plant.The path between the beds was littered with the tiny dead bodies of bees and butterflies, earthworms and ladybugs.More than she could count.
The whole green half-circle of her cottage garden — the work of generations — was a scorched dead thing.
A small, helpless sound came out of her.
