Page 54 of Dragon Cursed
He looked up.The corner of his mouth had moved.
"A chuisle.I am ancient.I am a dragon.I read seven languages quite well.I read four others poorly.I have lost two more to time."
"Oh," she whispered.
She had to look down.
She didn’t know why the small ordinary fact of his ability to read her oldest book was, all of a sudden, the thing that almost broke her.He had spent lifetimes learning languages.He had a private interior life she hadn’t yet had time to imagine.He was so much more than the brooding, wounded creature she’d found in the forest.
And he was hers.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and straightened her shoulders.Now was not the time to unpack all her feelings.They had work to do."What does it say?"
“It is an old book of household charms.Recipes for protective bundles.A way to bless a hearth-stone.A blessing to be said over a bowl of milk left out for the small folk.A song to keep the milk from souring in summer.”
Poppy’s heart squeezed painfully.Alsander had just unlocked a piece of her family history.None of what he read was what they needed, but it was still important to her.Her hands shook slightly with emotion.She closed her eyes, listening to the way he read in a low careful voice that turned the old words into a music she hadn’t known her language could make.When he was finished, she asked him to go back and read the blessings again.
They moved on.
Saoirse's book was older than the household charms but younger than the leather one.The hand was strong and tight, the script a kind Poppy could read with effort and Alsander could read with ease.They opened it together, side by side at the kitchen table, his shoulder against hers.
"Oh," he said, very softly, after the first page.
"What?"
"Your great-grandmother wasangry."
"At who?"
"At the silence.At the line.At the women before her who would not write things down.Listen."He turned the book toward her."My grandmother told me nothing.My mother told me half a thing.My daughter shall not know the half I knew.I shall write it.I shall write it down."
"Oh, Saoirse," Poppy whispered.
They read together.Alsander kept his finger on the line so she could follow.He translated where the spelling defeated her.Saoirse's account of the line was patchy — she had been writing what she had beentold, and what she had been told was already partial after ten generations of oral telling.But she had pieces.She had names.She had the bones of it.
She had written of the Lady, whom Saoirse calledBantiarna.The Lady was the green of the world.The Lady was the keeper of a wound at the heart of the wood, and the Lady fell.
And as she fell —
She chose.
She chose a daughter of the human village.Eighteen years old.The eldest of seven.A girl named Caoimhe who had nursed the Lady through her dying without ever knowing what she was nursing.The Lady poured what she could into the girl, and the girl carried it, and the girl bore daughters, and the daughters bore daughters —
And we are here.
Alsander's hand had gone tight on the page."Mairin chose."
"Yes."
"She gave her pendant to a girl."
"Yes."
"She gave the last of her magic to a human girl I didn’t know existed.And the girl carried it.And she had daughters.And they had daughters."A pause."And one of them isyou."
"Yes," Poppy whispered.
He let out a breath that had been held a long time.His hand stroked over his jaw.He sat that way for a long moment, his shoulder pressed against hers.
