Page 78 of Dragon Cursed
She opened the book to a page she had passed and not translated.She tapped the script with one bent finger.
"Here.This is the part I didn’t say in front of him."
"Auntie."
"Oh, child."
She closed her eyes for a long beat.
When she opened them, they were wet.
"Sit down."
Poppy sat.
"The pendant," Niamh said quietly, "is Mairin's.Made of her remaining magic.The breaking of it requires aprice.The price is the life that has held it."
"Which is —"
"You."
Poppy heard it the way a person hears a thing they had already, somewhere, known.
She didn’t jump.
She didn’t weep.
She was very calm, in fact — more calm than she had felt at any point in the last week.Calm the way a person was calm when an old fear became a present fact.
"Say it plainly," she said.
"The pendant has been carried in our line for many generations.It was given to our ancestor by Mairin's spirit.It was given to be passed down — daughter to daughter — until it found the daughter who would bear it back to the shrine.That daughter isyou.”
She drew a breath.
"When the pendant is destroyed, the life that has held it is the seal.The blood of the bearer breaks the blood-bond Mairin made when she gave herself to Caoimhe.It frees Mairin.It frees her brother dragon.It frees the wood."
"And the bearer."
"Dies."
"Dies, child.Yes."
Poppy nodded, very slowly.
"Okay."
"Poppy."
"I said okay, Auntie."
"Child." Niamh's hand had come out across the desk."You don’t have to.We can — there must be —"
"Is there another way?"
Niamh shut her eyes.
"Tell me, Auntie.Is there another way that the book describes?"
