Page 91 of Dragon Cursed
The dragon's great golden eye had moved to her, and the dragon had seen her, and the dragon had seen the green stream pouring out of her open palm, and somewhere inside the great black shape of him she felt Alsander begin, very slowly, tounderstand.
"It is fine," she said softly.She didn’t know if he could hear her over the dance.She said it anyway."It is fine, my love.It was always going to be this.It was always going to be this."
The green poured.
Her hand was steady.
She couldn’t feel her fingers anymore.
She didn’t look at her hand.She looked athim.
"I love you."Her voice was a whisper now."I love you.It's all right.It's all right."
Her knees folded slowly.
She had time to be surprised by it — the way a person is surprised by their own body deciding to lie down.The cold stone wall slid up against her back, then her shoulders, then her cheek.She was on the floor of the shrine somehow.
The green was still pouring.
The green was pouring out of her open palm and into the dance at the heart of the chamber, and the dance was bright and steady and good.She watched it from where she lay on the cold stone.
The carvings on the wall above her were close now.She could see the chisel marks.The figure of the Lady leaned down toward her —
And the figure of the Lady wassmiling.
Hello, child, the figure said without saying.Welcome.Well done.
"Oh," Poppy whispered."Oh.Hello."
And then the dragon wasn’t the dragon anymore.
Alsander came down beside her in the shape of the man — naked, on his knees — and his arms went under her shoulders and under her knees and he lifted her and pulled her up against the bare warm wall of his chest.His face was wet.
He was speaking.
His lips were moving but the words were coming from a great way off, and she thought she should answer him but she couldn’t quite remember what answeringwas.
She could feel his heartbeat against her ear.
That was the most important thing.
His heartbeat was steady.
His heartbeat was steady because the curse was leaving him — the dance was working, the rot was unwinding — and somewhere out beyond the falls, Mairin was lifting away from a wood she had loved too long, and Laoch was unbinding from a wound he had made, and the cycle was turning again, and her hand had stopped pouring because her hand had given everything in it.
"Poppy." The word reached her this time.The word reached her clearly."Poppy.Look at me.Poppy,what have you— "
He stopped.
She watched, from the long quiet distance she was beginning to fall into, his face change.
She watched him fully understand.
She watched the moment the dragon at the back of his mind connected the green leaving her hand to the warmth leaving her body to the slow soft narrowing of the woman in his arms, and she watched him do the math in real time — the math she and Niamh had done last night by the lamp, the math the prophecy had said in plain words —
She watched his facebreak.
"What have you done?"His voice was a whisper."What have you done?"
