Page 50 of Lady Dragon
Maybe being cursed wasn’t the worst thing, if it meant Samansa was still tied to Kirek.
The pair-bond isn’t a choice, Kirek said. It only vanishes when there’s no longer a need for it. That most often happens when the hatchlings leave the nest, but…
“But there are no hatchlings,” Samansa finished for her. “Which means there’s no obvious way for it to come to a natural conclusion?”
Pair-bonds fade for other reasons. Over time, for one.
What about death?Samansa didn’t want to ask this question, either—and this time, she didn’t. She wanted to carry on hoping that there might be a way to fix the Heartstone without losing the pair-bond. Without losing her life. Certainly the dragons would value Kirek’s existence more than hers, no matter what Kirek insisted, and if one of them needed to be sacrificed to break some curse affecting them both… well, then.
The dragons already wanted Samansa dead, after all.
But maybe the pair-bond, anomalous though it may be between a dragon and a human, would be the very thing to keep her safe, as she’d dared hope and Kirek seemed to believe. The bond had fallen into placebeforethe Heartstone shattered. Maybe the Heartstone could be repaired, the curse broken, without severing the pair-bond.
Withoutmore death, let alone Samansa’s.
She felt a warmer current in the whipping air, and risked opening her eyes. The night sky was strewn with stars, sparklingall around her. Endless. For a while, she just stared at it, imagining she was adrift on a horizonless dark sea. Maybe she would never reach shore—and for a moment, the thought wasn’t terrifying.
Because she wasn’t alone out here.
“Why is feeling something… more… for a human forbidden?” she found herself asking eventually. “My mother told me it was.”
I don’t entirely know, Kirek replied.It just is.
“Because humans are weak?” Samansa couldn’t help snorting. Despite their relatively small size and lesser strength, humans did have their ingenuity, which had led to the creation of many tools to combat the dragons, as she had just seen—andfelt, firsthand. The throbbing in her shoulder was a powerful reminder.
Humans had terrible weapons. But were they any worse than a dragon’s fire or raking claws?
Perhaps because you’re weak… little one, Kirek said, but the words were wry, as if she, too, were remembering the soldiers’ attack.
Samansa snorted again. “Not so little sometimes.” And then, before she could think better of it, she said, “Another War of Fire would be awful.” She didn’t know how Kirek felt, and maybe she didn’t want to know, if they fell on opposite sides of such a blade.
There was another long pause, and then the dragon said,Yes. It would be.
“At least we can agree on that,” Samansa breathed, trying not to sound too relieved—and then hopeful. “Maybe the pair-bond fell into place to protect theTreaty—which you were about tobreak by killing me,” she added with faint bitterness. “Maybe it’s not only about the safety of hatchlings, but of our realms?”
Kirek was silent for another long moment.But then why would the Heartstone shatter when I bonded you? It’s the very thing that allows for communication and understanding between our realms.
“I don’t know,” Samansa murmured. “Do you have any ideas?”
Only more silence answered her, but the princess could almost hear the dragon’s unspoken thought.
Maybe because we’re cursed for feeling somethingmorethan the pair-bond.
Samansa didn’t want to consider that any longer—or anything else for that matter, in her exhaustion—and let herself drift among the stars atop the dragon.
Samansa dreamed of fire, crimson scales, and piercing golden eyes. A great red dragon towered over her, cowing her, making her feel as though she were shrinking under the overbearing size of that reptilian body. She was surrounded by a cave of molten rock and flame that was riddled with tools and basins, almost like one would find in a forge, but she couldn’t focus on such details for long with the dragon looming over her, pressing down on her. Crushing her. She tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. She had no voice anymore. She only heard the dragon’s consuming, silent words, reverberating in her skull. It was telling her a name, one she could almost make out, and it wasn’t hers…
Her own eyes flew open. There was a tearing pressure inher legs where the leather straps bound her to the saddle. She wasn’t shrinking, butgrowing. Kirek was roaring beneath her—and then shouting, in all-too-human fear.
“Samansa!”
At first, the princess didn’t recognize the name. But then she recognized Kirek, in human form, falling out from under her—out from under her own flexing claws and spreading wings. Samansa’s sharp sight picked out the startled terror in Kirek’s silver eyes as she dropped, even in the dark.
Kirek!Samansa tried to shout, but it came out of her mouth as a screech that tore through the star-strewn sky.
The princess was a dragon again. She wasSamansa. And Kirek was falling to her death on the rocky ground, hundreds of feet below them.
Samansa tucked her wings and dove without thinking. She didn’t know what she was doing, how to move properly in this form. It was all instinct. She only knew she had to reach Kirek.
