Dragon Heart Read Free Page B

watched the dragon until the daylight was gone. Once, in its sleep, its jaws parted and gave a soft greenish burp and a little round stone rolled out. Still sleeping, its red tongue licked over its lips and it settled deeper on the sand.
    The sun went down. In the night, she thought, she could escape and she edged closer to the beach. Just as she reached the mouth of the crevice the dragon’s near eye opened, shining in the dark, fixed on her. Tirza scuttled back into the deep of the crevice, all her hair on end. She thought she heard a low growl behind her.
    She wept; she wept for Jeon and even for the Imperial men, and for herself, because she knew she was lost. At last she slept a little. When she woke, it was morning and she was so hungry and thirsty that she went back to the mouth of the crevice.
    The dragon was still there. It stood on its short, heavy legs, looking away from her. The sun blazed on its splendor, the glowing red scales, the curved golden barbs along its spine. Then the narrow-jawed head swung toward her, high above her on the long neck. Between its wide-set eyes was a disk of gold. Its eyes were big as washtubs, the black pupil a long vertical slice through the red silk of the iris, the haw at the inner corner like a fold of gold lace.
    It gave a low roar, and the roar resolved into a voice so deep and huge she imagined she heard it not through her ears but the bones of her head. “Why don’t you come out where I can eat you?”
    â€œPlease don’t eat me,” she said.
    His eyes widened, looking startled. Her mouth fell open. He understood her. For a moment, they stared at each other. She took a step toward him.
    â€œWhy shouldn’t I? You’ll just die in there anyway.” He gave a cold chuckle. “And by then you’d be too thin to bother digging for. Tell me what you’ll give me, if I don’t eat you.”
    She stood at the mouth of the crevice, and all the words crowded through her mind, everything she had ever said that nobody else had understood. But all she said was, “What do you want me to do?”
    â€œCan you dance? Sing?”
    â€œI—”
    The dragon said, “Tell me a story.”
    A cold tingle went down her back. “A story,” she said.
    â€œIf it’s good enough, I won’t eat you.” The dragon settled himself down, curling his forelimbs under him like a cat, waiting.
    Her heart thumped. She sifted quickly through all the stories she had ever heard; she knew at once that those stories of men would not satisfy the dragon, much less save her life.
    He was waiting, patient, his jeweled eyes on her. She realized since he had begun speaking to her she had thought of him as “he.” That gave her a wisp of an idea. She sat down in the mouth of the cave, folded her hands in her lap, and began, “Once there was an evil Queen. She was so evil everybody was afraid of her, except her youngest daughter.” Tirza gave this Queen a round, angry face, a voice like a slap, remembering the last time she had seen her mother, remembering so well that her throat thickened and she almost stopped. She forced her mind cool. She sorted rapidly through the next possibilities. “And this Princess would not yield or bend. So the Queen hated her daughter, and decided to get rid of her. But she did not intend that the Princess could be free, to do as she pleased.”
    That was the real injustice. Tirza spent some time describing the beautiful daughter, so that she could plan the next part. The daughter looked a lot like her sister Casea, with her white skin, her black eyes, rather than like Tirza herself. The feel of the words in her mouth was delicious. The dragon was utterly silent, his eyes watching her steadily, his long lips curved in a slight lizard smile.
    â€œSo she shut the Princess into a tower by the sea, and set guards around her.” The story was growing stronger in her mind, and she let her