Baba Yaga's Daughter and Other Stories of the Old Races by C E Murphy

Author:C E Murphy [Murphy, C E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781596065703
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2012-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

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I did not know how long I sat, my hands on the always-changing shell. It might have been hours; it might have been weeks. Though I ate of bread and soup like anyone, it was in truth magic which sustained me, and had been since the last drops of my mortal blood had gone to feed a vampire. The egg itself could have fed me forever, had I chosen to leech life from its glorious colors. But that was something my mother would do, and I­ had not risen from the snow only to be her daughter again.

I knew long before Daisani returned that the being within the shell was female. I knew that like any child—perhaps like any dragon, grown or not—that she was a curious creature, and bold. And I knew that even from within the shell, this dragon child knew that something was wrong : that her mother’s fires had left some time ago, and that whatever had caused that was the enemy. I did not know if human children had such clear perceptions of who did and did not belong, but this unborn babe radiated an anger that defined her even before she broke shell.

I, who knew a thing or two of anger, bowed my forehead to her encasement and whispered charms of ice. I could never be a creature of heat, not as dragons were; I had been rebirthed in cold, and the best I might do was to

temper the fire burning within the infant’s breast. I was not the enemy: this I told her time and again. I was the one who would take her from that enemy, and together we would grow old and strong and see the world. These things and so many more I promised her, and one thing I did not.

I did not promise her vengeance. That, I would not do. Daisani claimed a vampire could be bound but never die, but it was not a game I would play with his life. Not as a promise to an angry child, for promises must be kept, and I still wore his rose in my hair.

By the time he returned, her rage was less than it had been, and I no longer feared that should the shell crack while Daisani lingered, that my daughter’s first moments might be her last, fearsome fighting instinct meeting age and speed in a deadly battle.

He returned with a man of excellent aspect, if not the wicked sly beauty that had drawn me to Janx or the reserve which made Eliseo appealing. Unlike almost any man I had ever known, he gave me a mere glance and nod, and gave the shell little more. Neither it nor I were dismissed, only observed, taken for what we were in a moment’s assessment, and set aside as specimens worthy of further study. Men did not react to me so: I was a witch, and Baba Yaga’s daughter, and beautiful, and so I stood for a moment in childish

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