Shield Maiden by Sharon Emmerichs

Author:Sharon Emmerichs [Emmerichs, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Rescue

This music… this remembered music has the perfect pitch of true violence. These are not children’s games meant to distract and entertain, but are the tunes that pierce and flay, the notes that draw out the blood. Men and women sing in screams and take their bows, never to rise again.

The curse in Fýrdraca’s blood rears to meet the song and she stirs, fighting to throw off a thousand years of slumber. She longs to join the fight, to let loose her flame and hear the sweetest music of all.

But the gold. She cannot leave the gold. It anchors her to this place as it destroys her, minute by minute, century by century, as if she’s drowning in cream, in the finest wine, as if she’s being suffocated in silk and velvet and love.

Yet still she struggles.

But then she feels the magic again, that burst of warrior-power she’d first encountered in the woman-child seven years ago, and then again earlier this very day. This spark of magic sings to the one part of her, deeply buried, that the Lone Survivor’s curse cannot touch. The bit of magic that makes her a true dragon. For a brief moment the girl’s magic brings Fýrdraca to life, whole and unblemished, and in that moment she sees the end of all things.

The girl, Fýrdraca realizes, is about to die.

Time shifts out of phase with the world and the trapped dragon can see the past, the present, and the future together. She sees the Lone Survivor standing in the ashes of his home and family. She sees him as a monster tearing into Heorot’s men, consuming them in his desperate desire to gain their strength and fellowship. He sprawls across a throne, insensible and treacherous, while his father, sister, and king are killed. He is the future lord and king, constantly drunk on mead and power. The dragon-magic thrums its rhythm in time with her heartbeat, from the girl, from the aged hero whose lives are about to end.

She sees the death of all magic, and her entire body revolts against it.

With a mighty effort, Fýrdraca projects her power through those thin filaments connecting her magic to theirs. She must divert the river of their future and her memory to save the magic, the only uncorrupted part of her left in the world.

She hopes it is enough. It must be enough. But before she can test the waters of time, the Lone Survivor’s curse drags her back down into the deep and muddy depths, where memory and knowledge fade into nightmare once more.

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