Dragon's Keep

Tell me where you’re taking me.” “I take you nowhere, Princess,” he called back. “It’s you who follows me.

If a girl were asked which part of a plant she would be, would any choose the root? Blindly clutching the dark earth, never seeing sun nor feeling wind? Toiling there to feed the stem and flower with never a thank-you from them? And who would choose to be the thorn? Thorns protect the plant from pluckers, but who gives honor to them? Nay, any girl would choose to be the bud, opening to the sun, fragrant and beautiful, tickled by bees and butterflies, and looked upon with love.

The real dragon haunted my head and heart.

Why do you weep?” “The pain,” I said, and it was true, but it was not of my wounds I spoke.

My heart was already cracked, but this one word, gone, was the stone that broke it.