Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey Read Free Book Online Page A

puffed-up hand my blue
claw seeped green ooze.
    Mother slipped into the cell, shadow quiet.
Demetra touched my swollen claw with her long fingernail.
    "'Tis softened now," she said.
    Mother was all concern. "Can she feel
you?"
    "She feels it but far away. The poppy
and the hemlock have

her still," said Demetra. "I'll peel the putrid
flesh down to the girlish skin."
    "Do what you must," said Mother,
tightening her jaw. The cave swam as Demetra lifted my hand, grasped the flesh
at the base of my claw, and pulled. I cried out as I felt her tearing. She
ripped a layer of blue scales down to the nail then dropped it to the floor.
    Blood poured from the wound. Demetra raced
for a leather thong, tied it tightly round my wrist, pinched the flesh again,
and tore.
    I screamed.
    "You said she could not feel!"
cried Mother.
    "She'll not remember this," said
Demetra.
    Another
dream but this one familiar to me. I was a flying thing, an angel or a bird with a mighty wingspan that cast
a great shadow on the earth below. I was full of power as I sped across the
sky. Never in all my life was I as happy
as this. But then I swooped down to a herd
of deer, my fearsome cry ringing throughout the wood. Fire. Torn flesh. Smoke. Blood. And a raw taste on my tongue.
    A searing pain awakened me. My hand was
bandaged to the
    wrist . Mother sat close by, stroking my head. "Is it
over?" I asked.
    "You've slept three
days, dear, and called out in your dreams." I looked into her eyes then, wondering if she'd heard the same beast cry I'd heard inside my dream, but her eyes
were cool
    and unafraid.

She leaned close to my
cheek. "If Demetra's doctoring is true, the claw will be gone."
    Hope rose in me. "And
the golden gloves?"
    "We'll burn them! Yours
and mine together."
    "I'll light the fire and hurl them
in."
    "Aye," said Mother with a little
laugh. "But hush, Demetra comes."
    My heart hopped like a hurried rabbit.
    Slowly Demetra unwrapped the cloth. The sour smell of dying flesh went all about the room, and I felt
the shame of it.
    "'Tis no bother," said Mother,
soothing, but her nose wrinkled just the same. With pounding pulse I watched
the slow unfurling of the bandage, but when the last bit of cloth dropped to
the floor, Mother jumped back with a scream.
    The finger was still
blue-green and spined like a lizard's, but now it was larger and was crisscrossed with purple, as if
my flesh had creeping roots.
    "The curse is worse than before!"
shouted Mother.
    "I take pride in my craft," said
Demetra. "And if the poultice and the tearing did not cure, my good knife
will." She pulled her knife from her belt. My heart leaped against my ribs
as the blade glinted in the fire.
    "Wait!" screamed Mother.
    "The claw must come off," Demetra
said, stepping forward.
    Forgetting my tether, I leaped up, was caught
about the middle and pulled back against my cot.
    "Maim her?" cried Mother. "No
prince would have her, maimed!" She grabbed Demetra's arm and they
struggled near

my cot, banging into the table, knocking over wooden
bowls and scattering damp herbs across the
floor. Mother wrestled the knife from Demetra's hand, and with a sudden
force, she pressed the hag against the wall.
    Demetra's eyes bulged;
she breathed roughly as Mother held her
by her hair, pressing the knife to her throat. Much as I hated the hag, I did
not want to see a murder.
    "Don't kill her," I pleaded.
    "Quiet, child!"
    "Know this." Demetra gurgled,
fixing her moonstruck eye on Mother. "I've sent a sealed scroll to a
friend. To be opened if I should meet untimely death. On the scroll Rosalind's
secret curse is writ in full."
    "Who has this scroll?" demanded
Mother.
    "The
scroll, the scroll. Who has the scroll," taunted Demetra.
    Mother screamed, cut a hunk of Demetra's gray
hair down to her scalp, and threw it in the fire. Then she pitched the knife
against the stony wall with a clatter. Demetra hunched over laughing as my
mother covered her face.
    I curled my knees to my chest. My