When the Dragon comes he always picks the “best” girl and so everyone is certain he will pick her friend. There is another girl in the village who is talented, brave and beautiful. And she is quite confident she won’t be picked. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through.
Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. As she tells us at the start of her story: If he should choose her, then she must go with him. She is a dragon born girl – one of those unlucky enough to be born during the time that makes her eligible for the Dragon’s gleaning. In a small village near a darkly enchanted, dangerous Wood lives a girl named Angnieszka.
I’ll definitely be adding it to my collection of fairytale romances. I am so glad I did! This is a terrific story, masterfully told. Out of curiosity, I got Uprooted from the library. When I saw Naomi Novik had a new fairytale style story out, I was intrigued.
0 kommentar(er)
