Chapter Two Claire #2
“Wait, madame,” I say. “I want him to stay.”
Without moving her broom away from Abel’s face, she turns to me. “Is he threatening you? I’ll summon the Gendarmerie.”
“No,” I insist. “Thank you. I’ll get dressed and we’ll be on our way.”
“I’ll warm the basin for you,” she says, and enters the washroom. The scrape of flint and a whoosh of flame on kindling tells me she’s already heating the water.
Abel makes an offering gesture. “You might as well use it. In the meantime, let me see your tracking records. I’ll decide whether your dragon is a better lead than the one that attacked this town.”
Good thing I’ve been documenting my travels.
I doubt my scribbles will meet his usual requirements for viable tracking records, but combined with my witness account, I’m sure it’s more information than he’s currently working with.
After all, he’s desperate enough to let himself get tied up for my hint of a job offer.
“I’ll show you, but I have one condition,” I say.
“I’m listening.”
I tighten my shaky grip on the blanket at my chest, feigning Traumatized Survivor. This is the final push. The last lie to ensure I remain at his side. “I want to watch the dragon die. I’m coming with you.”
Abel scratches his stubbled jaw. It’s an unusual request. Slayers typically show a client the dragon’s head or hide as proof of death. He needs more incentive—something more valuable than a pretty face to look at.
Aha! His worn camping supplies. One standard bounty could pay for six months of a comfortable lifestyle—well beyond my budget—but the government would never pay a slayer in advance. Funding. That’s my way in.
I whisper so the innkeeper can’t hear me. “I’ll pay for everything. The best resources money can buy. Lodging, supplies, transportation. Anything you need, I’ll find a way. You may not like how I make my living, but compared to a dragon—”
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll hunt your dragon.”
I hum, skeptical. “That easily?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“You seem too pious to accept stolen coin.”
“Most people would rather lose money than their life. As long as you stay out of my way and collect your earnings out of my sight, I don’t care if you come.”
“Deal.” I dig through my satchel for my map. “I don’t have much to go on. Just the towns I’ve already visited for clues. But Sellecastel was a small town where everyone knew everyone. If we can track down a resident, we can reasonably assume that that person is the dragon. Correct?”
“It’s a solid starting point.”
Abel takes a step closer, halting when the innkeeper emerges from the washroom. I thank and dismiss her. She mutters a threat to Abel—something about the broom—before slamming the door shut.
Abel begrudgingly accepts the map. I give him my best flirtatious smile. “The washroom awaits. Try not to peek,” I tease.
I drop the blanket and rise. Abel makes a flustered sound and turns around. Gentlemen are perfectly predictable. He doesn’t see me take his dagger with my clothes.
I shut the door. The map I gave him is simple—just Florent’s oblong shape, with crossed-out towns and scribbled dates. It marks the path I took through the countryside to chase rumors of him. Doubtful he’ll find it useful for long, but no matter. Accompanying Abel on this hunt is a means to an end.
I set the clothes and dagger on the cold tabletop and strip, allowing the chemise to pool around my feet.
The steamy mirror blurs my body into a smudge while I plunge the washrag into the basin and scrub myself, lingering on my scarred chest. The hot water scalds as it drips down my body.
Droplets ping on the shiny gray surface of Abel’s moondagger.
Over the water, I hold my breath and touch the dagger’s tip to the thin blue veins beneath my wrist. Sweat slips down my forehead.
I won’t hurt myself. I reject the fate Diu subjected me to.
But isn’t it funny how vivid every sensation becomes at knifepoint? In my mind, I follow my last six months of grief, retracing every grueling step, every traitorous heartbeat that passed after the day I burned down Sellecastel.
I was brushing Papa’s yearlings in the pasture when my first Ignition struck.
The two suns eclipsed. Heat like a wildfire shot through my veins so fast, I shrieked and sent the horses running.
Blisters popped and sizzled across my skin.
Fangs pushed through my gums. Blood-red scales weighed down my arms and dragged me to the ground.
The seams of my clothing popped and ripped.
With my talons, I clawed my tear-streaked face and throat, so desperate and fearful and foolish, foolish, foolish to think the pain would cut through the transformation.
Then my mind was gone.
When I was a little girl, Papa sat me on his lap and read The Tale of Stars—the story of our realm’s genesis.
Two God-brothers—one whose realm is the suns and the other the moon—forged this world out of fire and fumes, ice and ore.
Among their early creations were the Immortals—the very first humans—whom they taught how to wield their magic.
Together, humans and Gods filled the world with their creations, from plants and animals to the clothes on their backs.
Then came the Dark Days.
The Immortals ran rampant with greed and turned magic against each other in their quest for dominion over the newborn world. Selfish individuals wanted to control it for themselves, even if it meant overthrowing the others who helped build it—the Gods included.
Noctu wanted to destroy humankind for abusing their magic.
Diu wanted to give us a chance to live without it.
Tension boiled over between the brothers. Diu revoked magic from humankind and remade us as mortals, then declared war against Noctu in our defense. To this day, the Gods chase each other across the sky in a battle over the fate of humankind, a struggle as certain as day follows night.
But our second chance came with a catch. Diu made the dragon curse to serve as a lesson—a punishment to expose the greediest among us and remind us how easily we could return to the Dark Days.
Papa called dragons the canary in the coal mine. If one appeared nearby, we all needed to rethink our behavior in life.
Like any good Church girl, I feared the curse. But Papa always said Diu had bigger acts of greed to punish than girls who skipped mucking stalls to enjoy a nap in the hay. So long as I practiced appreciation for the life I had, Diu wouldn’t curse me.
I believed him. I believed the Church. My moral compass was guided every day by the lessons preserved in The Tale of Stars—until I woke up at nightfall, naked in a field of ash and horse corpses.
I screamed for Papa. I begged Diu to give him back. Under the dagger-sharp eyes of Noctu’s owl constellation, I dug through the remains of our farmhouse with my bare hands until I found his charred body. I cried so hard, I couldn’t breathe.
In a blink, I’d lost everything.
My farm. My papa. My community. The entire landscape of my life had gone up in flames. Worst of all, I couldn’t understand why.
I’d appreciated my life as it was. I wasn’t greedy. I was good.
Amid my recollections, my grip on Abel’s dagger slips and makes the tiniest cut. Blood leaks from my wrist, into the washbasin, then dilutes in a pink swirl.
Steam slithers from the cut. My skin blisters and fuses.
The telltale healing magic of the dragon curse.
Sleep powder—a sedative—is the only reason I slept blanket-wrapped in a fire cellar while the suns eclipsed yesterday at the crack of dawn.
Meanwhile, a different dragon spent the day razing Bourlin to cinders.
Sleep powder can make me sleep through an Ignition—but even it can’t suppress a dragon’s healing magic.
If I’m injured, my skin will still heal, steaming as it does.
All it would take is one witness to ruin my life for good.
I slide to my knees, my grip on the basin tight.
I’ve never killed anyone with my human hands. It’s never come to that. Other than Anne-Sophie, I’ve never let anyone get close enough to learn my secret. But if Abel decides he wants to slay me, I’ll have to kill him first.
Someone knocks on the bathroom door.
“Are you all right?” Abel asks.
I jolt upright.
Another knock. “Claire? Do you need help?”
Tears drip from my chin and poke holes in the water. When did I start crying? I thought I ran out of tears ages ago. I push the heels of my hands into my eyes. My sob devolves into a laugh. “Please tell me you play a better game than that, Monsieur Abel.”
“That’s not—” He clears his throat. “I heard a noise. Also, Lucy keeps pacing. I think she needs to relieve herself. Should I wait for you outside?”
His hunter’s ear must be pressed against the other side of the door, waiting for the slightest sound. I bite my lip and stare into the moondagger’s polished surface, willing my red-eyed reflection into the mask Anne-Sophie taught me.
“Claire?”
I need him. I need Abel Estellio.
“Patience, monsieur. Unless you wish to see me naked?” I tease.
A moonmetal edge sharpens his voice. “Mademoiselle, I’d appreciate more professionalism in the future.” He closes the bedroom door with a huff as he exits the room.
I tuck the dagger into my satchel.
If his renewed interest in killing dragons is real, then I’ll steal the journal and run. For the time being, though, I’ll hold out hope. My heart can endure one last con while I determine whether he can cure me.
And if he hurts me? Well…the Dames Blanches taught me that I have every right to defend myself.