Chapter Forty-Three Claire
We all fall off the horse sometimes, ma petitoune. What matters is that you get back in the saddle.
—Nicolas Belgard
Chapter Forty-Three
Claire
Even Lyle’s horse can’t keep up with me.
“Claire!” Abel calls from somewhere downhill.
I can’t reply. Too breathless. I gasp for air as I half climb my way up the increasingly steep, rocky terrain.
The trees grow sparser, the slope angles sharper.
My blood races through my limbs, and I can’t stop, I can’t stop—until I crest the slope and stumble onto my hands and knees, into a clearing that’s blanketed with horsehoof-printed snow.
The full moon gleams so brightly, it illuminates everything in monochrome.
A rocky outcropping juts up across the space, where an icicle-mouthed cavern awaits.
My coughs emit an eye-watering mix of fog and steam. Lucy trots up beside me and licks my cheek. Exhaustion saps my limbs, but I lift her into my arms and clutch her against my heart.
“Gods, Claire,” Abel says, kneeling at my side. “Are your lungs healing?”
“Yes.” My voice scrapes my throat. “I think my instincts damaged my body to bring me here.”
“To that cavern, I assume?” Lyle asks, halting his horse.
I nod quickly, wanting this to be over.
The owls burst from the trees and swoop across the clearing, toward the cavern. Marshal Payen stands dismounted with the horses and gendarmes in front of it. The gendarmes raise their crossbows. Crack. Crack. Crack. In rapid succession, the owls drop from the air.
Lucy nuzzles the scar on my cheek, whimpering like she knows she might lose me. I am losing myself. Piece by piece, my magic is chipping away at my self-control, like a dragon transformation dragged across hours. Deep down, I know I’ll lose myself in that cavern.
“Almost there,” Abel says. He helps me to my feet. “Just a bit farther.”
I lean into his embrace and keep my gaze down as we walk, trusting his guidance.
I don’t ever want to see an owl again. But I can’t avoid them.
The felled ones watch me with too-wide eyes as they bleed on the ground.
Broken wings twitch. Taloned legs kick. As their bodies squirm, the bolts fall uselessly away. The wounds ice over.
“They’re healing,” I rasp. “Moonmetal weapons can’t kill them.”
“Don’t look. Eyes forward,” Abel says.
“There are so many of them. We need to start down the mountain or they’ll catch up.”
“Not yet.”
I look up at Lyle. “Reason with him.”
“We’ll see what Abby says,” Lyle offers diplomatically. He whistles across the clearing to signal our arrival, then canters ahead to speak with her.
The owls on the ground hop to their feet and shake out their feathers to take flight again. It isn’t long before Marshal Payen directs Lyle back to us.
“Abby says to stay here,” he reports. “She wants to clear the cave before we go in.”
“That’s fine. We can wait,” Abel replies.
I can’t wait here. I can’t go in.
He drops his pack into the snow. His weapons follow. He offers me my waterskin first. I hold it, stock-still, while he and Lyle exchange bits of leftover food that I refuse. They watch the mouth of the cave with the same intensity with which the owls watch me.
Dozens of owls, waiting for their chance to retake human form at daybreak.
Humans who want to kill Abel.
We have a plan to evade them. Logically, I know this.
But we know too little. I’m losing confidence—and it’s not just the cultists who make me tremble where I stand.
The dread of finality flays at my heart in tiny, torturous swipes.
I don’t want to be awake to feel the moment when my hope for a cure finally dies.
While Abel’s and Lyle’s backs are turned, I reach into my satchel. I open his journal to the chart of sleep powder doses in the back. I mix the powder into my waterskin, then toss the rest into the snow.
Abel glances back and does a double take. “Don’t drink that yet!”
He reaches for it, but I hold him at arm’s length and gulp it all down. Immediately, my muscles relax against the bitter taste of the medication. The empty container slips from my fingers. My knees fail me. He catches me against him before I collapse.
“Why would you do that?” he cries.
“Because I’m scared,” I admit, tears in my eyes. “For me, and for you.”
“How much did you take?”
“I’ll wake up before the Ignition. I will turn.”
“No, no, no.” He pats my cheek. “Stay awake, Claire. What about our promise? What about your mercy? I can’t do that if you turn while we’re up here!”
My head lolls. Everything blurs at the edges and turns my limbs heavy. Somewhere behind him, Lyle shouts for the gendarmes. My heartbeat eases, the thumps so soft, I barely feel them.
“Make me a new promise,” I breathe.
“Anything.”
“Use every minute you can to find a cure,” I say. “But if you don’t find it, leave me on this mountain. Run away. Let me protect you with my dragon form.”
“There’s no guarantee you can kill them. Not against their healing magic.”
“I don’t care.” My voice cracks. “I’d rather wake up alone, surrounded by enemies, than find you murdered.”
“Claire—”
“Please. Your life is worth more to me than a moment’s mercy.”
Best-case scenario: He finds a miracle cure.
Worst-case scenario: I wake up on a mountain surrounded by cultists.
Now that my sleep powder is gone, there is no bittersweet middle-ground option anymore. But this way I won’t wake up to my worst nightmare—losing a loved one—whether my dragon form is responsible or not.
Tears stream down his face, a heartbroken grimace. “All right,” he promises. “But I won’t give up on a cure until the last possible moment.”
I close my eyes and smile into his chest. That I can accept.
Abel hugs me tightly, as if refusing to let me go. But he will let go, if it comes to it. He’s a changed man. I see it now.
“Complete your research, Abel. I trust you.”
“Thank you,” he whispers.
He strokes my hair like he did last night, when he whispered he loves me and coaxed me to sleep.