Chapter Twelve Abel #2
“And make us some tea,” she ordered her son. “Chamomile.”
“Ma! That’s the worst flavor.”
“Chamomile.”
“Any tea is fine.” I cleared my throat. “The damage—”
She set the first aid kit down with a huff, rolled up the sleeve of my undershirt, and began cleaning the wound.
“Do you enjoy slaying?” she asked.
“I…I suppose. Is that relevant somehow?”
She scoffed. “What could you possibly enjoy about all that death?”
I reeled. This woman may have been an outfitter, but she was a member of the Slayers Guild, same as me. No sane member insulted the industry.
“It’s a great honor. Protecting Florent is—” I froze, realizing she already had half of my wound stitched up. “Are you trying to distract me?”
“See?” Lyle called out. “I told you he was too smart for his own good.”
“I see why your mentor says you have too many opinions,” she sniped at him. “If you’re done cleaning, make yourself useful and bring us that tea.”
Their bickering threw me. Not because they were so open and free about it, but because they smiled despite it.
If I didn’t live up to the Estellio name, I was ignored at best, scolded at worst. The Metekus tended to my wounds first and didn’t fixate on my failures.
With Madame Afi, I felt safe enough to confide Micah’s conflict with my parents.
Micah didn’t like weapons. He preferred to wrestle Lucy into scraps of dragon hide, rambling about how heroic tinderfoxes would look if they wore armor, too.
Madame Afi listened to my woes while she finished my bandage, then finally went to work on my uniform.
Lyle waited with me while I drank the tea to the dregs, suddenly exhausted from confessing my vulnerabilities for the first time.
When I finished, Madame Afi said simply, “Tell your parents to send Micah to me.”
“Or send him to me,” Lyle interjected.
“An apprentice can’t take an apprentice.”
“I’ll graduate soon enough. And smithing is more fun.”
Again they bickered. This time over my brother. They wanted him as he was, not as the slayer my parents insisted he was born to be.
The Metekus were a real family. I wanted to give that to Micah.
Now I wear his corpse.
The carriage jostles us hard, knocking my helmet around.
I steady it beneath the seat with my leg.
Madame Afi’s handiwork is all over it—the precise stitches in the padding, the smooth bone of the interior.
It protected me in Ravinfort. I just wish there had been a god willing to protect her before she got abducted.
“What happened to make you lose your faith?” I ask Claire.
She laughs. “Besides the destruction of my entire life?”
“Many people struggle to rebuild their life in the wake of a dragon attack, but they cling to the solace that Diu’s curse exists as a course correction toward the greater good,” I explain. “It must’ve taken something deeper than grief for you to hate Diu instead of the dragon.”
“I lost my faith because I recognized the lie.”
“The lie?”
“When a dragon turns, people don’t learn anything.
They suffer.” She scratches Lucy, matter-of-fact.
“Now that I’ve experienced it, I don’t see Diu’s curse as a ‘lesson’ anymore.
It’s just plain cruel. I want to stop the Sellecastel dragon, yes, but the purpose of my revenge is to end more suffering brought by Diu, not to blame the human he cursed. ”
“You don’t believe dragons deserve their fate?”
“Do you?”
My fingers tighten on Hanna’s notes. “Not always,” I admit out loud for the very first time.
That’s what has bothered me about the day Micah turned: The punishment didn’t fit the crime. If anything, I was the one who encouraged Micah to apprentice with Madame Afi. If Diu thought it greedy to disrupt the family legacy, then he shouldn’t have chosen my brother to turn.
He should’ve chosen me.
In fact, my greed started years before that. The longer a dragon evaded death, the higher the bounty became. I, Hanna, and the rest of the slayers—when we saw numbers like that, we didn’t consider the destruction and sorrow that made them possible. We salivated.
If even a thief like Claire can show compassion to a dragon in her quest for revenge, then she has the moral high ground over me.
I need to rethink my approach to slaying.
Hanna’s chicken-scratch handwriting paints an unflattering picture of my target.
Human name: Gérard Dupont. The spendthrift heir to a fairly successful jewelry company.
Odds are this dragon is frequenting Jardincourt’s taverns and brothels.
Her research has scarcely ever been wrong.
At the same time, there might be more to Gérard than the worst of his avarice.
But Madame Afi’s abductors remain at large. I can’t go anywhere that has Old Tongue speakers present—like the archives—until the Gendarmerie tell me it’s safe to do so.
I need a fail-safe. Something to ensure the delivery of Micah’s story to the archives once we rescue Madame Afi.
“Claire.”
Her attention remains on spoiling Lucy. “Hmm?”
“I need a favor.”
I set the notes aside, rewrap my journal in its protective skin, and hold it out to her. She stares at it, expression blank. Deliberate, probably. She knows this information is dangerous.
“I need you to hold on to this,” I say. “If something happens to me before this extortion scheme is resolved, this must reach the slayer archives.”
She meets my stare, wariness in her own. Her fingers flex in Lucy’s fur, though she ultimately accepts the journal. “Isn’t that against standard procedure? I thought only slayers could submit records.”
“Not if I’m dead.”
I plant my empty hands on my knees. I haven’t been without that journal since the day I started it—the day Micah turned.
It’s my duty to report all dragon encounters to the archives, but that’s my brother’s blood on those pages.
Entrusting it to someone else feels like I’m refusing to take responsibility for what I did.
“All right.” Claire tucks the journal deep inside her satchel. “I’ll keep it safe.”
“Just—”
This is the smart thing to do. Since I have a target on my back, Claire has better odds of delivering Micah’s story. She makes confounding choices at times, but she resents Diu’s curse more than anyone. If I die, that resentment will carry my journal to safe hands.
Claire places a hand on mine, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Just what, Abel?”
I look her dead in the eye. “Don’t read it.”
Her hand releases mine. I don’t blame her for her discomfort, given the experiments I mentioned. However, I’m not the man who wrote that journal anymore, so she doesn’t need to fear me for sins I already learned to regret. Only when she nods do I relax.
Claire looks at the city outside. “I’ll find us proper lodging. Something in a safe area with a good view. We’ll want to stay inside as much as possible.”
“Sounds expensive.”
Pursed lips. No reply. She has some pickpocketing to do, then. And I have Madame Afi to rescue and a dragon to hunt.
“I need the funds to pay an info broker. It’ll speed up the search for Gérard,” I say. “And it might take a while to speak with the local marshal.”
Claire slips a hand down her bust and draws out a handful of coins. I glance away. She takes my hand and presses the warm coins into my palm. Since when has she had these? I thought we were broke again.
“That should cover a deposit.” She takes my chin between her fingertips and forces me to look at her. I’m about to push her hand away when she lets go. Her tone turns serious. “Let me help you lure the dragon. I can be the bait.”
First rule of dragon hunting: Consider the bait.
My brow furrows. “You read Hanna’s notes.”
“I got a glimpse while you were daydreaming. Hanna describes him as a ‘womanizer,’ doesn’t she?” She gestures to the papers scattered beside me on the bench. “I’m no slayer, but I do know how to hunt a man.”
With a sigh, I fold the notes and tuck them into the envelope. Hard to argue against that logic. “All right. If the conditions require your help, you can assist.”
There’s that self-satisfied smirk. I need to shut down any overconfidence before it starts.
“I have conditions. You’ll act where I can see you. You’ll back off when I tell you to. Lastly, you’ll take shelter in a fire cellar during the Ignition itself. Understood?”
Surprisingly, she nods. Full eye contact. No smirk. At least I can take solace in the fact that she’s taking this seriously. I suppose she would. Successfully slaying this dragon means we get a shot at hers next.