Chapter Forty-Five Abel
Imagine what horrors the Immortals must’ve inflicted on the realm without the threat of consequences. Just imagine.
—Sermon on The Tale of Stars (L’Histoire des étoiles), Part II: The Book of Dark Days
Chapter Forty-Five
Abel
A stalactite drip-drip-drips.
“How,” I stammer, “does a secret like that stay buried for so long?”
He inclines his head knowingly. He doesn’t need to respond. The answer is simple: under a mountain of coins.
“Do I descend from those slayers?” I ask warily. The idea of being bred to protect the crimes of my direct ancestors makes me shudder.
“No,” he replies. “Once they perfected their hunting methods, they recruited unwitting mortals to fight in their stead. Modern slayers descend from them.”
“Short-lived puppets who wouldn’t question the archives?”
“That was their intention.”
Until I questioned everything.
But for centuries their system worked. The Estellios, the du Fays, the Houdins, and so many more slayer families bought into the curriculum hook, line, and sinker. It permeated our lives from every angle. Toys. Training camps. The archives. The handbook. The creed at the heart of it all.
All dragons must die.
I shake my head. “I can’t imagine why they would entrust such a vital task to fragile mortals. Their immortality may be imperfect, but they can heal. Immortal slayers can’t lose.”
“Death is the concern of a mortal,” he replies. “Those who cannot die are concerned with quality of life.”
Like Claire was, now that he mentions it.
Every action she took—since her first Ignition—involved hiding her healing power from the public.
It makes sense that the Immortals would have done the same.
If their ice healing had been exposed at any point, the entirety of Florent would have questioned The Tale of Stars.
It wouldn’t have taken long before the population uncovered Noctu’s location, eager to free him and end the dragon curse.
No wonder the Immortals felt the need to reinvent dragons as a symbol of moral failure. Self-righteousness was the perfect motivator to compel the rest of society to villainize them and perpetuate the lie.
For slayers especially.
In our pursuit of riches, we made ourselves judge, jury, and executioner. We eagerly killed the dragons—people—who could have ended Diu’s curse a long time ago.
Lucy stops pawing Claire’s shoulder and cocks her head at me, alert to my surge of emotion a split second before I realize it’s coming. I thumb the tear from my eye. Guilt has no place here. Not when our next steps are crystal clear.
“At least now we know the truth. We can free you,” I say.
“Do not misunderstand. Your presence here is no grave error,” Noctu replies. “Your journey up this mountain is yet another trap for you and your allies.”
Rule one of dragon hunting: Consider the bait.
Claire was right. The absence of enemies up the mountain—that was bait. A trick to convince us we had the upper hand. Here on the summit, we’ve grouped ourselves back together, perfectly positioned to die with no witnesses.
The knowledge that led us here will die with us.
I fell for my own rulebook. But that’s not all.
“If the Immortals are the original dragon slayers, then they have access to slayer weapons.” My eyes widen. “They’ll try to kill Claire.”
“Yes. They will.”
I raise the lantern for a closer look at the walls around us, hoping to find a hidden alcove—a convenient stash of moonmetal weapons that I can easily throw off the side of the mountain. Lucy sniffs around the stalagmites as if reading my mind, but she looks as lost as I feel.
“Slayers would keep all resources easily accessible,” I say. “But the Gendarmerie’s hounds never found moonmetal weapons in the stockpiles.”
“Their slayer equipment is stored separately from their other resources, only touched in a handful of instances where a dragon reached the summit,” Noctu explains. “It is a strategy against scent contamination.”
“The Immortals really did think of everything.” My grip tightens on the lantern. “But you see through their eyes. You must know where those weapons are.”
“I do, but they possess more stockpiles than you can empty in one night. Without fail, they will equip themselves within minutes after sunsrise and easily overwhelm you.”
Several dozen owls wait outside. All it takes is one slayer to kill a dragon. It will take even less effort for multiple Immortals to massacre the handful of gendarmes Marshal Payen brought to this summit.
I brush Claire’s hair from her forehead, savoring her restful face. Her future—a full, mortal life—was just within reach, but now I might as well try to grab hold of the suns. The futility of it burns my eyes.
Try as I may to strategize my way through this, what countermeasures can I come up with that the Immortals haven’t already considered? They have centuries of life experience that I don’t.
Even if the gendarmes and I can protect Claire long enough to free Noctu, the chances that we all survive this are very, very slim.
“Is there an afterlife?” I ask. “In the celestial realm?”
Noctu smiles, amused by my question. “You are looking for a consolation prize, Abel Estellio. Would you fight as hard if that knowledge gave you comfort in the face of your demise?”
No. I don’t think I would. Claire deserves more from me than the promise of an afterlife.
In fact, the whole kingdom of Florent deserves better. If we give up, dragons will continue to ravage the land. Families will perish. Survivors will mourn. The world will move on, oblivious, until it’s crushed under a barrage of meteorites.
The owls hoot again, as if demanding my attention.
“If your magic mirrors the dragon curse,” I reason aloud, “then your owls should be killable.”
“They are,” he says patiently.
“I just need the full moon”—my eyes widen—“and a weapon from the opposite domain of magic.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “You are learning.”
The sound of wingbeats fills the silence. My hand gravitates to my crossbow. Lucy’s ears perk to attention, waiting for orders.
“Stay,” I command her.
I walk outside with my crossbow, aim for an owl, and—crack—fire a bolt. It sinks clean through the heart in a burst of blood and brown feathers, dropping to the snow. The other owls fling themselves from the nearby branches and disappear among the trees.
Marshal Payen runs to me, Lyle and the gendarmes in tow. Still visibly shaken from her encounter with Noctu, she glances at the wounded owl.
“What did he say?” she asks with fog-laced breath.
“Give me your lantern,” I tell Lyle instead.
“You have an idea?” he asks, offering it.
“I need to do an experiment.”
The owl’s glassy eyes stare blankly at the sky—then blink.
As I expected, its body begins to push out the moonmetal bolt.
I step on a wing, pinning it down for a moment—then dump the lamp’s burning oil on its body.
The feathers catch fire in a burst of orange light.
Everyone but me flinches away from the sparks.
“What in the—” Lyle blurts.
“Just watch,” I say, withdrawing my boot.
Pain twinges in my shoulder. I rub it hard as my prey screeches and thrashes. Barely a minute passes before it falls silent, the body still burning.
“Moonmetal weapons can’t kill these owls,” I tell them. My voice shakes with the shock of hope. “But they can be killed.”
“How did you learn that?” Marshal Payen asks. “From him?”
I summarize Noctu’s story. Florent’s true history, Diu’s intentions, Claire’s role in all this, and the Immortal slayers destined to attack us at sunsrise—unless we exploit their only moment of weakness: the full moon.
By the time I finish explaining, the owl looks like a dragon roasted it.
“Start a bonfire!” Marshal Payen orders her gendarmes. “Shoot down as many owls as you can!”
I lift the dead creature by the wing. “And burn them alive.”