Page 121 of Fire to the Stars

“It mirrors the dragon curse.” I gesture to Claire. “How does that happen if it wasn’t deliberate?”

“Call it a side effect of their stealing my power. Creation magic has a way of counterbalancing itself.”

“Yet I’m supposed to believe you’re powerless. How can thatbe?”

“To understand my magic, you must first understand how realms like yours originate,” he explains. “The process begins in the celestial realm—an endless void filled with the floating remains of dead moons and suns. Fire and fumes. Ice and ore. These are the basic building blocks of creation.”

A near-direct quote from the scripture. “The Tale of Starswas honest about that, at least.”

“The strongest lies embrace the truth,” he confirms, “but the limitless creation described in your text exists only in the celestial realm. That is where the materials are purest, most powerful, and brimming with endless magical potential.” He gestures as if holding an invisible orb. “However, once we forge an individual realm, we must walk its surface to give it detail. The more complex the realm grows, the more the materials mix together, and the more our individual control over creation narrows. Over time, Diu and I become subject to its limitations. If we are not careful, we could invent our own prison.”

“Youdidinvent your own prison.” I lift the lantern higher, casting shadows of his cell bars onto the cave walls. “The Immortals captured you.”

“They did.”

“What went wrong?”

“We introduced humans into existence too early.” His chains rattle as he shifts. “Worse was our mistake of sharing our capacity for creation magic. We did not recognize the threat they posed until they took up arms against us.”

“The Dark Days,” I conclude.

“Yes. However, their ambitions were not limited to this realm. They wanted to usurp control of the celestial realm. They believed themselves superior to Diu and me—and they were, in a way. We had taught them how to wield both domains at once.”

I shudder. “That sounds like an unnecessary risk.”

“It seemed a promising choice at the time. We learned eons ago that cooperation between both domains is necessary for a realm to flourish. But humans were a young species. They were greedy, inexperienced creators, and uncooperative witheach other. Theydid not acknowledge their capacity to cause harm. Eventually, Diu and I stopped them with the only method we had left.”

“You revoked their immortality,” I fill in. “But how did you do that if your power was so limited?”

“We Ascended.” He looks up, as if seeing beyond the stalactites. “In the celestial realm, the constraints on our powers lift. We can add new rules to a realm—so long as it applies on a blanket scale. From there, we pulled the magic from human blood, then created the passage of time. Day and night. One sun, one moon. A way for humans to measure their new, mortal lives.”

“But you didn’t remain there. You returned to the mortal realm.”

“Our final mistake,” he acknowledges. “We hoped to help the first generation of mortals adjust to the change. Most of them accepted their fate. Alas, some did not. They attacked us with moonmetal weapons to steal our blood, and their immortality, back. Thankfully, Diu escaped.”

“But they chainedyouin here.” For a blink, Micah’s human form takes Noctu’s place. “To bleed you of your magic.”

“Diu retaliated by adding a second sun to your sky. His celestial magic imposed a new rule for mortals to live by.”

“The dragon curse,” I finish for him.

He nods. “That is the true story of Ascension Day.”

“It still doesn’t feel real.” I grip one of the cell bars. It doesn’t budge. “Even my smith could free you from this, if he had the right tools.”

“Your smith can bend moonmetal because the process involves fire,” he explains. “That is a rule of your realm. Now thatI exist within its limitations, even I cannot freely shape lunar material as I would in the celestial realm.”

“So you need fire.”

“Correct,” he confirms. “Without fire strong enough to melt these chains, I am as trapped as any mortal.”

Noctu needs fire.

Dragonsbreathefire.

My lungs tighten as I dig through Claire’s satchel. My journal opens with a crack of the spine. The true history of this realm—the history as Noctu has told me—threads itself through the patchwork of clues on these pages, pulling everything I’ve learned into one seamless piece, as tight and secure as Madame Afi’s stitching.

The answer is so obvious, I’m shaking with fury that I didn’t see it before.