Page 125 of Fire to the Stars

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—wasjustwithin 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, veryslim.

“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 theycanbe killed.”

“How did you learn that?” Marshal Payen asks. “Fromhim?”

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!”