Page 18 of Fire to the Stars

She whips around at the sound of her name. Her whisper is harsh, barely audible above the fires. “Abel? Leave, now! There are silver—”

A curved blade—a sickle—bursts through her abdomen. She drops her sword. Blood bubbles from her mouth and soaks the stomach of her tunic. The sickle retreats in a metallic flash. Her fingertips graze her wound, head tilting as if confused. Then she crumples to the ground.

A fighter of a generation, felled.

A blue-cloaked figure steps over Hanna’s body—then pauses at the sight of me. I can’t see his face; his hood casts it in shadow. Blood drips from his sickle and speckles the cobblestones. Lucy flattens her ears and shrinks behind me with a whimper.

Thismakes more sense.

There is no dragon.

Humansare attacking a slayer outpost.

The cloaked figure steps toward me. Orange firelight reveals a silver mask inside the hood. It has arching half-moon-shaped cutouts for eyes, a crescent smile for a mouth, too curled to look natural. A madman’s laughing expression.

I should run. I hunt dragons, not humans. This is a job for the Gendarmerie. But as I hold my crossbow in the uncertainspace between lowered and aimed, the red uniforms of dead gendarmes taunt the edges of my vision. This masked figure didn’t attack Ravinfort alone.

Ninth rule of dragon hunting: The best camouflage is chaos.

All the destruction can cover my escape. I’ll make Lucy eat a path to Claire through the burning bushes. The flames will rush back in and close off the path behind me. We’ll flee on horseback to the nearest town and alert the Gendarmerie.

The masked figure whistles. Three toned, like a summons.

A shadow moves in the alleyway behind the church. It seemingly peels away over the ground from its natural border in a slow, slinking motion that my eyes struggle to decipher—until it crosses into the firelight. Beastly black paws. Triangular ears. Silver eyes. Lolling pink tongue dripping with saliva and blood.

No. This can’t be what Hanna was trying to communicate.

I can’t be looking at a Gods-damnedsilverwolf.

Silverwolves were the first living species Noctu created,longbefore he wanted to destroy the realm. These creatures are so fearful of humans, they’re practically mythical.

They don’t attack people. They camouflage andrun.

For a split second I’m convinced I’ve stepped back into ancient times, before the Dark Days, when silverwolves hadn’t yet learned to avoid humans. But then the silverwolf shakes its body as if casting off water. Hair by hair, the coat changes color into a muted gray, better blending it in with the ash-dusted cobblestones.

Thank Diu. It’s leaving.

A low growl curdles my confidence.

The masked figure rasps a command in the Old Tongue.

“Attaquez.”

The silverwolf and its master dash forward. I can’t outrun them both. Which do I shoot? The choice tears me in two. An animal is not its master, but a snap decision has me pulling the trigger on the faster silverwolf. The crack of the lever echoes through the square. Growls turn to whimpers. The bolt sinks into its flank at a shallow angle. Not enough to kill it. Just enough to knock it on its side, too injured to pursue. The masked figure closes the space between us in milliseconds.

I block with the crossbow. He smashes through it with the sickle. Moonmetal parts and splintered wood burst in my gloved hands. I draw two daggers and he swings again. Metal slides on metal. Deadlock. With his smiling mask so close to my face, I hear the ragged breaths trapped inside.

I blocked on sheer luck. Not once, but twice. Who will move next? Me? Him? There are no wing muscles to read. No fangs to watch. No sweeping tail to dodge. No animal simplicity. It’s all human intelligence behind this mask, and I don’t have the first clue how to fight it.

My left dagger slips. Half of my blocking power vanishes, and the sudden shift in weight costs me balance I can’t regain without help. “Lucy, bite!”

Lucy bites his ankle, but he kicks her off. He leans more heavily against me and sinks his knee into my stomach. Air bursts from my lungs. One moondagger falls from my grip. He grabs me by the throat and shoves me down. Lucy skitters away with a yip as I hit the ground back-first. The figure kicks my fallen dagger out of reach and pins a knee on the tendons in my wrist, forcing my fingers open until they drop my other weapon.

His hand squeezes my throat, closing off my air. Smoke-veiled stars vanish behind black spots. The blur of a silver mask and too-curled smile leans over me. That blood-smeared sickle nears my face, dripping Hanna du Fay’s blood onto my cheek.

A woman’s roar. A moondagger’s flash. A spray of blood below the figure’s mask, spurting from the carotid artery. Air floods my lungs and the weight disappears. I jolt upright and feel for my daggers, staring at a wild-looking Claire. Fire and smoke bloom behind her. My attacker’s blood spatters her scarred face and chest and mats her glossy hair.

One of my moondaggers is clenched in her hand.