Page 21 of Fire to the Stars
“Abel?”
Smoke-muted moonlight casts the mud and rocks and red-leafed trees in gray.
Panic spurs my heart while I squint across the shoreline. Back and forth. Up and down. Mud sucks at my boots and slows my steps, precious seconds that could mean the difference between my curer’s life and death.
“Abel!”
Maybe our attackers found him. Maybe I’ll have to defend him again.
Phantom traces of that woman’s blood slick my hands and stick to my hair. I gasp cool air to steady myself. I have a plan and priorities. A curse to cure. Isaveda life. I did not steal one.
“ABEL!”
Crickets chirp from somewhere in the forest. I hold my breath, desperate for a murmur, a groan, anything to signal Abel’s safety. Only the river answers, lapping the mud. What was I thinking,leading us to the rapids? Not only did I endanger himandLucy, but the journal is surely ruined, the pages soaked through. I’ll never know his research unless he survives.
Movement behind a group of boulders catches my eye. A leather boot goes still, lingering in the freezing water.
“Abel!”
I hold Lucy close and splash through the mud to kneel at Abel’s side. The sight steals my breath. He’s facedown, skin so pale it’s nearly blue. I tear the pack from his shoulders and roll him over. Heartbeat? Present. It’s frantic when I press my ear to his chest. I tip his chin back and bring my open mouth to his, passing my breath to his lungs with the resuscitation technique Papa prayed I’d never need to use.
A surprised sound catches in Abel’s throat. His shocked stare meets mine. We both sit up with a gasp.
He looks away. “I’m alive,” he pants, flicking mud off his chin. “Just finding my bearings.”
My cheeks burn as I shoot to my feet. “Good.”
“Is Lucy—” His eyes widen at the wet bundle nestled against my chest. “Give her to me.”
“She’s still breathing.”
He rips off his remaining glove. “Give her to me, Claire! She needs fire or she’s going to die.”
I loosen my bodice. Abel takes Lucy with trembling hands, leaving me to clutch my clothes against my chest. He tries to breathe warm air onto her paws, but with the chilly air, it comes out as fog. He dumps the contents of his pack in the mud.
“Collect some dead leaves,” he commands. “I need dry kindling. Pull bark off the trees if you have to. Twigs, too.”
I struggle to lace my slipping bodice. “A fire won’t catch here. It’s too wet.”
Abel stabs the ground with a dagger. “Hurry! If Lucy dies because of you—”
“How dare you! I saved your life, and this is how you treatme?”
“Claire, please! She’s all I have left.”
The waver in his outburst hushes me. I snatch his pack and duck through the trees. Once I’ve filled it, I help him bring our loose supplies to a dry space I find—a shallow indent in a stony hillside, nestled deeper within the trees.
Abel arranges stones into a circle around the kindling. He twists a stick on a slab of bark and creates sparks with ease. I shed my coat and kneel across from him while he breathes gently on the embers, holding his hands like a shield against the breeze. The flames emit a slither of smoke.
I take quick stock of my satchel. My coins and flask are safe. I dig for the soaked packet of sleep powder, worried what I’ll find when I peel it open.Please, let my sleep powder still be there.The wet paper falls apart in my hands.
Dissolved. All of it.
I take a swig from my flask. Force of habit summons the celestial events calendar to my mind. I have twenty-eight days left to find more sleep powder. Without a way to sedate myself during the next Ignition, I’m bound to be slain.
Deep breath.
The sharp red wine loosens my thoughts enough for me to pick at my plan with a fine-tooth comb. Abel is alive. That’s a positive. We stumbled upon a massacre. That complicates things. Murderers don’t let witnesses go. I need a new strategy to keep Abel safe until I can coax his stance on curing dragons from histight lips. No quick fix comes to mind, other than somehow delaying this fraud of a hunt. For that, I need sleep powder to keep me human through the next Ignition.
