Page 50 of Fire to the Stars

I moved. Slammed a dagger into the center of his spine. It lodged between two vertebrae. His back legs gave out, but he didn’t stop. Pupils dilated, hind legs dragging, steam pouring from the hole in his back, he slashed at me with his talons. They caught me in the forearm and shredded the scales of my armor. Blood poured from my arm as he twisted his neck toward me. Fire glowed in the back of his open maw. But it was his limp hind legs that kept my attention.

I can induce paralysis,I realized.

I don’t know what compelled me to step outside my world view as a dragon killer. Call it instinct. Observation skills. A need to experiment. Desperation to find answers within a scenario that made no sense. Maybe I simply wanted to prove to my parents’ ghosts that Micah wasn’t greedy. I dodged his stream of fire and lodged more daggers between his vertebrae, closer and closer to his neck. By the time he lay limply on the ash-and-blood-streaked floor, he panted just as hard as I did.

My hands shook as our gazes met. Only his eyes could followme.

“Micah,” I said.

No reaction. Just eye contact. Maybe I was biased, looking for my brother in the savage beast I knew too well, but based on the way the pupils flared, Diu’s rage looked a lot like fear.

Only time would tell for sure.

Patiently, methodically, I stepped over him. I coughed againstthe thick mix of steam and smoke as I gathered our stock of moonmetal chains from the nearest weapons closet, then used them to bind his body and secure the daggers. That way, the healing magic couldn’t push them out. He’d stay paralyzed.

Coughing, eyes stinging, I left the chateau and sat outside in the grass to watch it burn.

The suns remained high. In that time, the roof caved in. The vines on the stones caught fire. My forearm bled profusely, so I tore strips of cloth from my undershirt to bandage it. Somewhere in Loussil town proper, the church bells tolled the end of the Ignition. As far as they knew, the area was free of dragons.

I rose, finally. Crossed the estate grounds to the stable, where we kept our horses, and tacked them up to pull a flatbed cart. Minutes passed. Hours. By some force of the Gods, I managed to rig rope pulleys to lift Micah’s paralyzed dragon body onto the cart.

Just as I was about to mount the driver’s seat, a tinderfox whimpered. Lucy slunk out from beneath the ruins and waddled toward me. I took her as gently as possible. I couldn’t tell which one of us was shaking more.

The smoke thickened. The Gendarmerie would notice it soon. Fire rescue, too. If they found me keeping a live dragon, they’d report me to the Slayers Guild. I cracked the whip at the horses and trotted off through the back gardens of the Estellio estate, into the undeveloped forest. Once fire rescue and their tinderfoxes secured the chateau enough to search it, they would find my parents dead. They would presume either Micah or I had turned and eaten the other, only to fly away. They would not search for us any further.

I moved Micah to where I hoped no one would find him: thecavern we used to play in as children. Witnesses would have to trespass quite deeply into private land to find him.

I’d bought Micah time.

For what?

To return to human form? To cry? Bleed? Feel guilty? Beyond that, I didn’t know what he could do with the rest of his life. I didn’tknow.

Not until I cured him.

But Micah hadn’t done anything out of excessive greed. He’d barely even known about Madame Afi’s offer to apprentice him. If that knowledge was all it took for him to succumb to the curse, then my role as a slayer—as an enforcer of good morals—didn’t make sense.

Either Micah was a sinner or dragons were not sinners at all.

Whom had I been killing, if not the greediest among us?

A crinkling noise jolts me from my thoughts. I snatch a dagger from my belt. Claire sets a large brown paper bag on the dresser between our beds.

“Why so jumpy?” she laughs, and opens the bag. “I don’t bite very hard.”

“I didn’t hear you come in. Did you make contact with Lyle?”

“He’s safe, but Madame Afi’s captors slipped him a second demand while he was at the church.”

My heart jolts. “What do they want?”

“Your location plan for Ignition Day.” She waves me off before I run with that statement. “Focus on your hunt. I already told Marshal Bard.”

I toss my dagger aside. “I’m sure he appreciated the complication.”

“My pretty face softened the blow.” She winks. “Just figure out your plan for that dragon. He wants as much advance notice as possible to form a strategy.”

“I’ve barely thought about this dragon at all.”