Page 8 of Fire to the Stars

“You seem too pious to accept stolen coin.”

“Most people would rather lose money than their life. Aslong as you stay out of my way and collect your earnings out of my sight, I don’t care if you come.”

“Deal.” I dig through my satchel for my map. “I don’t have much to go on. Just the towns I’ve already visited for clues. But Sellecastel was a small town where everyone knew everyone. If we can track down a resident, we can reasonably assume that that person is the dragon. Correct?”

“It’s a solid starting point.”

Abel takes a step closer, halting when the innkeeper emerges from the washroom. I thank and dismiss her. She mutters a threat to Abel—something about the broom—before slamming the door shut.

Abel begrudgingly accepts the map. I give him my best flirtatious smile. “The washroom awaits. Try not to peek,” I tease.

I drop the blanket and rise. Abel makes a flustered sound and turns around. Gentlemen are perfectly predictable. He doesn’t see me take his dagger with my clothes.

I shut the door. The map I gave him is simple—just Florent’s oblong shape, with crossed-out towns and scribbled dates. It marks the path I took through the countryside to chase rumors of him. Doubtful he’ll find it useful for long, but no matter. Accompanying Abel on this hunt is a means to an end.

I set the clothes and dagger on the cold tabletop and strip, allowing the chemise to pool around my feet. The steamy mirror blurs my body into a smudge while I plunge the washrag into the basin and scrub myself, lingering on my scarred chest. The hot water scalds as it drips down my body. Droplets ping on the shiny gray surface of Abel’s moondagger.

Over the water, I hold my breath and touch the dagger’s tipto the thin blue veins beneath my wrist. Sweat slips down my forehead.

I won’t hurt myself. I reject the fate Diu subjected me to.

But isn’t it funny how vivid every sensation becomes at knifepoint? In my mind, I follow my last six months of grief, retracing every grueling step, every traitorous heartbeat that passed after the day I burned down Sellecastel.

I was brushing Papa’s yearlings in the pasture when my first Ignition struck. The two suns eclipsed. Heat like a wildfire shot through my veins so fast, I shrieked and sent the horses running. Blisters popped and sizzled across my skin. Fangs pushed through my gums. Blood-red scales weighed down my arms and dragged me to the ground. The seams of my clothing popped and ripped. With my talons, I clawed my tear-streaked face and throat, so desperate and fearful and foolish, foolish,foolishto think the pain would cut through the transformation.

Then my mind was gone.

When I was a little girl, Papa sat me on his lap and readThe Tale of Stars—the story of our realm’s genesis. Two God-brothers—one whose realm is the suns and the other the moon—forged this world out of fire and fumes, ice and ore. Among their early creations were the Immortals—the very first humans—whom they taught how to wield their magic. Together, humans and Gods filled the world with their creations, from plants and animals to the clothes on their backs.

Then came the Dark Days.

The Immortals ran rampant with greed and turned magic against each other in their quest for dominion over the newborn world. Selfish individuals wanted to control it for themselves,even if it meant overthrowing the others who helped build it—the Gods included.

Noctu wanted to destroy humankind for abusing their magic.

Diu wanted to give us a chance to live without it.

Tension boiled over between the brothers. Diu revoked magic from humankind and remade us as mortals, then declared war against Noctu in our defense. To this day, the Gods chase each other across the sky in a battle over the fate of humankind, a struggle as certain as day follows night.

But our second chance came with a catch. Diu made the dragon curse to serve as a lesson—a punishment to expose the greediest among us and remind us how easily we could return to the Dark Days.

Papa called dragons the canary in the coal mine. If one appeared nearby, weallneeded to rethink our behavior in life.

Like any good Church girl, I feared the curse. But Papa always said Diu had bigger acts of greed to punish than girls who skipped mucking stalls to enjoy a nap in the hay. So long as I practiced appreciation for the life I had, Diu wouldn’t curse me.

I believed him. I believed the Church. My moral compass was guided every day by the lessons preserved inThe Tale of Stars—until I woke up at nightfall, naked in a field of ash and horse corpses.

I screamed for Papa. I begged Diu to give him back. Under the dagger-sharp eyes of Noctu’s owl constellation, I dug through the remains of our farmhouse with my bare hands until I found his charred body. I cried so hard, I couldn’t breathe.

In a blink, I’d lost everything.

My farm. My papa. My community. The entire landscapeof my life had gone up in flames. Worst of all, I couldn’t understandwhy.

I’d appreciated my life as it was. I wasn’t greedy. I wasgood.

Amid my recollections, my grip on Abel’s dagger slips and makes the tiniest cut. Blood leaks from my wrist, into the washbasin, then dilutes in a pink swirl.

Steam slithers from the cut. My skin blisters and fuses.