Page 60 of Fire to the Stars

She laughs airily. “Does payment matter anymore?”

My fingers halt on a soleil as I look at her anew. Blood still gushes from her thigh. Large dribbles of it form a crimson trail from the hallway back to us, as if someone spilled a wine bottle over the floor.

“No, no, no,” I whisper, then I fall to my knees in front of her, pressing her nearest throw blanket hard against the wound. The blood soaks through it in seconds, sopping and sticky. “I didn’t mean to do this much. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“No, you’re not.”

I’m not sorry fordefendingmyself, but this? A wound so deep, she’ll bleed out before I can call for help? I didn’t want to hurther. I’m not a violent person. I evenwarnedher that I’d have to fight back.

But is it self-defense if I cannot die?

“My name is Claire Belgard,” I confess. I don’t know why. Maybe I owe her at this point. She gives no indication of whether she accepts my name as a Dame Blanche. Her gaze falls to my satchel instead.

“Why does a dragon carry a slayer’s belongings?” she asks.

“I hired him to cure me.” The moondagger on the floor draws my eye. “He doesn’t know it yet.”

“You want to live?”

“I want to die.”

The reply startles even me.

I swallow hard, as if to take it back. But it’s true, isn’t it? I can’t live like this, wondering whom I will hurt next. It’s too painful.

“Liar.” She laughs faintly. “ ‘Je me défends,’ yes?”

“Not if it means killing people,” I whisper.

“Too late for that.” Her breath deepens, then shudders. “Go, Claire Belgard. You stole yourself a future.”

Her use of my name stirs yearning in my chest—for sisters—but then I think of Leah on that dock in Port-de-Chance, chained and bloody, eyes wet with betrayal.

To be a sister to the Dames Blanches, you must be viewed as human first.

I close my eyes, nodding at the ceiling, swallowing tears.

I’m long past thievery—since Ravinfort, I’ve graduated to murder. Claire Belgard amounts to nothing more than Diu’s greedy, vengeful spawn, salivating for every kill she can get. No matter what form I take, I will forever be someone’s monster.

“I’m not human, am I?” I whisper.

When I open my eyes again, hers are half lidded. Gold smeared. Unseeing. Her chest does not rise. The hole in her thigh has no more blood to give.

“Thank you for the sleep powder,” I tell her. “I’ll leave the coins on the table.”

A sob-laced laugh bubbles up my throat. I only wanted to do right by a sister, but that came out soundingevil.

I place the coins on the table anyway, then sit on the floor with my arms wrapped around my bloodstained middle. While the hours of daylight waste away, I rock myself like Papa rocked me as a child and repeat one phrase to salvage my mask before it breaks for good.

“Je me défends. Je me défends.Je me défends.”

Return to your void of suns and moons, if you so greatly disapprove. Forge a new realm with lesser creatures and leave us to our devices.

—Threat from the Immortals to the Gods, Before Ascension

Translated fromThe Tale of Stars (L’Histoire des Étoiles), Part II: The Book of Dark Days

Chapter Twenty