Dragon Aster Trilogy (10 page)

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’
Cirrus smiled as he flew over her and pushed her with a gush of wind from his wings back to Aster. But she wouldn’t squeak or cry out as she fell silently, and held out one hand for him to catch her. For her heart knew that it would never have to fall alone again.

Kas didn’t understand the entirety of what Hain was doing, all that he did know for certain was that the older phelan had taken his madness to a new depth. He looked twenty meters down into the Chasm where Hain stood on the wind-ripping edge of an extending crevice.
Do you have any idea what you are doing?

“If you have any better ideas that stand a chance in getting that girl away from a lot of dragons, I’m all-ears. Otherwise, females are best spoken to when they have only two options.”
Hain caught some control over the Threads around him then and lowered his hand as his long, straight brown hair settled down with his hands at his sides.

Options here being...?

“Kill you or talk to you. Does this look like enough space?
”

For what? Are you flying across?

“No, not me. Just the devil I summoned.
”

Kas looked the other way in the Chasm as a pair of purple wings flew under him and stopped at a hover before Hain. It was a daoran.

“Hello beautiful.”

“I warned you never to come back here,” Kayla replied in a threatening tone, as her grey eyes flared their full focus on him.

“I know, and I did promise, but this is important.”

“What do you want?” The light of the Soph Aur that did reach into the Chasm made a bright and almost blinding reflection of light off of her scales. It slowly became a dark storm, as the aeri energy in her was replaced with estus from her anger of Hain being there.

“There’s a little human slave that escaped my new mistress, and I need her back.”

“Just what makes you think that I would do anything to help you?” Kayla turned in the air in her hover, but stopped when the Threads to her wings were caught by him. The ash of her eyes looked to ignite now as he held her right where he wanted.

“He thinks about you every day.”

“If you are trying to guilt—”

“No, you’re fine with just your own there, I don’t even need to touch it to see it. But I have a new job now and to stay fine and happy and oblivious the rest of
my
path through life, I need that slave.”

“The High Guard watch her day and night.”

“That’s not the daoran I remember. Last I checked you didn’t answer to anyone.”

Kayla hovered a bit faster as she thought on it. “You will leave then?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. I will have her dropped at the southeastern Outpost by tomorrow evening. My younger brother won’t prove too much of a problem to move from it, if you have any imagination. Pick her up or don’t, just get lost.” With the grip on her wings released, she turned to fly back for the entrance to the wind tunnels.

Kas wasn’t believing any of it to be so easy as Hain climbed back up and onto the ground, panting.

“I think she was happy to see me. Did she seem happier to you?”

“I think she was on the verge of knocking you off and having your screams lull her to sleep at night.”

Hain thought on it for a few moments with a tilt of his head, before getting to his feet. “That works too.”

“What if the dragon does not move from the Outpost?”

“Well, I’m not making that climb again, so let’s see if we can make use of your talents to draw up a guarantee on our part.”

“Any mer yet?”

Cecil faced Cirrus as he landed on the large rock near him. With so much water around them, his blind cousin was able to use his Ancient to watch the coming Aur storm from the waves.

“You know, if you let go of her for a moment, she won’t evaporate.”

“If someone were to drop you in the middle of Earth without a friend or a set of wings you could use, you would be as fearful as she is right now,” Cirrus said.

“Yes, but I would also have the capacity to see that I didn’t belong and come back. What are you doing, Cirrus? Your father is going to burn us alive with this. The minute Dyaus sees her, he will drag her back to Earth himself.”

“I’m not sending her back, not before I turned Nafury’s bones over in his ashes with my own hands.”

“What does Nafury have to do with any of this?”

“She’s the Prophecy. The reincarnation of Asil.”

Cecil laughed briefly, before shaking his head as if some water had gotten into his ears. “By all the caels, make me deaf as well so I can say that I didn’t hear you just now.”

“You remember the lashings Simera gave to the Prince when he was caught Dreamwalking?”

“Who doesn’t? His blood still won’t come off of the walls in that room.”

“Sybl is the one Nafury saw when his Trial of Somn almost claimed him. She is wearing his necklace.”

“So he lost it, and it washed up on Earth where she picked it up. Humans value gold too, and the floor of the Eternal Waters has countless undiscovered Rifts.”

“None of this is a coincidence, Cecil. Why aren’t you hearing me?”

“Because you have no idea what you sound like right now. Why in Aragmoth’s name would he allow the reincarnation of Asil to come back as a human—and on Earth for that matter? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Cirrus sighed loudly as he tried to stay calm against his cousin’s stubbornness. “Dyaus can’t take her back by force unless all the Elders agree to it.”

“If Lintrance had ever been taken seriously as an Elder, I would actually have some hope for you.”

“Lintrance doesn’t create a conflict unless it’s necessary. That’s the only so-called weak difference you see. He holds his position just fine by keeping the other Elders in line with that fact.”

“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? You have seen what happens to humans on our world. We both have. If she stays here and survives long enough, that will not stop Time from taking her. A piece, if not all of your soul will die with hers and well before its time. Spare yourself the pain and let her go now.”

“Is that why you think Rose left?”

Cecil didn’t answer, as he continued to watch the Aur storm from the waves that clashed up against the rocks. “Why are you asking me to stick my neck out like this? Because you believe she is the Prophecy, or because you have already fallen in love with her?”

Cirrus didn’t answer.

“This distraction won’t cure your guilt. It’s going to be what loses you to it.”

“I’m already lost in it, yet I can feel Sybl leading me out. If I can guard her against fear, pain, and regret in return, then I want to stay with her. If the right hand of Aragmoth can’t point me to the answers I need, then there is no one else who can.”

“I’m going to assume that you saw the Mei on her arm as well?”

“The phelan know who she is, and one of them got to her already. They had no intention of sparing me back at the Canyon because of a truce; they only backed off when you and Lintrance showed up. They were more interested in catching Sybl once I was no longer in the way. But I won’t let them have her. I have always been there for you and Rose, and what I’m asking for here is a chance.”

Cecil sighed and pulled his sight from the water and back into darkness. “Don’t do it, Cirrus. She’s too young and too naive to have any idea of what you would walk into so blatantly. I don’t care if she can prove she is the Caelestis or not, she is still a human and their souls don’t shatter when they leave you. Take the Mei off of her and kill the phelan, fine. But if I see your mark on her, then you’re on your own.”

Cecil reached down from the rock and touched the water, before forming a sphere of it and bringing it before him so he could see again by it. Then he spread his dark blue wings and took to the air for the wind tunnels that led back into the Caverns.

Cirrus looked out across the water, as the Atrum’s Aur reached with its darkness over the ocean just enough to be able to feel the heavy air it made. He was tired from despair and tired of having waited so long, just as Simera had once been. But unlike their King, he didn’t have to follow his own feelings or thoughts across the unknown alone. Instead, he had only to follow Sybl and to where Aragmoth’s will would lead them next.

So he would.

Sybl was left to roam the Dragon Caverns alone, as Cirrus vanished on her again. Being her luck, she had wandered down a darker hallway that didn’t have the aeri-infused water flowing down its walls.

She sat down and decided to take a break in her exploring. But a light was to find her yet, and she looked the way she had come to the feeling of someone watching her. It ducked back around the corner before her eyes could catch it, only to send out a daisy in its place.

Sybl didn’t know what to do as the innocent white flower walked over to her on three roots, before sitting itself down beside her. If she didn’t believe in the impossibility of spirits being real already, it might have sent Sybl running in terror.

It lifted one of its roots and tapped her leg with it, then turned around and headed back the way it came. When she didn’t follow, it planted itself down and waited.

Sybl looked to where the Ancient peeked around the corner again and caught the outlines of a green dragon. She followed after the flower then, as it led her onwards with its soft white glow of aeri from its petals.

Everyone she encountered walked past her like she was a phasing ghost. Or unapproachable. When she nearly tripped over a kid, the look on the little pink-haired girl seemed to suggest a combination of both, before they simultaneously continued away from their staredown’s starting point.

If babysitting taught her anything, it was that the judgement of a five-year-old was the final truth. She was the freak here.

The flower had led her to a large wooden door, where it slipped under through the crack, losing one of its petals in the squeeze. She bent over and picked it up. The door opened and a tall dragoon with dark green hair stood before her. It was Lintrance. In his hands, he looked to be oiling a sword with a rag, before setting both in one hand and holding out his hand to her.

Sybl handed him the petal, having nothing else that he might have wanted.

“My Ancient is notorious for leaving a trail of flower petals where it goes. Come in,” he said as he opened the door wider.

Sybl did as told and ducked under his arm as he was tall enough to do just that, and looked about the large room and its light-brown, stone walls that were covered in weapons.

“So did you happen to have the true story to Cinderella?”

“Um... I don’t think it ever was a true story.”

“Really?” Lintrance replied disappointed, as he put down the sword on a beaten wood table and picked up another. “I always like that one.”

“What part?”

“The part where she lives happily ever after, of course. Why do you think she ran away from Heaven?”

“If you mean the ball she had to, or everyone would have found out who she was.”

“Well, this is where you humans become complicated.” Lintrance began to oil the short sword. “I could never understand what it is you seek when you have it already. It’s almost as if your god cuts the Threads of reasoning to your minds, only to set you back out into the chaos of trying to find your place in the world again. In all my years of studying humans, I’m still no closer to understanding why.”

“You sound like my second-last foster home. Shut up, stay still and just maybe the world won’t see you for who you truly are.”

“Just what are you running away from? No one is perfect. Your foster homes were anything but fun, but they served a purpose as well. Children left to fend for themselves on Aster don’t last very long. There is no system here aside from luck.”