Dragon Aster Trilogy Read online

  A piece of Hain broke when the kid was reduced to tears. He had no memory of Kas crying before, not even when he was an infant.

  As he could feel his own sadness being sung from a Nova within the Caverns, his conscience started to win over his mind. Dammit. He pulled forth from his psi enough of a trance to see the Threads that reached into the mountain. Then with one last thought on it, Hain touched the one leading to his own Bond.

  13: WINDY STARS

  There was no heartbeat as Cirrus released her from his hands and into the vastness of space and all its stars.

  Sybl only felt fear now with the idea that they would freeze and suffocate from where they were, but she could feel Cirrus smile at her. Cirrus...how are we breathing up here?

  ‘Much better,’ he congratulated her on her immensely improved psi skills. ‘I brought some air along, don’t worry.’

  She tried not to as she looked to the world below them. They had flown impossibly high, as she could just make out the shapes and colors of the land and water. I guess taking next to everything out of the picture helps this psi thing?

  ‘I’ve always found it easier to think up here. No Thread to tie your mind to constant regrets and nothing to hold your thoughts down.’

  You have the whole world under your wings, what could you regret?

  ‘Power only leads to destruction, and I have destroyed much in my life. The regret of doing so is always there, and always closing me into a smaller and smaller place of darkness.’

  Yet you’re a dragon and the perfect creature for battle.

  ‘My kind were meant for more than conquest and death. Even if they have trouble remembering just that.’

  I’m totally seeing rescuing damsels in distress without eating them, and space travel so far, Sybl thought back as she looked around. It was fun up here.

  ‘There’s hardly any meat on you. It would be a waste of good company.’

  I see how it is...

  Cirrus pushed her a bit further away from him, till she looked down at what might happen if he did have it in him to be mean to her. She quickly took the thought back.

  I thought Aster was below Earth?

  He looked to where she did as his wind controlled by his wings floated him steady. ‘It is.’

  So how are we in space?

  ‘This is but another perception of Aragmoth’s mind. An image captured and sewn to keep those who would believe it is real bound to the world. This space, stars and even the moon are nothing more than the back of his eyes from the reflection of the sky he sees on Earth.’ He pulled her up higher with him. ‘In the beginning, the Great Dragon was content to sleep with Asil’s dreams forever inside him. A thousand years later she would stir and want to be released as his dreams were not enough to keep her content. So he released her from his grip and opened his eyes, which became the three Aurs of Aster. The Ain Soph Aur, the Estus and Sylvan; life, death and the last eye was so that he could forever watch and ward against Earth should it be bold enough to attack again while he was exposed.’

  Again?

  ‘The first Aster was a world much like this, only Ancients, Eminor and Sylvan could all live separately from each other. The Dragon Moon that Earth sent after it shattered that peace and the first Aster into dust, where after Aragmoth formed and took refuge inside Earth itself. Aragmoth’s blood absorbed the Dragon Moon’s dark soul within him for strength. His scales and tears became the soil, and the waters of this second Aster. Of his wings, spanned the Dragon and Efereal Mountains, and of his back and neck spanned the Kyrie Plains. Of his breath, became the aeri and estus, and of the blood he took from the Dragon Moon, the Keol or blood tears formed.’

  So much for writing it off as a dream. But I don’t think my science class is gonna go for this.

  ‘There are only a few on your world who are aware ours is real. The Sentry cut and control all Threads and memories that would allow us to exist on Earth.’

  So you’re saying that whatever brought me here in the physical had the power to go right through this Great Dragon without the use of a Sylvan Light?

  ‘Yes. Cecil hadn’t finished fixing the Gate in the town of Berion before it was destroyed, yet there’s a good chance it has something to do with how you were brought here.’

  None of this answers why anyone would want me here.

  ‘You have no idea just how important you are.’

  Heh, if only that were true, Sybl replied, sadly. So do I get my own Ancient for awesome purposes?

  ‘You already have one.’

  Sybl smiled in a blush as the dragon looked at her with an expression that refused to be cheated out from the topic.

  ‘Now which one did you want?’ Cirrus asked as he looked about with his head to the stars, as if to calculate just how far every last one was.

  I thought you said these aren’t real?

  ‘Well, I never actually checked up close...’

  Do I get any say in where I’m going next?

  ‘Not until you pick one, because I’m not flying us back down until you do. You’re going to have to be very focused in which one you pick out with your psi as well.’

  She couldn’t pick a star—for she feared he would fly straight through to Earth if he went after it for real. She didn’t want to fly right back to it. So she set her focus on the moon. That one.

  Cirrus looked to where she did. ‘Hey, I said star. I’m not big enough to carry that one back.’

  Who says it’s not a star?

  ‘The Texts. The simple fact it doesn’t glow by itself...’

  Well, if this moon is just a reflection, then everything is a reflection of light up here, including the stars and nothing is glowing entirely by itself or has any weight of its own.

  ‘You are just as hard to reason with as Cecil is. Alright, well in that case I’ll have to come back for it.’

  Don’t think I won’t hold you to it, Sybl teased.

  ‘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.

  14: LOVELY

  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.”

  15: SCALDING FAIRY TALES

  “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.

  16: DANCING FLOWERS

  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 t
hrough 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.