Dragon Aster Trilogy

by S. J. Wist

  It wasn’t long before Loki came into the library, curious to where his exhausted playmate had vanished to. Cecil sighed as he feared he would never have a moment of peace again.

  “What did you do to her?” Loki asked as he pulled some of the books away from where she had fallen asleep.

  “She’s rather good at retelling the Texts.”

  “Oh like hell I’m letting you turn her into you,” he said as he draped her in his black cloak, then carefully picked her up from the chair.

  “Where do you think you’re going with her?”

  “I’m stealing the Princess back to my castle.”

  “Not happening.”

  “Well, if you think I’m going to risk my uncle catching her when he’s conscious next, you’re the one who’s crazy. Besides, Cirrus went to the fields, right? My castle is just a few miles from it.”

  “I’m going to enjoy watching Lintrance and Cirrus beat the snot out of you, if she doesn’t see your face first and do just that.”

  “Whatever,” Loki said as he carried her from the library.

  23: WOVEN DEATH

  “Where did you get that from?”

  Fevre stopped waving the fairy pendant before his eyes as he had finished reading the last of its Threads. He looked up to where Lintrance stood next to him. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

  “Just give it back.”

  “The Prophecy is here, and you would have the nerve to hide the one key to taking Toria solely to hide your treacherous shame?”

  “If you’ve seen its Threads, then you already know it’s not as simple as that. Sybl is too fragile to put before your sister for the throne.”

  “Dragoons fight, not our females.”

  “You will not use her to start a war. She isn’t yours.”

  “She isn’t yours either, as much as you’ve claimed to have adopted her. It will be the one she chooses to Bond with that matters, and she finds me attractive.”

  “Aragmoth damn you,” Lintrance snapped at Fevre and tried to snatch the pendant away, but Fevre pulled it away from his reach.

  “I saw the kyrie they bound her memories to while you did nothing but watch them then drag her off to Earth. I should kill you for not having the decency in your soul to stop it.” Fevre extended his threat by picking up a freshly made sword that was untouched by blood.

  “There was nothing I could have done.”

  “Because your age hasn’t cured the coward in you. Serena’s daughter is in our hands, and you would do nothing against your aunt’s likeliness to enslave her. But I won’t do the same.”

  “If you pit her against Yri now, we will lose everything!”

  Fevre aimed the blade at Lintrance. “Serena loved you wretched coward once, and I don’t know what she ever saw in you. But if you want this piece of her back, then you will have to come and take it,” he said as he dropped the silver chain over his head then.

  “I’m not going to fight you.”

  “Come now, it will be just like the old days. Where you could never win.”

  Lintrance took a blade from the racks and felt its weight, before looking back at the posed dragoon. Then Fevre’s Ancient surrounded them in a ring of fire.

  Daath watched the sword fight from along the higher crevices of the forge, staying out of sight. He walked on all four paws through the shadows cast by the fires. His brown wings folded tightly around his body, cutting the trace of his scent behind him with their feathers as he did. The two dragoons exchanged blows with a fierce determination for several minutes. He could feel the old hate and jealously weld their Threads together into an intricate weaving from their battle dance. But Sybl wasn’t here—only the end to a trail that wished for death by trying to disrupt his plan.

  He brought his claws around Cirrus’ pendant in his paw, before pulling on the Thread that led to the one Fevre wore and to his lungs. It was just as Lintrance’s blade came down on the dragoon’s suddenly staggered, choking defense.

  24: LOKI'S CASTLE

  Loki was left feeling weird and a little dizzy, as he didn’t expect his Ancient to pull Sybl into his somn as easily as Lintrance had done. He set her down on a small bench inside his castle and wrapped his black cloak tighter around her. It was an older defense to be able to protect one’s mate or child. He could only guess that his genuine concern for his uncle’s rage was enough to pull it off.

  The makeshift stone fort was his favorite place, as he had built it up to look much like an old castle from Earth since he had passed his Trial of Somn. It was his own personal trophy for having found his dragon form after his third try, even if he had yet to stop being lazy and finish it.

  But today was a whole list of new firsts for it, as he never had a Princess visit. If Fevre was right, she wasn’t just any ordinary Princess. Sybl was a Fay Princess, and somewhere deep within her humanity were the timeless memories that led back to the Great Dragon. Possibly, the very beginning of the world.

  Loki sat down beside her as the idea of so much knowledge fell heavy on his mind in turn. He lifted the light-brown, wavy bangs out of her eyes and pondered just how much she could hold within her small-self without a somn to help her. He would show her everything and help her remember, just as he had led her to dance when she didn’t know she could. Then he would take the throne of Toria and bring the Line of Moon back with her help. The only thing that could stand in his way now was love, as she wouldn’t let him hide behind a mask forever.

  He had to remember she was human and that humans followed different rules, including those with love. The highest in power, strongest, most beautiful and intelligent drew the attention of daorans. He knew so little of what could capture the heart of a human girl. All he had was his mother’s stories and fairy tales that Crystal had brought back from Earth with her to go by.

  A loud thumping struck the outside of his roofless castle, and he left the room to investigate. He jumped up on the wall after somning and peered down to the bushes below. But no one was there. Of course no one was. The only one who cared to visit him was his mother, and she was dead. He sat down and continued to scan the woods for the source of the ruckus that would dare to try and wake his Princess up.

  Loki thought about all the stories Crystal had told him about her travels, all of them impossible but very real. She had flown to the Falls, seen the far corners of the ocean and even spent some time on Earth. The other daorans called her over-eccentric and even dangerous. Crystal’s way of venturing into danger as if she were a dragoon was different, to say the least, but it had fashioned her into the best story teller there ever was. All by impossible experiences.

  When she was forbidden to share her stories in the Caverns and Toria, she would fly here, till he eventually built this castle out of inspiration from one of her fairy tales. He remembered sensing his mother’s fear that he might grow out of wanting to hear of knights slaying dragons and rescuing damsels in distress. The idea of a human slaying a dragon in their somn was a rather hard story to believe as he got older. But what held his attention to it was the idea that dragons could venture across Earth in their somns at all—without having the aeri Threads in them burn to ashes by the sunlight.

  Loki remembered how excited he had been at the idea of having a baby sister, and how his mother had told him before anyone else. His father had come back to Crystal and left Yri standing in shame for stealing him. Estar did love Crystal more, and he no longer hated his father as much as he once did. Aside from the sympathy he had for how Estar was killed in a raid on a Falls camp. It was a brave death and in service to the High Guard. He would always be remembered, and those memories would reach the Great Dragon. Estar was now with his mother and baby sister that the Fay Wall had crushed.

  It will need a new name, he thought. It was called such as only a Fay had the power to command the Great Dragon and his elements. Aragmoth only answered to the Fay, but the Wall was only a piece of his bone. A reference to a Fay he didn’t have back, until now.
r />   He wanted answers to why he was to be punished when he had never done anything wrong in his life. He wasn’t as fast as Cirrus or as smart as Cecil, or as cunning as his older brother. He didn’t have any strength in any Art, least of all in weapons, but he had his talents. Every dragoon had something that made them special. If his talents were as insignificant to the world as his stone castle that lay far away from where anyone would care to look at it, then he would simply continue to build it taller.

  He wouldn’t cry. Not now. His mother wanted him to be strong and when his death would come looking for him, he would see them again, and he would be strong enough to keep anyone from hurting them. But for now, he’d look for the answers to why it had to be them to die first and not himself. He wanted to forgive Aragmoth before he needed to pass into the realm of death.

  The drumming sounded again. He looked to the other side of the main hall as dirt and debris was shaken off of the stone wall from the strikes. He climbed down and peeked in on his Fay before heading to and climbing up the other wall that was now under attack. He found the culprit when two purple eyes glowed back up at him under the cover of night and foliage. It was an unusually large kyrie.

  Loki wasn’t hungry, so he decided to leave it be. That was until it started kicking his fortress again with its back legs. “Shoo before I eat you!”

  But the beast didn’t let up and continued to kick his fortress, as if determined to try and bring it down. He ignited the aeri in his mouth and caught several Threads between his teeth, before snapping them away from him. The falling Threads hit the beast in a flare of fire. It burned the bushes and leaves around the creature and scorched its mane and back, but it only stood still in defiance.

  “Okay, now I kill you,” Loki threatened as he narrowed his orange eyes and folded his wings tightly to his sides. But before he could drop onto the kyrie, he stopped and looked back into the castle as Sybl’s voice cried out.

  25: WOODS STALKER

  Sybl could feel her mind drift after a forgotten voice, trying to escape the deafening silence of the emptiness she was left in. She remembered wanting the voice to stay, to continue to tell her that she wasn’t alone and that there was someone out there thinking about her. Who cared what her future had in store. But there was no way to keep it at the time.

  She opened her eyes to a memory in the woods, where she lay on the ground at the back of her foster home. The sunlight that did break through the trees was warm, and the smell of nature around her was fresh and free, but with it came the feeling that something was watching her.

  Rubbing her eyes, she looked to the trees for what was hiding from the sun’s rays, and found a pair of red eyes looking back at her. It might have been a black wolf if its eyes and ears weren’t more like of a large cat, with massive paws to hold its equally large claws. Its face was like the high-arched nose of a bull terrier. Its long, but thick tail twitched back and forth behind it, as if to balance itself against her noticing it.

  Sybl scrambled to her feet to run, but the creature came at her with an uncanny speed that threw her against the ground. Then it pinned her there. She twisted to try and get free of its grip, as the monster dissipated into a dark mist. She looked up to where Kas pinned her down with his knee on her chest and his hands on her arms.

  She calmed down as she tried to compile it all while looking up at his red eyes. They never revealed anything to what he was thinking under his dark bangs. Sybl quickly glanced around for the monster, fearing it was still around, before looking back at him as it all began to make a scary kind of sense. He was a phelan somnus, which meant he could also be very real in the world she was in now. “You never told me what you are.”

  Whatever he had taken from her thoughts for himself, it was enough to get his weight off of her to let her sit up.

  “You still do not remember me.”

  She remembered thinking him to be a relative of her foster mother who had arrived from Germany, despite her not expecting it. Or a possible neighbor from some faraway house lost in the woods. As beautiful as her foster mother’s house was, it was also in the middle of nowhere, where the next house was a good half an hour walk away. The place was more open to be invaded by an alien than an actual human visitor from the same planet. Little did she know then how right she was.

  But Kas didn’t say anything else, and as the minutes passed it was becoming more and more unnerving. It was her dream, and she had control over it now so why not use it to get the answers she wanted? “Why are you here, phelan somnus?”

  His red eyes became darker by his pupils, with the clouds overhead that started to screen out much of the sunlight. “I was meant to find you.”

  “What for?”

  “You are the reincarnation of Asil, the Asterian Caelestis.”

  Sybl remembered what she had read from the Texts and laughed. He was a rather good actor to keep a straight face and say that about her, while looking to mean it. She had been called a lot of things before, but never a goddess or anything remotely close to it. But as much as she was getting a kick out of toying with him, he looked hurt by her reaction.

  Just like in the past version of the memory, she had stopped laughing on sight of the sheathed long sword that hung from his belt. She decided to read a Text next on how to dream equipped with a weapon, if she got out of this one alive.

  “I would never hurt you,” Kas snapped randomly at her. “Yet those dragons have brainwashed you into thinking I am the enemy. They are the enemy lying in wait for their chance to throw the world into chaos.”

  Sybl was left stunned for a moment as she thought she had her thoughts in order, but on looking at the silver marking on her right arm that she shared with him, something was clearly leaking free against her willpower.

  He took his sheathed sword off of his belt and held it out for her to take. “Take it.”

  She didn’t like being told what to do, but Sybl already knew how long one of their arguments could last over the stupidest of things, and took it. It couldn’t hurt to have a sword if the argument escalated. She pulled the blade slightly out of its sheath and looked at her reflection, before tilting it towards him and looking for his. Only there was none. “You’re a spirit...”

  “A Dreamwalker,” he corrected.

  “Dreamwalking is not allowed.”

  “Why not?” Kas asked.

  “Because it puts you in unnecessary danger.”

  “You would be a risk worth taking.”

  “That’s not what you said before,” Sybl retorted.

  “What lie would you have heard me say when we first met, Asil?”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Here I had some hope that if you were on Aster, the Great Dragon might have returned something of your memories, but you are still the same—” He stopped, as her blue eyes gave him a cold stare to pierce free the rest of his words.

  “Go on, say it.”

  “Human,” he whispered in turn.

  “Well, I’m so sorry to continue to disappoint you. Now get the hell out of my dream, so it can stop being such a nightmare!” She threw his sword at his feet and turned to leave the woods, heading back to the main house.

  He ran after her and caught her arm, holding her back.

  “Let go of me!”

  Kas held her arm tightly and rubbed the silver marking on her with his thumb. “You lied to me when you said you never wanted to see me again.”

  “No I didn’t.” Sybl pulled away from him and swatted his next attempt to touch her.

  “I am coming for you, because I can feel that you still love me.”

  “Then you’re wrong.”

  Kas stood up straighter, defiant to her words against him. “What is it that you fear? Me? Or the idea that someone would love you? I am real, Sybl.”

  “I’m not who you think I am, and I don’t love you! If you are in this nightmare with me for real, then it only proves just how much of a sick puppy you really are for not giving it up alread
y!” She pulled away from his hands when he caught her again, only to wake with a gasp to the smell of something burning.

  26: UNMASKED FLIRT

  Loki found Sybl tossing about in her sleep, and he quickly thought back to what Simera had done when Serena had a bad nightmare. He tried to hold her down, before she struck him and the mask from his face. Before he could reach for it, she stopped struggling on waking and looked right at him.

  He froze and held his breath.