Dragon Aster Trilogy

by S. J. Wist

  “Be careful.”

  “I’ll be fine with Cirrus, even if I do run into the mer, drown and-or have trouble recognizing my own shadow,” he said as if reciting a list, with a fraction of the confidence she expected of him.

  Rose let go of Nafury, and he looked to where Cirrus landed on the beach away from them. He went over to him and escaped the crowd before it could make him panic anymore about the task ahead. “I’ve never been so scared in my whole life,” he said with a shiver as Cirrus crouched down to his level.

  I won’t let anything happen to you. You should know that by now.

  “But what if we do run into the mer? I heard they drown trespassers. And then there’s this whole shadow thing...”

  Cirrus nudged him hard enough to make him fall into the sand, which settled the discussion. No more excuses. You are already too old for this as it is. Today you gain your dragon form, and I get to stop carrying you around everywhere.

  “What if I fail?”

  No, I won’t leave you to drown, and from what I know Simera never did either. It’s just a scare tactic to push you do what you are already born to. Now stop worrying and let’s go.

  Nafury got back on his feet and climbed onto his back.

  Cirrus let out a cry to those who watched, before taking to the air and flying just high enough over them all to unleash a tornado of sand to bury all their doubts.

  “I better find my somn the first time, or we won’t stand a chance when they kill us for that.”

  Cirrus laughed. They flew several miles out, and Nafury hugged his neck tightly as they dove into the dark water.

  Nafury had practiced his diving relentlessly for weeks to be ready for this, as he kept his focus on breathing to keep up with the depth they dove to. He could feel Cirrus’ aeri around him, keeping his air supply high. It eased Nafury’s worries as the dragon swam them deeper. After some minutes, they reached the white sands of the ocean’s floor.

  He carefully minded the air in him as he drifted off of Cirrus’ back, who glowed like a star cloud in the dark water. The dragon helped keep him to the ground as he swam over the sand, looking for what his shadow would pull up as a reflective somn of himself. Several minutes passed, but Cirrus remained patient as he kept the Prince’s lungs full of air in his continued search. “I don’t see anything.”

  Cirrus floated quietly to avoid stirring up a fog of sand, feeling the Threads of the Keol move under them. Something is approaching.

  Nafury stopped as he could feel it too. The ground reverberated, causing him to shudder in fear. “How big is it?”

  Cirrus began to grow concerned, as something didn’t feel right. Let’s head back.

  “Are you kidding? When we’re close enough to feel it?”

  The white dragon wasn’t going to argue, and he swam for the Prince and caught him before swimming back for the surface. But the somn would reach them first, as the dark, deformed monster burst from a Rift in the sand and came straight for them. There was no time to dodge it as it went for Nafury, tearing the Prince from Cirrus’ hand and back down into the darkness it had emerged from.

  Cirrus whipped around in the water and swam after them.

  “Cirrus help me!” Nafury cried to him as his slip began to give way from the side of the Rift he clung to.

  The white dragon tried to unsomn, as his claws threatened to tear the Prince asunder before he might pull him out. But his Curse held as he struggled against the force, beating his wings and tail furiously against the sand in reverse. It was no use as the Rift pulled Nafury into it and closed.

  Cirrus woke with a surge of pain, and looked next to him where the torn sight of the last Regal he had killed lay beside him. On catching his breath in short gasps, he briefly looked himself over. He was completely splattered in the cats’ blood to match them.

  He remembered only a fraction of the pluma fight, before his Ancient lost him again and continued it without his mind in control. He had promised that he would never unleash himself as the White Death again, but it had become impossible to ignore the fact that he had no control it over the chaos that overtook him. The field around him was littered with the bodies of dozens of Regals.

  He opened his bloodied hand before his face, but the fairy pendant was no longer in it. It had been a trap all along, and now he had lost the direct Threads of it that led to Sybl.

  Sybl.

  Cirrus closed his eyes as he focused his aeri to heal the wounds the cats had inflicted on his body. Jolts of pain focused his mind to where he was all bleeding from. The mask to the Awl was gone well.

  A cry went out through his psi, and for a moment he thought it was another memory of Nafury’s, before realizing that it was Loki’s. He sent his psi in search of Sybl next, but he couldn’t feel her thoughts anywhere.

  Cirrus spread his wings and took to the air as the last major wounds on the flesh of his wings healed. He prayed that Loki was only all the way out here because he was with her.

  30: YRI UNRAVELLED

  Lintrance landed on the perimeter wall of Loki’s castle, before jumping down and unsomning to allow his Ancient to look around. “Loki!” No answer came back, and he began to worry even more.

  After he had heard his brother’s psi cry for help, the dragoon had gone completely silent to match the strange and unusual silence that he had arrived to. Even the wind seemed to avoid touching the castle’s walls.

  If he had half the imagination that his younger brother did, he might have thought that the dragoon had found an actual way to make this place appeal to real ghosts. Loki had built the castle to entertain his imagination, and he had caught his brother speaking to his ghost-like court on several occasions. But Loki wasn’t crazy—he was just overly eccentric like their late mother. Fortunately, he wasn’t born with an equal amount of courage to chase his fantasies all over the world.

  Lintrance had intended to flee to the Suzerain Continent before the High Guard could catch up to him for killing Fevre. But the desperateness of Loki’s cry made him impossible to ignore.

  His hands still trembled as he tried to make sense of just how, after so many years, he had managed to land a strike against his uncle like that. As much as he regretted the accident, Fevre had it coming. After enduring years of his ridicule, he would be one of several who wouldn’t miss Fevre. He didn’t care just how much of a lesser-dragoon it made him. He was too old and too tired to waste any more of his life caring about what his family and others thought about him. He had sacrificed enough for them all and never gained anything in return but more pain and loss.

  Lintrance unsheathed his broadsword from behind him and looked at its silver-plated and leather hilt. He had tied Sybl’s necklace to it, as it brightened a fraction of his orange eyes with a reflection of light. He wanted to depend on Cirrus to look after Sybl when he was gone, but as he tried to find the crazy dragon’s psi, it returned with a greater fear to where she might be. Dammit Cirrus! What are you doing?

  A harsh wind answered him as the dragon landed invisibly in the clearing of trees just outside the castle’s entrance. “Why are all the High Guard out looking for you?” Cirrus asked as he unsomned and began to search the dense woods by foot for Loki and Sybl.

  “You have to find her by yourself. They’re not far behind me.”

  “What did you do?”

  Lintrance didn’t answer as he didn’t need to. Yri’s Nova of grief made the entire Torian Continent know exactly what he had done.

  His eyes caught sight of a glimmer of silver beside the base of a tree. Lintrance went over to it and picked up Loki’s mask in concern. Cirrus took it from him and caught in hand its Threads to see where the kids had vanished to.

  “Fleeing to the Suzerain Continent won’t mean they’ll stop chasing you.”

  “You seem overly understanding of the fact that I just murdered your uncle,” Lintrance replied, as he watched Cirrus’ attention return from the Threads to focus on him entirely.

  “Our uncle,�
�� Cirrus corrected. “You killed him by accident, whereas I would have torn him to pieces on purpose. He was my father’s half brother, but it’s not like I pride myself in being in any way related to Dyaus’ side of the family. You, Loki and Cecil being the exception. A complete idiot could tell you that Yri never gave a damn about Fevre, where now she is suddenly acting out the grief of his loss as if her very soul’s existence depended entirely on him. It makes me sick to hear it and even sicker to think that so many of the High Guard would believe her psi cries at all.”

  Lintrance couldn’t help but briefly smile. He hadn’t thought for a moment before Cirrus had arrived that the dragoon might try to subdue him, despite the logic of that being the right thing to do. But Cirrus only ever followed the commands of one dragon, and that was their dead Prince.

  “And Simera,” Cirrus added, pinning the importance of his memory back to Lintrance’s psi. He could hear his thoughts through the weakness of his grief.

  “It was never Fated for me to like our King, but if only he were here now. Heck I’d turn myself in just to get a closer view of him strangling the life out of Yri with his bare hands.”

  “You and me both. But we’re not staying here. Loki is in the Eternal Waters and Sybl is under him in the Keol,” Cirrus said, as he let go of his younger cousin’s Threads that led from the mask.

  “What? What the hell are those two doing there?”

  “Might I borrow this?”

  Lintrance didn’t get the chance to respond when Cirrus took away his broadsword and pulled Sybl’s necklace off of the end of its hilt. Then he gave the blade back to him, so he could tie it around his neck. “We can’t fly over or swim under the storm. It will be morning soon.”

  “Then we fly higher,” Cirrus replied and somned into his dragon form as Lintrance did the same to follow him into the air.

  31: A DRAGON'S HAIN

  Hain knew enough about females to know that if he let up on the guard on his Threads, he would lure in the one who stalked him soon enough. Yri was old, and for the most part merciless, but her bitterness would lead her to wanting to play with her prey before killing it. She soared the skies with the confidence of the High Guard’s protection, who she had brought herself to believe were already her own. Yri was too much like his Bond the more he thought about it.

  Kas was well out of the way now with Sybl, and he knew that the kid could outrun anything, least of all a small, swimming dragon if Loki did pick up on his trail. Hain intended to follow, but not before finding out why his mother-in-law hadn’t tried to kill him by his Threads yet.

  Something was off, and he wanted to know what. Curiosity finally won over him, and he opened a Rift out of the Keol and unsomned as he emerged on the outside. Moments later, a rush of wind passed through him, as the semi-transparent daoran landed in the small clearing before him. Her yellow scales wavered with hints of estus energy from her soul within, making her look more of a tarnished gold than the paler yellow she was.

  “I was forewarned that he would send over an Awl that he did not want returned. I am delighted to see that it is you who I get to burn.”

  Hain’s eyes narrowed in on the Priestess as she walked closer, unsomning without the slightest bit of fear of him. She trailed her elegant yellow dress in its glitters behind her. It carried over it her blond hair that reached her ankles. She held her sharply chiseled, pale-white face high, as she hunted with her grey eyes his life Threads and took hold of them.

  But she wasn’t ready to kill him—yet. She was looking for something. So a messenger he was to play, and a quick one as he sensed the White Death breathing down his Threads. It couldn’t hurt to grab his psi’s and attention and pull it into the future conversation. What could a few more dragons do to him that a small army couldn’t? “Do you not want to hear the message first, before you kill me?”

  “Oh I am well aware of your message. You removed the Caelestis and my brother from the equation quite elegantly. I must say, I was almost impressed for the insolent vagabond that you are.”

  “That’s not what your daughter thinks of me.” Hain laughed, before it was choked out of him in a reminder that he was playing as her prey, not her mocker. But she wasn’t going to stop there, and Hain quickly brought his estus energy back under his full control. The heat of her fire burning the Threads to him now had the intent to kill.

  He folded the Threads Yri had caught of him into the deeper cold, brittle estus energy of his being. A shadow of wings surrounded him in defiance to the web of aeri Animus all around him that would not be used to kill him today.

  Yri staggered back at the sight of the demon Awl.

  “So Vanir sent an Awl to do his dirty work,” Hain said as he cut the Threads of her remaining control away with the feathers of his wings. “I’ll have to meet him if you think he’s as good as me.”

  “You are not Vanir’s Awl?”

  “No, I’m not. But I do have a message for you from the Sanctus and its High Priest.” His wings faded away as he let his estus energy subside in its cold defense. “The Caelestis was here, and now she belongs to us. Nice try though. Oh by the way, I’ll be back for my Bond.”

  Yri somned in her rage and sent her claws at him. They missed him as he dropped his hand to the ground and opened a Rift into the Keol. He knew better than to kill the mother of his Bond—Kayla hated him enough to last an eternity as it were. “Yeah, I know you would follow me into Hell with all your love, mom. I’ll show you around it another time.”

  At that, he slipped through the Rift and away from her rage, as the High Guard landed and became entirely focused on her. Hain had made public the conversation through the Threads of the White Death, who to his surprise, listened to him. Of all his years he never would have wagered a dragon playing a part in saving him. Not that he needed help. At least not until they learned how to fly through the Keol.

  “Vanir?”

  “You would betray us all by siding with our enemies?” Cirrus asked in disbelief.

  Lintrance looked at Cirrus as he was posed to grab and strangle the treachery out of their aunt himself. Many of the High Guard had fallen into their own whispers between each other. “It all makes sense now. That’s where that Awl came from. Vanir wouldn’t send someone incompetent to do his dirty work—he doesn’t keep such company.”

  Yri’s chin rose higher in defiance to them both.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” Lintrance said.

  “You will still die for killing my brother,” she snapped back.

  “An Awl would make it possible to break through the defenses of the best dragoon. I’m willing to bet that your newest ally had a part in it. I’m going to drag that evidence to my innocence back as allowed by our Laws, that you would sooner forget.” Lintrance somned and took to the air at that.

  Cirrus somned and gave a threatening low growl at her closest family of the High Guard.

  “He’s a murderer, Cirrus!” Wyr, a younger red dragon who was Yri’s nephew shouted at him. “You will be a traitor as well if you follow him!”

  “No more a traitor than the rest of you who serve a Priestess who would see us become slaves. I’m going with Lintrance, and if you try and stop us, be warned that I won’t.” Then he sprung into the air in a fury of wind.

  32: FREEZE

  Kas came to a stop in the Keol as the lava river he followed began to slow. It wasn’t long before it stopped moving altogether. Not knowing what to make of it, he walked closer as its frozen state started to spread across the ground. Soon he was no longer standing on hot ashes and fire, but snow and ice. He looked around for what of Aragmoth’s will could be powerful enough to freeze Hell.

  ‘You will stop here.’

  Kas’ blood froze to match the once-fiery desert around him, as the psi had pierced through the defenses of his mind like a sharp icicle. He quickly scanned all directions, before looking up in time to dodge the black, bat-winged pluma as it came down on him.

  It touched down on
the snow unsuccessful in its attack, and spun around to face him. Only its shape remained that of a cat. Its feathers and fur had burned completely off, leaving the shiny, wrinkled, black skin of its demon form behind. It spread its wings at its sides and caught some of Kas’ life Threads between its claws.

  ‘A servant of the gods you call yourself. If that is so, then hand over the Fay you carry.’

  Kas had seen such tragedies before. The Aeger, left unattended long enough in an Ancient or Eminor, could drive the creature into complete madness. This one had reached a whole new level of it in thinking it was a cael. “You have been infected by the Aeger and your mind is corrupted. What you want is not yours to have.”