by S. J. Wist
Sybl walked out onto her veranda, after being caught spying on them.
“Oh hey Beautiful,” Gwa said, switching his mood to positive so fast it made her question her own sanity. “Did you want to come down here and play with us?”
“We’re practicing, not playing,” Kenshe corrected.
“Meh, same thing.”
Kenshe only shook his head.
“No thanks,” Sybl politely declined.
Gwa laughed. “We should take her hunting.” His brown eyes lit up with the idea and looked at Kenshe.
“There is a whole storehouse of food here, why do you need to hunt?” Sybl asked.
“Hey, it doesn’t fill itself.” Gwa somned, and then flew up to her veranda. He unsomned and caught her before she could flee, then somned back with her tightly between his talons. “And you can’t argue otherwise until you learn how to fly.” He sprung back into the air with his cat legs, and then flew off with her.
Kenshe somned and chased after them with an angry bark.
“Kas is going to have a meltdown,” Sybl said, as she tried to hold on to his talons to save herself from the racing trees below.
“Good. You are going to go crazy from being locked up, and Kas is easier to manage as such. Besides, we’re just going to a nearby spot I have.”
They had flown for some minutes before Gwa flew into the trees. They landed on a large tree that was cut to create a platform.
He let Sybl down, and gave a precautionary look around. “This is my treehouse.” Then he unsomned.
“Treehouse, eh?” Sybl looked down to where he had turned the massive banyan-like tree into a house, as opposed to building one on it.
“So what do you think?”
Sybl climbed into one of the tunnels, and found the inside carved out like a reading nook, complete with a bench. “It’s cozy, but I think you took its literal meaning too far.”
Gwa read her thoughts and smiled in turn. “Nah, mine is just better than what you’ve seen. To the hunt then.” He led the way out of the tree, where Kenshe waited outside.
“Are you out of your mind!” Kenshe shouted between his panting. “The Falls are all over these woods, and—”
“Oh, give it up already. We’re not staying long.” Gwa somned and sent his talons for Kenshe’s nose, more to push him away than to hurt him. The griffin then jumped to another tree and climbed up.
“My Lady, we have to go back,” Kenshe pleaded.
“It’s okay, Kenshe. Gwa is right, I do need some fresh air. Just a little while of it.”
He sighed and collapsed against the ground like a newborn colt, legs outstretched in defeat. “Climb on. It’s safer if we stay with the bird. I think.”
She did, and Kenshe got back up. He followed Gwa from the ground as the griffin glided from one tree to the next like a flying squirrel.
“You saw Kayla at the Dragon Caverns, didn’t you?”
“She thought I was a slave,” Sybl laughed briefly.
“I’m surprised my mother didn’t see your aura as I can. She has the talent to see Threads as a Novaist.”
“Your mother is a daoran? With Hain as your father?”
“It’s complicated.” There was a pause of silence between them, before Kenshe diverted the topic to its previous one. “Part of mastering the Thread is being able to see it there, before you actually see it. At least that’s what my father said.” Kenshe stopped then and looked up, trying to find where Gwa had vanished to. He turned his senses to where an angry growl went out. “Damn idiot! He found a blasted bear.” Kenshe ran to find Gwa fighting off a furious black bear, that was almost as big as he was.
“Kenshe, help!” Gwa cried.
Kenshe only twitched his right ear. “I’d rather watch it eat you.”
“I didn’t know it had the Aeger!” Gwa ducked from another furious swipe of its claws. The canopy was too dense for him to fly out.
Sybl slid down from Kenshe. She played the distraction as the phelan slipped off to tackle it from the other side. The bear’s eyes glowed silver as it focused on her, and Gwa reacted by sending his talons across its face. It was enough to redirect the bear’s attention back to him. But he didn’t have to, as the Aeger faded from the animal by her presence, and the bear backed off to retreat by natural instincts.
Kenshe stood up from where he had been prowling closer to the bear to attack, confused. “You can heal the Aeger?”
“It doesn’t last. Only when I’m nearby,” Sybl replied.
Gwa let his feathers fall flat again, from where they had been standing up like his fur to make him look bigger.
“I think we’ve hunted enough,” Kenshe said as he walked over to Sybl. But before he could reach her, something grabbed his back foot and dragged him away in a rush.
“Kenshe!” Gwa ran after him, but before he could pounce him with his talons, a wall of underbrush rose up and cut him off. He immediately turned and ran back to Sybl, but the same thing happened.
Sybl looked around as the forest was turned into a labyrinth of dense bushes and thorns for walls. “Gwa! Kenshe!”
“There is no point in trying to call them. They are very much detained right now.”
Lintrance? She walked through the maze a few turns, and found the tall dragoon waiting for her. He stood in silver-coated armor, and with his broad sword standing upright in the ground before him. “What are you doing?”
“This was the easiest way I could think of to speak to you alone. I was ordered to tell you to surrender, by Queen Yri.”
“So the Elders passed the High Priestess as Queen? They seriously let that heretic take the throne of Toria?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But I have been fighting them, my own family, my very being my entire life. I’m exhausted.”
“So you would rather just give up and let Yri execute me to feel better?”
“No, that’s why I am here. She was generous enough to allow me to return as an Elder, if I bring you back dead. Seeing as it was your ‘cure’ that killed my Bond, Aleste, I intend to carry out her orders.”
“I didn’t know it wouldn’t last,” Sybl replied.
“It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done, and you won’t have the life of my daughter, either. Rose was right there—in the town of Berion—and I didn’t see her. But now that I am certain that you can’t save my Rose, I realize that you can only help destroy her in being what you are. But out of respect for your mother, I will make this painless.”
Sybl took a defensive stance as he lifted his blade with both hands, before taking a swing at her. She scattered backwards, avoiding the sharp edge by inches. On turning to run, another wall of bushes rose before her.
22: TANGLED
Kenshe fought furiously against the vines that had wrapped him up and Gwa, but the more he struggled, the more tangled he got.
“Kenshe—dammit use your teeth or something!” Gwa shouted at him as he struggled against the net of vines that held him. “He’s going to kill her!”
Kenshe tried to chew his way out, but for every vine that was snapped, another replaced it. He looked around for the Ancient responsible, and found the green dragon nearby, overlooking their ensnarement with its orange eyes. “You took my mother away from me! I won’t let you take Sybl!” He focused his estus energy to expand and stretch the vines to the point he could no longer breathe, but it didn’t stop him. The vines snapped all at once, and the dragon Ancient lost control of him. Kenshe charged straight for it.
The dragon was materialized enough for him to strike back. Kenshe was met with a swipe of claws and a snap of its teeth, but he pushed through the dragon’s attacks and went straight for its throat. He expanded as large as he could, and used his sheer weight to drag the dragon down and into a spin of claws and teeth. When the dragon was suffocated, it ceased its struggle and disintegrated.
Kenshe listened for Sybl as he panted, and then dashed off for where she cried out for help. He found her kneeling before Lintrance. Th
e dragon somnus lay next to his sword, dead. His Ancient was now destroyed, and with its fall into death, it had taken Lintrance’s soul with it. “Sybl.”
She only shivered and cried where she had collapsed to her knees, and looked at Kenshe and the immense size he had become. “I didn’t touch him.”
“Don’t look at this,” Kenshe said, and carefully picked her up between his teeth as if she were a pup. She struggled free of him, and he quickly caught her between his paws like a mouse, with the fear that she might sprout wings and fly off next. He unsomned and caught her then with his hands, feeling her mind collapsing on the edge of shock. “Sybl! Sybl stop it!”
She did, but only when her eyes stopped on him with a different fear holding her still.
Kenshe didn’t understand what she looked at, as he glanced to his sides before touching his face. Then he looked at his hand that had blood on it. He figured the dragon must have struck him a few times before he killed it. On looking down, he realized that he was covered in blood. Only he couldn’t feel any of the injuries that he bled from.
Sybl stopped shaking long enough to pull him next to her, channeling her aeri to heal him with her embrace.
Gwa came running, only to stop in his tracks at the sight of Kenshe.
Sybl let go of him, having only a little of her own strength left to keep herself from fainting.
“That dragoon must have been infected with the Aeger.” Gwa looked as several Custos sent out a howl and ran for them through the trees. “And now we are so dead.”
Kenshe somned and shrunk to his smallest possible size, and Sybl quickly scooped him up into her protective arms, just as Jru reached them.
The Armsman grabbed Gwa the moment he unsomned and dragged him off like a prisoner, as the two other Custos looked to debate by psi between them on how to get Kenshe without using force.
One of the Custos circled behind her to draw her attention. The somnus before her tried to snatch the phelan, but was met with a vicious snap of Kenshe’s teeth. They finally pushed their limits too far, and Kenshe sprung from her arms and expanded. He crushed one against the ground just as it somned and leapt at the other one, sending them both into a roll.
Sybl cried for him to stop, and Kenshe pulled his teeth back before they could connect with the Custos’ neck. More of the Sanctus’ guardians arrived and forced him down, before dragging him away as if he were the enemy.
23: WHIPPED
Sybl couldn’t endure hearing Gwa’s cries of pain from the whipping he was given. She stormed out of her room and downstairs to the dungeons. One of the guards she ran past grabbed her, before quickly letting go of her when she glared at him.
The two Custos she reached after refused to move from the door. It was enough to infuriate her to push them out of the way with her strength, before her foot found the door and kicked it open. “Stop it!”
The phelan somnus stopped with his next strike of the whip. Sybl ran at him and tore it from his hands.
Gwa shivered as he pulled his shirt back on and over the three lashings he had taken that quickly bled through. “Sybl…”
“My Lady—what are you doing here?” the Custos asked. “He has to be—”
“He’s being punished for my idea. I was the one who said I needed some air, but not at the cost of this. I’m tired of it! Everyone constantly getting hurt because of me!” The somnus stepped back, following his somn’s instincts as a precaution to her temper.
Gwa caught her arm and pulled her away as she broke into tears. “You crazy woman. I knew what I might be in for—it’s just a whip.”
“It’s not just a whip,” Sybl replied bitterly. They went to his workshop and Gwa shut and locked the door behind them. She helped him peel off his shirt that had stuck to his dried blood. Sybl then touched his back and let her aeri heal his torn skin. “What did they do to Kenshe?”
“They think he has the Aeger, but I’m hoping he just lost it because he wanted to protect you.”
Sybl looked at the blood on her hand.
Gwa turned around and used his tattered shirt to wipe it clean as best he could. “I shouldn’t have taken you outside of the Sanctus. I never wanted you to get hurt.”
“It’s not your fault. This is all my doing.”
“Well, what doesn’t kill you, teaches you something. Next time I will scout the area I’m kidnapping you to, first.”
Sybl didn’t reply, as she thought about the other dragoons at Toria. She couldn’t stomach the idea of the Aeger being used against the descendants of Moon. All of them twisted with madness just like Daath had been, just by being stripped of all their hope. Rose simply fell to the worser side of it all, because her Phoenix was a useful destructive power that Sybl was not. Rose likely already remembered all of her past life as Solar, and all the hate towards her that came with it. Sybl could have just as easily fallen into such a Fate.
“Hey, cheer up. It will work out,” Gwa said.
“Unless I raise the Sylvan Aur, it will never work out. People will keep dying to this Aeger.”
“Well, I’m not losing you for a light that has been lost for three hundred years. You’re more important as you are now. The Aeger takes those who lose hope, first. You need to stay alive so hope can stay alive. There is no light that can replace you.”
Sybl smiled briefly. “Thanks, Gwa. I’m going to look for Kenshe.” She turned and left his workshop at that.
24: NAFURY
Sybl heard cries for help that night, and felt the pain that drove them to her ears. She looked around the battlefield of bodies, not knowing who she was supposed to find in her latest nightmare. A few strands of gold lifted into the wind, before falling back to the blood-covered field. She went over to it and looked down to find Cirrus.
“I can’t find him. Why is Aragmoth doing this to us? First the Fay Wall, and now my Prince.”
“Your Prince is not who you think he is,” Sybl said. She didn’t know how she had forgotten Cirrus. He didn’t seem to recognize her in turn.
Cirrus smiled and then laughed, as if impending madness was tickling him. “If you are the Caelestis, then bring my Prince back. Release him like you can me from this nightmare that is not reality. Stop sending everyone I know to join me here.”
Sybl clenched her fist at the memory of Lintrance. “I can’t bring Nafury back.”
“Why not?”
“Because Nafury is Damek.”
“The first Awl known to history. The greatest warrior Aster has ever known, and now a Prince of Toria, and you would leave him in death? Is that how the Caels reward their best servants?”
“His soul has to stay here.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Cirrus replied, and his smile all at once vanished. “You’re just a typical human. Naturally you fear for the Fate of Earth. Why else trap him here?”
“Damek is nothing of the Nafury you remember.”
“How would you know? You weren’t here for his whole life. You didn’t have to watch him grow up and then fall to his death. What is it that you want? A sacrifice? A trade to free him from here? If so, by all means take me and let him go.”
“No,” Sybl replied, certain.
“Well, you won’t have me otherwise. I won’t follow you back, because if you will not hear my prayers, then I do not recognize you as any goddess. You are nothing but a Caelestis turned against Aster by Hino. The only thing the caels have done for us is damn us. So damn them in turn.”
Sybl forced herself not to cry. There was a piece missing from Cirrus’ memory, and she had no idea how or why. “So what will you do? Lie here until you can’t come back anymore? Is death the only solution you see now?”
“I’ve already made it clear to you,” Cirrus said, closing his eyes to blindly face a cloudless sky above. “I’m not leaving without Nafury. Now leave me alone you wretched, tormenting spirit.”
Sybl turned around and started to walk away from him, before her heart could shatter into a million pieces from his words. Whe
n she woke up, she found something soft beside her. To her surprise, Kenshe was sleeping in his phelan form. “There you are.”
He opened his red eyes from where he hid under the covers. “Sorry.”
“I won’t let them punish you,” Sybl said and lifted him out from under his arms.
“Your nightmare was bad. I could see it.”
Sybl set him to a sit on her lap. “They’re all bad now. But the scarier part is I can’t tell which ones are real and which ones are of what could happen.”
