by S. J. Wist
“Perhaps we can offer a trade?”
“You have nothing I want.”
“I see that,” Tenu said, while she fiddled with his Threads between her fingers. “I apologize that I am not as beautiful as you were expecting. But I also see what you hide so well. What you do want. I wonder how many Threads—”
“I said stop!” Hain shouted at her as his black wings appeared, and his sharp, icy feathers cut free her touch on his Threads.
“What are you ashamed of? You turn away from the ambitions for so much power. It must drive you mad from within.”
“There are more important things than my ambitions.”
“And what do Awls truly care of this world if not solely their ambitions?”
Hain only glared at her.
“All dark angels fall at some point or another, when their black wings disintegrate into ash. You will be no different.” Tenu smiled as she let his cut Threads fall from her hands to the floor. “But until then,” she walked to the mantlepiece, where Sybl’s festra had been mounted by Vanir, “take this back to the Caelestis.”
“You’re just going to give it to her? After all the trouble you went through to steal it in the first place?”
“I didn’t steal it. Vanir had hoped to control the names bound to it through Daath, but now that has changed. If he returns as Damek, then this weapon holds enough names to turn the eminor into an army for his cause.”
Hain took the weapon from the mermaid with a scowl.
“Fall or not, you cannot escape the fact that you are and will always be a slave, and slaves are happiest when they obey. But I will let you choose who you want to serve.”
31: CURSES
Sybl opened her eyes to the sound of an angry argument.
“So what are you going to do? Lock her up in here forever?”
“I will do what I believe will keep my sister safe.”
“Your sister, or your—” Loki stopped shouting then, as he was the first to notice that Sybl was awake and watching them.
“What happened?”
“Are you hurt anywhere still?” Loki asked in concern, and quickly looked her over as she lay on her bed.
“I don’t think I am. Where’s Cirrus?”
Kas frowned as he pushed Loki out of his way. “What Awl did that mark to your back?”
Sybl took a moment to let her head completely catch up to what he was talking about.
“Sybl, answer me. When did that mark appear on your back?” Kas insisted.
“Daath did it, right about the time he caught me.”
“From the rooftop in the city?”
“Yes,” Sybl answered.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“You were a ghost at the time—what could you have done?”
“Something, as I intend to rid you of this Curse. Do you know what that glyph means?”
“No, I don’t,” Sybl replied.
“You said you had a nightmare before you woke up on the docks. What did you see?”
Sybl remembered back. “It had Damek as he used to look before.”
“Who else?” Kas asked.
“There was Cirrus and Xirel, I think.”
“That was Xirel,” Kas confirmed after seeing her psi, “which means you did not have a dream, you were dead.”
“Why was he acting so odd?”
“Chimera do not sync with Aragmoth’s Animus Thread like phelan, dragons and you do. While you saw him as acting strange, he saw you in a similar manner. But right now our priority is getting that Curse off you. As long as Damek has a link to the living world, his soul has a chance to escape death.”
Sybl tried to sit up, before Kas caught the Threads to her arms and dropped her right back against the mattress. “What are you doing?”
“That dragon nearly killed you again! You are never to go near him!”
“If you think that imprisoning me will work, you are out of your mind.”
Loki asked Sybl to stop when the two Fay looked to be ready to kill one another next. “Your brother is right. Cirrus nearly killed you—I think the Aeger has taken him completely this time.”
“‘This time?’” Sybl asked.
“He has gone berserk a few times before. Lintrance was always able to get him under control, but this time it’s different. This time he attacked not an enemy or an opponent, but you.”
Sybl tried to calm down, as she refused to believe any of it.
Kas looked back as someone summoned him by psi. “Master Gei would like a word with you.”
She followed Kas through the Sanctus and downstairs, to where two unsomned Custos guarded a large, wooden door. They turned and opened the door for the High Priest and herself, and then stepped aside to let them pass. She glanced around the room that looked as if a tornado had assaulted it with a ball of golden string. Spiderwebs of them spun Thread all over the place, right to the ceiling. In the center of it all, rested a small white cat that glowed all over.
“Master Gei,” Kas said, as he came to a stop under the Threads.
The Iynx lifted its head, then peered down to where they were with its green eyes. It stood up and then tightrope-walked it down towards them. “Why are you both fighting? Your shouting can be heard through most of the temple.”
“Please, help me talk some sense into her,” Kas pleaded.
“The Caelestis’ wishes are final, now as they were in the past. Regardless if you have come to terms with her being in a human body, or not.”
Kas lowered his eyes to the ground at that.
“Now about that Curse,” Gei said as he walked around Sybl, to get a view of her back, “I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. Damek’s Curses are unbreakable, and I can feel a great deal of his energy in you as well. Likely he is purposely helping to increase the estus energy in you. While I doubt you can fall victim to the Aeger, your emotions are still vulnerable.”
“Is there any way you can take it off?” Sybl asked. “I mean, you put my whole soul into someone else. This must be easy in comparison.”
Gei sighed, and jumped up to sit down on a thicker Thread. “I’m sorry, Sybl. But that Curse is not entirely connected to you. It is connected to Damek as well. To break it, both ends have to be broken at roughly the same time.”
Sybl clenched her fist in frustration. “So what you’re saying is that I should stand aside and do nothing?”
“You are a symbol of hope, Sybl. The Prophecy has come true and proven that Aragmoth is still foreseeing all of our Fates. But if you were to die, then everything would fall apart. The Atrum’s forces will come here once Vanir passes, with the help of the Falls. We cannot lose our army to the Aeger and despair now, or a lot of innocent people will die.”
“I can’t believe you—”
“Master Gei is right,” Kas’ added.
Sybl just glared at Kas.
Kas gave her no mind as he looked at Gei. “Can the Curse be transferred to someone else?”
“This is my problem, Kas. I’m not handing it to someone else.”
“In your human state with that Curse, you are a threat to yourself and to everyone around you,” Gei added.
“How do you figure that?” Sybl snapped back at Gei.
“It was not your own accord that sent you to that rooftop to take your own life. It was an unstoppable force of despair that did. While it took Damek’s soul to physically inflict the Curse on you, he has proven that he was powerful enough to indirectly drive you to do something unimaginable. He has a great deal of control over you that he may use again.”
Sybl panicked as her eyes became heavy, and he tried to force her to sleep. “You’re not doing this! Dammit, stop it!” But she couldn’t fight them both off. Master Gei’s green eyes began to glow, and they succeeded in overpowering her psi defenses and dropping her unconscious.
32: REFUSAL
The Callers of the Atrum had gone silent with Vanir’s death imminent. With their leader soon to be gone, there was nothing
to sing of instruction or hope. There was only emptiness, as Mersael had quickly asserted himself on the throne and taken Atrum City like a hostage for the Falls.
Tenu entered the throne room on being summoned, and lifted her head in defiance as Mersael pointed his sword at her. An Awl was dragged in against his will, and then chained to the ground beside her moments after.
“Release command of the phelan to me, or I will slaughter every last Awl and finish with you.”
“Kill all of us if it makes you feel the power that you are not. But in death the phelan will only rise as the True to further defy you,” Tenu replied.
Mersael walked over to her, and brought the tip of his blade across her pale cheek, cutting a red line of blood. Then he looked at his griffin soldier, and the somnus set his blade’s tip behind the throat of the Awl.
Delare took off his wooden mask, and set it on the ground before him face down. He was prepared to return to the spirit form he once was. But a terrified cry from Gloria made his will to live come back.
Mersael walked over to the human woman and grabbed her red hair. “Strange how the demigods of this world cling to the weak like they are their last salvation.” He pulled harder on Gloria’s hair, and Delare sat higher on his knees. “I wonder how much I would have to torture this one to make you see that resisting me is futile?”
“If you kill her, it won’t be the demigods you have to fear!” Delare shouted at Mersael.
Mersael roughly let go of Gloria, and walked over to the Awl. “Ah, no doubt you speak of the Caelestis.” He grabbed the chains around Delare’s throat, and pulled his face closer. “I have seen your goddess, and she is as pathetically weak as you are.”
Delare’s eyes glowed a brighter green. “What you have seen is her illusion of humanity, that many of us have chosen to wear. But every strike you make against her will be returned to you ten fold when she has fully awakened. Your Falls will fall like the Tower of Babel, and the remnants of your kind scattered as dust to the void.”
Mersael let go of the chains. “You will be dust first. Kill him.”
Before Delare could regain his balance, the sword that was previously pointed at his throat went through him. Or at least he thought it did, but instead it had slid over his shoulder and through his bound arms as its wielder stepped before him. Then it cut his griffin metal shackles as if they were mere rope.
But it was no sword, as he looked at the festra wrapped in an illusion weave. It was the only thing that could have destroyed the indestructible metal bonds so easily. The eyes of the griffin somnus were not of a griffin at all, as Hain’s appearance showed through his illusion. Hain gave him a wry smile on being recognized, and then dropped a spare blade at his knees.
Not questioning it any further, he sprung to his feet and went for Gloria, using the blade Hain had given him to cut down her captors. Several phelan somnus guards joined the fight to aid their escape. He untied Gloria, and then ran for the door with her, using the remnants of Threads that the Phoenix had not burned away from the Keol to help their retreat.
Hain looked at Mersael as more griffin soldiers could be heard shouting from their exit. He got a tighter grip on the festra, and ran from the throne room before their exit could be completely cut off.
Mersael furrowed his white brows in anger as he looked at Tenu.
“My my. Will you look at those loyal to you? I can’t help but question just how stable you truly are in your attempt to seize this Continent. Your soldiers are all over the place.”
Mersael turned around and went back to sit in his throne. “So be it. Keep your phelan here. I’m sure that the Fall’s forces will have little trouble taking care of this temple of the caels. Your defiance is pointless when your kind will very soon be extinct.”
33: ALEXIA
Kas stopped at the center of the dungeon, far below the Sanctus. They had chained Cirrus to the white stone ground, not just with shackles, but by spikes through his wings and hands. The pain could have been nothing less than excruciating, but the dragon didn’t struggle. He didn’t even hear him so much as cry out in pain. “Cirrus.”
The dragon only watched him with his glowing light blue eyes. The glow meant he was facing the Aeger, and not actually Cirrus. Sybl’s healing effect looked to only last while she was near that person. “And the Blood Tears shall rain from the sky, and Aster will cry out as it is drowned from its stolen souls.”
The phelan somnus guards jumped to attention, aiming their spears from where they had been standing as still as statues before.
Kas stayed them, as an unfamiliar chill filled the room to accompany the voice that was not Cirrus’. It was a female’s. “Who are you?”
“It was I who brought about the end of the first Aster.”
“The Dragon Moon,” Kas said in disbelief.
The dragon tried to move its hand, but it could only move a few blood-covered fingers. “Aragmoth’s avatar cannot hide forever. I will destroy you and this realm that should have never been allowed to exist, by whatever force is necessary.”
“Sybl and myself were on Earth—why did you waste your chance then?”
“He is too powerful.”
“Who?”
The dragon didn’t answer.
Kas thought back to when Sybl had been driven to the rooftop by the Curse that Damek had put on her. It was possible that Damek still had a distinct power advantage over the Sentry. It might also have explained why he was able to take Sybl from Earth without any of them intervening. “What is your name?”
“The Sentry have as many names as humans have invented gods,” Gei said as he joined Kas in the dungeon.
“This monster must be dealt with. We cannot hold it here.”
“It is our thoughts, feelings, connections and actions that define the strength of our soul with memories. The Sentry in him is blinding his soul of hope. For Cirrus, his hope is Sybl. For Asil, it is Moon. They are separable only by life and death, and not even by that. This Sentry has tried to break their binds of love, and has only succeeded in making them stronger.”
The white dragon began to struggle as if its life depended on it when Master Gei approached him.
“You still fear me. That is a good start.”
“Can you exorcise him?” Kas asked.
“I have foreseen that this would happen. But I will not lose Sybl now for the sake of a love that an entire world’s collapse could not destroy before.”
“Is Cirrus even still in there?”
“His soul is fragmented, his memories are torn open, and it has left him vulnerable to this corruption. The part that loves Sybl is what keeps him alive and here. It is his shame and regret that makes him a prisoner in his own body to this Sentry.” The giant white cat looked at the dragon. “Release yourself from that body at once, Alexia.”
“Did you just say Alexia?” Kas asked Gei, with his eyes now wide.
“Some years ago, a Sentry fell from Earth who did not agree with Hino’s will to leave Aster in peace,” Gei began, and started to walk in a circle around the dragon. “She came here, with the help of the dragoon, Dyaus, only to find that not all of the fallen of this world were soulless. But no matter what she did, Simera would not start a war against the Atrum and eradicate the Awls. His wrath remained focused on the Casus Beli Canyon, as long as the plumas replenished their numbers after his attacks. Alexia’s final act of desperation to kill the Awls is Cirrus, the true son of Simera, who she possessed and has been haunting since.”
“What?” Kas exclaimed. “You cannot mean that he is a Prince?”
“Simera is gone, and so that makes him rightfully the King of Toria. This madness of the Aeger in him is not truly the Aeger—but Alexia’s wrath trying to make him into a martyr that would give her the war she wants. He is the light half of the Dragon Moon, the very beacon of the hope for peace that reached out to Asil so many years ago. Only Alexia did not foresee that Simera would prevent her from having a child with Dyaus. Simera transfe
rred Cirrus’ soul into her instead, against her knowing. The child born did not grow free of its soul’s past memories, despite her having possessed him. As such, he became only a fraction of the monstrous enemy he could have.”
“How did Simera have that kind of power? Was he an Awl?”
“There are many of the first Eminor choosing to be reborn, not all of them are phelan.”
