by S. J. Wist
The few floors up to the throne hall felt like miles. When they finally reached it, the phelan somnus in the hallway cheered and praised Kas like a returning Prince. The trio stopped, dumbfounded. Kas looked down the hallway where there were no more enemies.
“We win,” Kenshe said. He used his teeth to pull on the handle of the throne room’s door and open it.
They entered to find it empty, as the retreat was called by Mersael. Outside the windows at the end of the room, the griffins took to the air over the city in an ascent of white wings. Only Tenu stood next to the window, as the Atrum’s Aur fell to the allow the stars to remember this day.
“And be forever wary of a blue star, for the gods battle constantly,” Tenu spoke. “And we are but the damned, who are not yet the ashes of their Hell.”
Kas looked around the throne room with all his senses, stopping his eyes on the dark wood throne that his father had once sat in. But he would not sit down, as his eyes looked back to the window and the mermaid that no longer stood silent behind the rule of his father.
He walked over and looked up to where a red and a blue star collided in the sky. For a moment, nothing else happened. Moon and Sybl emerged from the other side of the Phoenix, separated by its red flames.
The Phoenix remained motionless for a moment, until it exploded and sent a flaming rain down on the Harbor. The larger pieces of its body that had been cut apart by Sybl’s energy fell to the Eternal Waters, where its flames were finally extinguished.
Meteors of fire hit the Harbor, creating explosions where they were met with gas and aeri or estus energy. The unnatural fire burned anything and anyone who touched it. The white sails of the ships docked ignited like torches.
Those who had made it into the Keol were left to listen to the cries of agony above of those who couldn’t. The phelan were the fortunate ones this day; as they had no feathers to go up in flames. The griffin somnus who were slow in their retreat did not escape fall of their hate.
“Kas. Kas, can you feel her?” Kenshe asked, as her psi wouldn’t answer him.
“You should let her fall from her sleep into death. For if Sybl lives, then all of this will have been for nothing.” Tenu looked with her black eyes into the distance, as the moonlight revealed the shadows of what shifted the heavens.
“Sybl.” Kas prayed, as all the Threads to her had been burned away. All but the ones that loved her too much to lose her again.
46: SWORD
Sybl felt a surge of energy pull her mind awake, and she looked down as the ground sped closer. She was falling, and Cirrus would hit the ground first unsomned, just meters away from her hands. “Cirrus!”
He didn’t respond, and she tightened her fall to go faster, until she reached him. She forced her aeri energy into him, but he wouldn’t wake up.
Moon caught them both, before re-somning with them safe inside him. But he had tried to stop their descent too fast, with no time to keep his wings from snapping back like an umbrella from a harsh wind. There was no water to break their fall, as they hit the ice a mile from the Harbor and skidded to a rough stop.
Sybl was whipped out of his somn and sent tumbling with Cirrus across the snow.
Moon lay some meters from them, looking as hurt as they were.
She forced herself to crawl over to Cirrus against her pain, and to her relief, he was still breathing. Something struck the ice behind her, and she looked back to see that it was a sword pierced upright.
Behind it, was Damek in his golden armor.
“Well done, Asil. You have found and tamed the Dragon Moon.” Damek walked over and pulled free his blade.
“Damek...”
“Now all that remains is for you to restore the Sylvan light to this world and fulfill your destiny.”
“It’s not going to happen, Damek.” She curled together, trying to get a grip on the pain in her body.
“This world will not exist much longer like this. Will you give it to the Falls so easily? Will you let Aster become the corruption and suffering that Earth is now, rather than stop it while we can?”
“You just want the Sylvan Aur up so you can take your vengeance against Earth,” Sybl said.
“And so I will. The destruction of the first Aster must be paid for.”
“Revenge isn’t the answer against a world that doesn’t even know this one exists.”
“Ignorance is not an excuse,” Damek said as he walked over to her. “You will help me, whether you want to or not.”
Sybl braced herself as best she could for what he would do next, before Damek stopped in his steps. What ever his intent was, something else had caught his attention.
“You transferred my Curse to someone else… Interesting,” Damek said, and he looked towards the Atrum.
Kas! Her soultwin’s psi shouted back for her to get away from him, but she could barely move. Then she turned her eyes to where Hain appeared from the Rift that still hadn’t closed from Damek’s arrival. He was bleeding all over and filthy.
“Reol. You disappoint me,” Damek said, as he turned to face the Awl.
“Get away from them,” Hain said as he aimed his gun at Damek’s head.
“Why do you defy me? Can you not see this is our time?”
“I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, but I’ve decided that you aren’t fit to play supreme god.”
“Such a shame. Then today is the day that only three Generals will take command of Aster.”
Hain turned around as a roar like that of falling glaciers came at him. Looking back at Damek, he opened fire on him, but the bullets were effortlessly blocked by his estus energy. Then dozens of spears of ice came out of the snow tide, and pierced through him.
Sybl screamed as Hain fell to his knees. His illusion Threads faded, and he collapsed to his side in the snow. Hain’s black wings covered his body, until his feathers scattered to the wind to carry his ashes.
Damek looked back to where Cirrus had been, only to find he was now gone with Sybl. All that remained was a black pool of the Rift that he had used to slip into as Moon. “You only delay the inevitable, for Aragmoth’s Fate will protect you no longer.” He slashed his sword against the wind as Toria’s dragons flew overhead. Towards the fires of war.
BOOK THREE
Where the Caelestis falls,
Fate shatters,
Darkness escapes,
And two worlds shall be merged,
By one light.
—Texts of Tenu
1: CASTLES
Loki sat on the wall of his constructed castle, pretending to look oblivious to the ones who were following him. He had made the long and hard flight from the Suzerain Continent to the Torian, as the lethal Aur storms still raged over the Eternal Waters. They had to be outflown before morning, or so he thought. Now that Loki was an Awl there were advantages. The lightning from the colliding bolts of estus and aeri energies had caught him several times, but didn’t burn him to a crisp.
He didn’t know what the plumas wanted as their behavior was unusual in the least. When one of the Regals stepped out of its hiding place in the bushes and eyed him with its green eyes, it didn’t appear to have any kind of an explanation. None of the winged cats outside of his castle gave any clue to what they were thinking, or what their intents were. Loki took its presence as some kind of warning, as he could only guess that the pluma were here because of something to do with the gunfire that echoed from Toria.
Even from here, the colorful lights of aeri-infused mists that surrounded the majestic white castle was spectacular. The waterfalls rose at the sides of Toria as the aeri from the Soph Aur constantly propelled them upwards into a mist of rainbows. His kind had died taking Toria from the chimera three hundred years ago, and it was too difficult to accept that the chimera would take it back today. That this very day might be the end of the dragon kind.
The Falls had used their chance to strike his home while the High Guard were on the Suzerain Continent. With only a few Nova
ists left because of the collapse of the Fay Wall, the dragons wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the Tech the Falls brought with them. Cannons and gunfire could pierce dragon scales and dragoons were trained to use swords, polearms, bows and axes. When he remembered Hain fighting off the griffins and their Tech on the Suzerain Continent, hope seemed lost. They had listened to the false High Priestess and followed her advice of staying away from Tech in every way possible. In doing so, they were still in the dark ages, while their enemies used their advanced and powerful weapons against them.
Loki looked back at the Regal that still watched him from the ground. He wondered if it would try and stop him if he flew to Toria. He might be able to help as the Awl he was now. Daath was to blame for the collapse of the Fay Wall and not the plumas, but his heart still held nothing but hate for the winged cats. His mother and baby sister had died that day, and whether the plumas were poisoned by the Aeger or trying to help them by stopping Daath, nothing could change that fact. With his older brother dead as well, he had no family who he cared about left. The only one left that he gave a damn about was Sybl.
The Regal stepped back and fanned its colorful wings out around its back like a peacock. Then its feathers all changed to one color; blue.
“You want to help? What can a handful of Regals do against the army of the Falls?” Loki asked. Perhaps that answer had a certain color too.
“There are more than a mere handful who wish to help you,” a voice said from inside. Master Gei’s white-furred head appeared from the room that separated from the rest of Loki’s makeshift stone castle.
“Master Gei—how? What are you doing here?”
The Iynx jumped up to where the dragon sat on the wall and looked at the Regal below with his equivalent cat-likeness. The Regal immediately lay down as if bowing to a god. “I only wished to say goodbye before I left for Earth.”
“I didn’t know I was that significant to you…” Loki said, unsure of what to make of the Iynx. The Regals he could likely handle, but the mysterious, ageless fallen Sentry was well above his current skill level.
“Those who have felt the cold knife of separation by sacrifice are often drawn to the warmth of each other. You are far from alone. That and the Rift that will take me where I need to go is on this side of the world. This war must be stopped on both sides if we are to succeed.”
“You mean the broken one at the former town of Berion?” Loki asked.
“A broken Gate is a broken Gate. The Rifts are still open,” Gei explained. “It also looks like you can use some help with Toria.” He looked at the Regal that was now sitting down, twitching its tail patiently.
Loki also looked at the Regal. “We’ve killed so many of them, and now they want to help us? The irony of it all. If Simera was here he’d kill me for so much as thinking something so absurd.”
“Your kind killed many of them to appease the wrath of a single Sentry. But she is a Sentry who is now very much imprisoned for her crimes and will remain as such as long as her soul burns with hate.”
“Alexia…” Loki said as his memories drifted into the past. He still couldn’t believe that she had been such a dangerous threat all this time, hidden in Cirrus for that matter.
“Indeed. Now every living creature has the power to change the course of Fate. Aragmoth is dying, and you must secure the Soph Aur and give the Caelestis more time to stop the collapse of our world.”
Sybl, Loki thought to himself. He remembered how he wanted to protect her and give her a real castle and home. She was the only mirror he ever had that could truly see him, even before he had become an Awl. Now she was the only one who could save them all. “So you won’t be coming with me?”
“I have a war to prevent on the other side of this world as I have said. But I have called in the last of my favors on Aster to aid you with your cause.”
Loki looked towards the Casus Beli Canyon. The buzzing emanating from it grew louder and louder, until it took shape to what looked like a flock of birds, condensed together tightly enough to pass as brown smoke.
The Regals that had been following Loki gave a lions-roar. It reached the canyon and sent the swarm of thousands of plumas flying straight towards Toria.
The hope in Loki brightened a bit, but it was still dimmed by disbelief.
“You must stop daydreaming, Loki. Your mother’s and sister’s soul are within Aragmoth now. If he ceases to exist, then many will cease to exist with him. Many souls will be lost.”
Loki looked back to where Gei had been, but the white cat had vanished. He spread his light green wings and leapt into the air as the swarm of plumas led the charge towards Toria.
2: GODS OF WAR
Sybl’s psi had sent a rush of panic through Kas before it was abruptly cut off. He tried to stay focused as he looked for Cirrus’ psi, which could be where she was now, but he didn’t answer him. He looked out the window as the dragons filled the smoke-blackened sky, while the Harbor tried to get control over the fires raging through it from the Phoenix’s fall.
The dark green dragon in the distance took the lead of the flight towards Atrum City, before suddenly doubling its speed and heading straight for the black spire of the Atrum. General Dyaus hit the castle with the force of the titan that he was, and his claws smashed through the windows of the throne room in an onslaught of glass and debris. Then Dyaus snapped several Threads in his mouth and whipped his head back, before unleashing the flares of fire at them.
Gwa ducked behind Kenshe as Kas pulled Tenu behind him while the fiery lashes flew past them. They collided against the door of the throne room, melting it into the walls around it.
“They must have been just waiting for the Awls to flee the City so they could attack!” Gwa shouted to Kas.
Sybl, where are you? Kas pleaded by psi.
Dyaus swiped his claws across the room again, and they ducked and rolled out of his reach. The dragon was taking full advantage of how Sybl’s energy defied the Laws of Aragmoth with somns versus souls. She was still alive, but where was the question. Suddenly the dragon let out a frustrated cry when something struck Dyaus from above. He lost his grip and fell to the base of the castle with an avalanche of black stone.
Another streak of lightning came out of the dark sky and struck the General again, nearly rendering him unconscious. Kas looked at Tenu as her black eyes saw something in the storm that he could not see.
Gwa gulped as he looked out the window. “I think this is where they trash our winnings.”
Kas frowned at his griffin somnus friend.
Moon flew at the castle next, leaving Sybl from his hand in the shattered throne room as he gripped with his other clawed hand the windowsill. Then the black dragon sprung off of the castle and back into the fight.
“Sybl!” Kas called to her. She dizzily looked at Kas for a moment, before he hugged her to make sure she was alright. He could see what was wrong when their thoughts met on those of Hain.
“He’s gone…” she said, as Hain turning into ashes replayed in her mind and ended with her shivering.
Kas looked back out the window as the castle and city surrounding it shook with the presence of two dozen High Guard. The True had taken up defensive positions and chose their winged-targets, while the somnus Packs worked to restore some sense of order in the city.
Sybl pulled away from him and looked at Tenu, who seemed the calmest of them all.
“He’s waiting for you,” Tenu said, continuing to stare out of the window. In the center of the city, Damek had unsomned into his human-like appearance, as white flames reflected off of his golden armor from the lightning storm overhead.
3: WRONG COAT
Atrum City’s inhabitants had gone into hiding when Dyaus collided with the base of the castle. Cirrus looked up at the lightning that had given them another chance. The High Guard remained situated around the city on its various buildings, fearing the sky and the white fire that had attacked Dyaus.
Cirrus knew that they
would end up destroying the entire city if he didn’t stop their attack before the lightning gave out. He made the decision to unsomn as Dyaus got to his feet and sent his claws for him. He thought of peace. He thought about Sybl and why they had come here as he stood in his human form, and it was enough to stop the General in his attack. A momentary standstill to the dragon’s violent nature followed. “Call the High Guard off, father.”
