Dragon Aster Trilogy

by S. J. Wist

  “I was the fastest back in the day, but I’m betting that Kenshe can easily beat me in speed now,” Feryl said. “Tank was the meat shield, Urio was our Sano and Hain…well Hain was our Boss,” he finished, with a hint of sadness escaping his voice.

  Cirrus had never felt anything aside from contempt for Hain, but it was clear that he was alone in his feelings about the dead Awl. Now that he knew that Damek’s Curse was meant to kill, as it had Kas, he couldn’t entirely avoid the gratitude in him for Hain saving Sybl. The Awl had bought them more time, but how much time he had left to save his Bond he didn’t know.

  “He did nothing less than any of us would do. Only it wasn’t until now that I actually thought he had the guts for it,” Urio said, finishing the topic. “Now back to work.”

  Cirrus didn’t know where he fit in there, so he decided to guard his oversized toy. He would be more useful in Helios with any unfriendly locals to the place. But someone was still staring at him. He found the red eyes, and it was Prisca who looked to be frozen in shock from where she stood looking up at him. But she didn’t run in terror to her father to Cirrus’ surprise.

  “Do dragons have Packs?”

  Cirrus’ face twitched at the question as he couldn’t imagine a daoran putting up with more than one mate. They would sooner kill them off to have some peace and quiet which was their nature. But he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint his newest, most unexpected fan. Not when she was the only female on the planet, next to Sybl, who didn’t want to kill him. “Sometimes dragoons have more than one female.” He didn’t add the details to just how wrong it was.

  “You can’t do that!” she shouted at him.

  “Why not?” he teased.

  “Because that isn’t fair.”

  “And you having more than one male is fair?”

  “Yes,” Prisca replied, quite certain.

  Cirrus smiled, trying to keep as much of his teeth to himself as he could. “You should ask the Caelestis to change the Laws then, not me.”

  “I will do that.” Prisca pulled out a ribbon of gold from her pocket and held it between her hands as if she was praying.

  Cirrus unsomned and looked more closely to what she was doing. “What is that?”

  “Chrison stole it from the Caelestis’ pocket. I think it fell off of her unicorn mask when she was pretending to be an Awl.”

  “Can I see that for a moment?”

  “No. Not until I’m done asking her Lady Caelestis to change the Laws.”

  Cirrus knelt down on one knee as he watched Prisca sing up a Nova with her small, but powerful voice. But only minutes into the trance, she snapped back out with a gasp. “What did you see?” he asked, catching her shoulders to shake her back into focus.

  “She’s fighting something. Something big!”

  Cirrus took his hands back to himself when Tank came over in concern, before taking the golden ribbon from the ayame who didn’t look to want it anymore. He closed his eyes and soon saw what Prisca had, but also that Sybl wasn’t alone. He gripped it tighter and boarded the train as it was ready to leave. He would not accept the possibility of losing Sybl for anything.

  34: MEMORY AND A FAREWELL

  Sybl opened her eyes to find herself in a Vision of what looked like the past, as an armored steam locomotive stood before her. The noise dropped to a lower level, and she looked back at a familiar voice.

  “Urio, this place looks like the train stop to a crypt!”

  “Serena,” Urio said as he took up her side, “we’re only staying for a few minutes while the train prepares to leave.”

  Sybl stopped breathing. Urio looked at least thirty years younger, and the woman with him looked so much like herself that it caused Sybl to shiver. Mother…

  Serena rubbed her arms from the cold. Or was it from her presence? She remembered Kas’ spirit always being as cold as ice when he tried to touch her.

  The ayame with them lifted the hood of her mother’s cloak over her head. “My Custos are already here.”

  Sybl took a step closer to get a better look at the ayame, and she could see now that it was Kas’ mother, Kira.

  “I hope they brought their weapons,” Hain said as he looked in the direction where several phelan guards took notice of them. The black-armored soldiers of the Atrum had begun to organize their positions to prevent them from leaving the station.

  “Stay next to me,” Kira said to Serena. Then she began to murmur a low Call that was barely audible to the human ear. Her long, straight black hair floated up around her as her estus energy was made lighter by aeri. As she sung, several phelan Custos dressed in white uniforms appeared. They leapt from their phelan forms into their human-like appearances onto the rooftops, and at the soldiers who had surrounded them. Then they took quick aim with their blades at the vital organs of the attackers who were caught by surprise. It was as if Kira’s Call had made the Custos momentarily invisible.

  “Feryl, get that damn train moving again!” Hain shouted at the younger phelan somnus.

  Feryl yelled back that it was ready, and Serena quickly boarded it with Kira and Urio.

  Sybl looked at Hain who didn’t follow, as he just stood there watching her with a saddened expression, before it was replaced with a wry grin. Before she could make sense of the memory that wasn’t hers, he waved once as if to say goodbye, and then nodded to the direction of her left side where someone was trying to bring her awareness back to the present.

  “Sybl. Sybl you need to wake up.”

  Sybl opened her eyes to where she had fallen asleep on the grass in the city park. She was conscious, but still Dreamwalking and trapped on Earth. “Did you see any of that just now?”

  “That ayame is rather gifted. Her prayers reached you this far, as did the memories in the gold she holds,” Xirel said.

  “I have never been so grateful to be mugged in my life.” Sybl got to her feet and looked up as a flash of lightning cut through the sky. “What was that?”

  “I’m not sure. The Sentry are agitated, though.” He turned his attention as the flapping of bat wings came through the night towards them. “Ah, Luna.”

  “I…found him…” she said through her panting.

  “Where is he?” Xirel asked, then touched her head and looked into the gargoyle’s thoughts when Luna landed on his arm.

  Sybl was one step ahead as the lights in the park suddenly flickered and went out. They were followed by all the electricity in her city. “Um, Xirel?”

  “This is bad. They wouldn’t have absorbed all the power unless they’re preparing for an attack.”

  She didn’t want to know against who, as she could see herself glow blue from her reflection in Xirel’s eyes. A moment after, a surge of lightning blinded her as it came down only a few meters from them.

  “We have to move.” Xirel somned into his stag form and then knelt down, and Sybl climbed onto his back. Then he took off at full speed for the downtown core.

  When they got there some minutes later, Xirel came to a halt as the streets had already been cleared by another.

  Sybl slid off his back and walked to face the brown, tattered dragon who stood in the middle of the street of abandoned vehicles and the terrified cries that still reached this far.

  “Have you come to surrender?” Damek asked.

  Sybl pulled her festra from her sash behind her. “What are you doing? Do you think the Sentry will support you out of sympathy if you’re destroyed?”

  Damek laughed. “I do not cower or break under the will of Hino.”

  “So why the Curse?” Sybl said, showing him the black glyph where her Mei to Cirrus once was. “They won’t kill you because that would kill me, wouldn’t it? That hardly makes you all-powerful. It makes you nothing less than a coward!”

  “Where I break you is where I become all-powerful.”

  Sybl staggered back as a surge of pain went through her body. Xirel charged at the dragon and Damek stood on his hind legs, before sending a wave of
estus energy at them. It threw Xirel off of his feet and ignited the Sylvan energy in Sybl as if it were a fire fanned by his estus wind.

  “You arrogant chimera have separated me from my army. Now I will disconnect every feeling of life in you!”

  Sybl caught and cut Damek’s pull on Xirel’s Threads with the blades of her festra, freeing the chimera from the dragon’s deathly pull.

  “All of your efforts to stop me are in vain. Now surrender the festra and the Aur within your body and no more lives have to be lost.”

  “Yeah, except to your Armageddon,” Sybl replied. She swiped at his hand with her festra, but he just as easily swept her across the street with his claws.

  Sybl hit a car, and the wind was torn out of her lungs, but she rolled out of the way as Damek’s hand came down on the car and crushed it. Today wasn’t her best day to be a demon dragon slayer.

  35: TRAIN OF PAIN

  “Don’t you dare let her go! Not now!”

  Cirrus woke with a start as something had struck the train with enough force to throw anything smaller than himself to the ground. He tried to get a grip on how he had fallen asleep, as he was supposed to be like a normal dragoon now; well, as far as normal went with having a Cael for a dragon somn. Must be a bad habit I have to lose still.

  He looked to the other seat where Sybl wasn’t. Cirrus sat up and looked at the ribbon of gold he clung onto. She was in a fight, and he was still so far away from being able to help her. Cirrus pressed his face against his hand, praying that she wouldn’t take on Damek alone. Then he looked up as Moon saw what was going on outside, having been on top of the train the whole time. A rogue Pack of phelan looked to be attacking them.

  “It’s not a rogue Pack,” Kenshe shouted to his psi. “It’s one of Kas’—something is wrong with them.”

  Cirrus got to his feet and opened the door to the train car, getting a careful grip of his estus energy as he did to avoid being thrown by the speed the train was going. The cold blast of snow threatened to freeze all his senses out of him. “They’re fast,” he said as he looked at the phelan.

  “The Aeger must have them—they’re coming in for another hit. Hold on!” Kenshe said, and they clung to the bars on top of the train as one of the bigger phelan tried to throw the train off of the tracks.

  Kenshe looked as Feryl joined them on the roof. “I’ll take em’ out with Feryl—you keep them off of the train.”

  Cirrus watched as they both somned then, and used the train’s speed to hurl them into a run on the ground at an even faster speed. He looked for Moon, and the black dragon spirit had already found their first target trying to climb onto the last car. He walked towards him, before Moon pulled him into his somn. Just as the phelan’s claws gripped the roof, his landed in the paw and he lifted it up and threw it off of the train. As the eminor hit the ground and rolled away, he hoped it could take such a beating and survive. He didn’t want to kill their berserked, confused, allies. Allies that likely fell to the Aeger after Kas’ death.

  Another phelan struck the side of the train, and Cirrus turned around and sent his teeth for him. He lifted him up while using his tail for balance, then hurled the phelan over the other side of the train. If these phelan were truly an enemy and not just sick with the Aeger, this would have almost been fun.

  “You look like you’re having too much fun,” Tank said to him by psi, as he collided with another phelan trying to ram the train, before tripping him out and sending him into a violent tumble away from it.

  Cirrus looked to the front of the train where Feryl and Kenshe were having a hard time getting something to move off of the tracks. What is that?

  “A suicider. I got it,” Tank said as he charged forward and hit the large phelan just in time to throw them both out of the way of the train.

  As the three of them recovered and caught up to the train, Cirrus could see now how they were the best of Runners back in the day. Their teamwork had not only saved the train, but left Cirrus with very little to do.

  “Awe, don’t feel too bad,” Feryl said, as he pulled himself up onto the roof, “you did get two of ‘em.”

  Cirrus unsomned and watched as Feryl returned to the front of the train. He had only climbed back down the ladder and into his car, when an angry argument between Feryl and Tank echoed back from their psis from the front, and he went through the cars to where they were. It was if they dedicated every spare moment to yelling at each other.

  “They destroyed the tracks. I can’t make the train run on air! Without the Keol, we’re sitting ducks. We should turn around and head back while the Keol is still hot enough to do so,” Feryl stated.

  “Turning back is not an option,” Cirrus added. “I can handle the cold. The question left is how much cold can a phelan take?”

  “Without the Keol we’ll be frozen targets out there. Maybe you’re failing to see that we don’t have wings,” Feryl added.

  “I don’t see how wings help in that,” Cirrus said and looked out the window to the blistering wind and snow on the other side.

  36: ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

  Cirrus picked up Kenshe by the loose skin on the back of his neck and carried him the rest of the way. The phelan had next to frozen over and faster than the others despite being almost equal in their size. But they had made it, even as there wasn’t much left to look at. The town of Helios was buried in snow, halfway the height of the houses or more, utterly quiet and it looked deserted. It had the smell of a trap all over it.

  “You sense where it is?” Tank asked as he looked ready to freeze solid at any moment.

  Cirrus looked around at the Threads, before finding the Rift and walking over to it. Someone had opened it recently and went through, leaving no scent behind. He shook Kenshe a bit, trying to get him to come around. But he was too cold to move. He set him down and set his hand over him to offer what warmth he had. Then looked around with an added concern. “The snowstorm stopped.”

  “You think Damek’s here?” Gwa asked.

  “I saw him on Earth with Sybl earlier,” Cirrus answered.

  The phelan with them immediately made a defensive circle around the town just in case.

  “You should just open the Rift and go through after her,” Kenshe said.

  “If I get killed on the other side, then everyone else will be trapped there. We have to get this Gate up and working.”

  Kenshe sensed something and headed further into town, before finding an open window and shrinking to look inside. Almost as quickly as he had gone inside, he came right back out as if he had seen something he couldn’t stomach. “They’re all dead.”

  “What?” Cirrus asked. The phelan weren’t stupid, they would have went somewhere warmer, or underground. He looked through Kenshe’s messed up thoughts, before seeing the family that he had. Flash-frozen. His black fur stood on end as that was Nafury’s power—and subsequently, now Damek’s.

  “Uh, we have a problem,” Feryl said, emerging from the snow hole they had dug to the Rift. “The Gate is in pieces.”

  “Can you put it back together?” Cirrus asked.

  “Sure, if I have a few months.”

  “Make it minutes,” Cirrus snapped back at Feryl. “I’ll take a look around from above.” He took to the air then. From higher up he could see what stood out on the white snow like a black ring of static all around them. None of the Eminor responded or gave any indication that they heard his or Moon’s psi. “By Aragmoth…”

  “Cirrus! What do you see?” Kenshe called to him.

  Cirrus couldn’t put a count to the True, as there were several hundred in the least. He landed with panic threatening to overtake him. If Damek got the festra from Sybl now, they would all die. Get that Gate open! Cirrus shouted by psi to them, as there was no saying when they would be torn to nothing.

  They haphazardly finished assembling the Gate, and Gwa switched it on where it then filled with water. Gwa looked at the time on the panel, before matching it up with is own. “Oh thi
s is bad. We got one hour before Earth’s sunrise—time to fly like devils.” He went through the Gate first.

  Kenshe unsomned and unsheathed his sword, before stepping through the Gate to meet the opponents on the other side.

  Cirrus looked at Tank and Feryl.

  “Don’t worry about us. Just end this,” Feryl said. “Worst case scenario we can buy you some more time.”

  Cirrus unsomned and went through the Gate. He grabbed the first human to aim their gun at him and whipped him across the ground.

  Kenshe cut down one from behind and then turned and looked with him as Gwa made short work of their remaining attackers with fear amplifying his adrenaline.