Dragon Aster Trilogy

37: UNFORGOTTEN FRIENDSHIPS



The city was turned into chaos as it was overtaken by creatures that had been hidden in myths and fairy tales until now. Sybl came to a stop in the street as the mob of fleeing people ran past her. She looked up to what they were so terrified of. Damek had flow to the rooftop of her old building in his monstrosity of a dragon form.

She looked back as another car flew behind her. The invisible Sentry revealed itself long enough for Xirel to pinpoint where it was and catch it in his antlers. When he caught and tore it apart with the edges of his horns and hooves, its gruesome parts became visible as they were thrown across the street.

“It’s going to be sunrise in thirty minutes. The Sentry will become more powerful with the sun’s rays,” Xirel said.

Sybl needed wings, now. As if her prayer was heard, she looked back as someone was hollering their given name to her.

“Beautiful!” Gwa landed in a rush of white feathers and quickly acknowledged Xirel before looking back at her. “I don’t want to rush you with saving the world, but it’s gonna be sunrise any minute now!”

“Get me up there,” Sybl said and looked at the rooftop with Damek on it.

Gwa just froze in place. Xirel turned to catch another Sentry charging them down the street and he changed his mind about them being safer on the ground. “Okay.” He wrapped his talons around her and then sprung into the air towards Damek. He hastily dropped her off on the rooftop and intercepted the next Sentry to try and get in the middle of what she was here for.

Sybl could see that the strain and weight from the demon dragon would cause the rooftop to cave in at any moment.

“Do you still think you can win?” Damek said as he unsomned and stood before her in the appearance of Nafury.

“I intend to, because I know you can only threaten me in hopes that I’ll just give in. You can’t seriously hurt me because as much as you have tried to hide it, there is no hiding the fact that you are still Nafury.”

“And just what part of that human would you care for? You care no more for him than you do for Earth crumbling apart below.”

“Cirrus believes that there is still some good in you, and so I believe it as well. You’ve made your point—Aster has suffered. So many have died and for what? So you can get closer to a revenge for a calamity that no one so much as remembers anymore? Or do you simply do it for the pleasure of the sick feeling inside you?”

“I wanted peace,” Damek said, walking around her. His golden armor made no sound as he did. “I tried your way of living with our enemies and forgetting the past, but they would not leave us alone. I asked forgiveness from Asteria, and she would not so much as appear to hear me out. She would forgive the Dragon Moon, but not the one she gave her own heart to. So this is the only way to end it and bring peace by wiping out those who would create an endless cycle of wars. This will be the last one.”

“The ‘Last War’ was supposed to be the last of all the fighting, but we all saw how that ended. There will always be someone who gets up after you step on them to get their own revenge. We have to forgive and forget, or it will never end. Asteria is terrified of the monster you have become. The very sheath of the weapon you gave her refused you.”

“Asteria doesn’t matter anymore!” Damek shouted and then hurled a wave of estus energy at her.

Sybl fell to the gravel of the rooftop in pain and dizziness. If he did that again, she would throw up on top of it all.

“The old Aster is gone! And now I will take all of it back and more.”

Sybl pulled herself to her feet and aimed her festra at him. “You have no army, none of your Generals and the only way you’re getting the Sylvan Aur is by killing me. But we both know that won’t get you far, so why don’t you just give up?”

Damek unsheathed his blade and rested it on his arm, pointing it at her. “You have no hope of defeating me.”

“No, I have a few,” Sybl said, as she charged him, then she dodged backwards as Damek’s next strike nearly beheaded her. “Choosing to be reborn as a human means that part of you is now permanent. You’re no faster than I am.” They both exchanged blows with their blades, before Sybl landed hers across his arm deep enough to draw blood.

Damek retaliated and grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off of her feet before she could breathe next. “You are beginning to irritate me.”

Sybl grabbed the hand around her throat and cried out in pain as he used the Curse to inflict the pain he had felt as Nafury through to her. She could see Simera and felt the lashings the King had given him. She felt the swarm of pluma claws and teeth tear at him at the Canyon and all of his sorrows before it. Sybl was on the brink of blacking out when she heard Cirrus calling to her.

Damek suddenly dropped her onto the rooftop as a surge of grief that he couldn’t handle went through him.

She caught his Threads and wrapped them around her Curse as the sun began to rise behind her. “I didn’t come here to save the world, Damek.”

“Then why go through so much trouble?” he asked, amused by her grip on his Threads.

“Because I get it. You didn’t bring me to Aster for the Sylvan Aur, or for your festra. You brought me there to be free of yourself. It’s still in you—Nafury’s hope of stopping this. No matter what you do, you can’t get rid of that hope. Because that hope doesn’t need a Caelestis, or an Aur or anything to glow as brightly as it does in you.”

“Hope. There is no hope.”

Damek hurled another force of estus energy at her. It hit her like a sickening wave of sadness, nearly making the world around her match in darkness. Sybl looked down at the death-drop. A fear worse than falling waited below. Cirrus stood in the street looking up at her. The sunlight would reach around the building and to him in moments. “Cirrus!”

“There is no need to throw away your life. Look at this world. It’s a soulless, cold and unforgiving place. It is what it always was. Together we can wipe out all its evil and start it anew.”

“I’m not interesting in ruling the world, and you’re in no position to speak like you aren’t evil yourself.”

“Then you will share the Fate of all those who defy me. Where your hope dies, my army will ascend.” His next strike cut across her stomach, and he kicked her off of the side of the roof.

She couldn’t fly—and if Cirrus did, he would burn up in the sunlight. But just as she accepted her death, a blue flash of light took Damek’s eyes, and his hand caught her wrist. Nafury. Sybl caught his arm with her other hand, not wanting to question the possibility of her wish coming true for him to return to normal. Had the Sylvan energy from her healed him? Before he could pull her up, she cried out as a flash of lightning revealed the spiritual form of a Sentry overhead. It cut through the sky and came straight for them. She tried to force him to let go, but he didn’t, and the force from the bolt sent them both over the edge.