Dragon Aster Trilogy

39: NEVER BE LOST AGAIN



A warm, blue light covered the frozen world of Aster as the restored Sylvan Aur rose into the sky from the Third Continent. With its light came the promise of another chance. Faster than it had started, those sick with the Aeger woke up from their despair and nightmares to a world defrosting from its own.

Kenshe sat next to Cirrus’ bed, watching the panel in Gwa’s hand. If Loki was right, Nafury was immune to the sunlight like Sybl was and may be alive still. The phelan didn’t look to care or know what to do about the Earth-lost dragon Prince. They simply worked around the clock to bury the ones flash-frozen by Damek’s wrath. All the while waiting for Sybl’s voice in their minds.

Gwa and Kenshe remained silent, as all their thoughts drifted to what might have happened to Sybl. Gwa’s theory was that Aragmoth had taken her back into himself, which would explain the Sylvan Aur the Third Continent had now. As much as Kenshe worried about her, his concerns were for Cirrus as now he was the only one who could find her. Would he ever wake up? Would there be any bringing one of them around with the other gone? Kenshe didn’t have any answers, only sacrifices towards what they had tried so hard to prevent. He pulled himself to his feet and headed out of the room and downstairs. On reaching outside, he looked to the Gate where Nafury emerged from it at the same time. He walked over to him with the same caution he would have used if he were Damek still.

“I told everyone that she was there, but no one would hear it. No one would believe me. To think all the while I was blaming Aragmoth, when it was my own kind who had betrayed me the most. So what are my options now? Exile or be killed as a war criminal?”

Nafury’s sapphire eyes looked at Kenshe with all the sadness they held. He had the same eyes as Sybl, and that alone was what spared him now. “Sybl and Cirrus saved you for a reason, and I want to believe that it was for something they saw that we didn’t. So no, I’m not going to kill you,” Kenshe said. “But I can’t guarantee that no one else will do it for me.” He left Nafury there as he went to help elsewhere.

Nafury lifted the fairy pendant in his hand, remembering how he had watched Sybl try to find a world of dragons through it. But as it swung back and forth, only the Sylvan Aur that glimmered off of it remained of the Fay and not a single memory. His wish had cost him everything, and saved a world that didn’t want him.

Fields of what were once endless ice and snow had already begun to melt and Nafury looked around the world he didn’t remember leaving as such return to its previous state. He entered the house where Cirrus was and went upstairs. Nafury feared that his friend might never wake up again. They had gone through so much pain, and all because of him. A pain that he would be forced to answer for, without any of his own memories to say it actually happened. Nafury forced the tears out of his eyes as he now wished that he had died back on Earth. That the sunlight had killed him. But the humanity in him from his mother had saved him from being burned to nothingness.

“You have some nerve coming back here after everything you’ve done,” the griffin somnus said from where he stood on the other side of Cirrus’ bed.

Nafury hung his fairy pendant from Cirrus’ hand. Now was a sound time to start praying and restoring his faith in Aragmoth, for only the Great Dragon could bring Cirrus and Sybl back now.

The fairy began to spin slowly, and Nafury looked at his friend’s face with the hope that Cirrus had regained consciousness. He caught the pendant in its spin and held it to his palm. It was the last moment that he would feel his pulse, for Cirrus had found where his fairy was now.