Dragon Aster Trilogy

23: WOVEN DEATH



“Where did you get that from?”

Fevre stopped waving the fairy pendant before his eyes as he had finished reading the last of its Threads. He looked up to where Lintrance stood next to him. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Just give it back.”

“The Prophecy is here, and you would have the nerve to hide the one key to taking Toria solely to hide your treacherous shame?”

“If you’ve seen its Threads, then you already know it’s not as simple as that. Sybl is too fragile to put before your sister for the throne.”

“Dragoons fight, not our females.”

“You will not use her to start a war. She isn’t yours.”

“She isn’t yours either, as much as you’ve claimed to have adopted her. It will be the one she chooses to Bond with that matters, and she finds me attractive.”

“Aragmoth damn you,” Lintrance snapped at Fevre and tried to snatch the pendant away, but Fevre pulled it away from his reach.

“I saw the kyrie they bound her memories to while you did nothing but watch them then drag her off to Earth. I should kill you for not having the decency in your soul to stop it.” Fevre extended his threat by picking up a freshly made sword that was untouched by blood.

“There was nothing I could have done.”

“Because your age hasn’t cured the coward in you. Serena’s daughter is in our hands, and you would do nothing against your aunt’s likeliness to enslave her. But I won’t do the same.”

“If you pit her against Yri now, we will lose everything!”

Fevre aimed the blade at Lintrance. “Serena loved you wretched coward once, and I don’t know what she ever saw in you. But if you want this piece of her back, then you will have to come and take it,” he said as he dropped the silver chain over his head then.

“I’m not going to fight you.”

“Come now, it will be just like the old days. Where you could never win.”

Lintrance took a blade from the racks and felt its weight, before looking back at the posed dragoon. Then Fevre’s Ancient surrounded them in a ring of fire.



Daath watched the sword fight from along the higher crevices of the forge, staying out of sight. He walked on all four paws through the shadows cast by the fires. His brown wings folded tightly around his body, cutting the trace of his scent behind him with their feathers as he did. The two dragoons exchanged blows with a fierce determination for several minutes. He could feel the old hate and jealously weld their Threads together into an intricate weaving from their battle dance. But Sybl wasn’t here—only the end to a trail that wished for death by trying to disrupt his plan.

He brought his claws around Cirrus’ pendant in his paw, before pulling on the Thread that led to the one Fevre wore and to his lungs. It was just as Lintrance’s blade came down on the dragoon’s suddenly staggered, choking defense.