Dragon Aster Trilogy

29: LASHINGS



Simera stop! None of this was his fault!

But the King wasn’t listening as his light blue eyes turned as bright as flames. He grabbed Nafury by the back of his shirt, before dragging him off against his struggles. He reached the smaller corridors and finally the room where he would break the Prince from his disobedience through excruciating lashings and psi strain. There was no telling at the time what Simera would do to his son for the crime of Dreamwalking, or just how far he would go.

Simera! Cirrus cried as he struck his head against the barriers of the Caverns that wouldn’t allow his Cursed size to pass. Nafury.

The Prince let out an agonizing cry as his dragon form could do nothing to protect him, as the room was too small to somn. The King caught the Prince with the unstoppable force that he was, and began to break and tear fear into his body with his own hands.

But Nafury wasn’t Simera’s son. He had never been. As Cirrus remembered all of the blood, it began to make a sick kind of sense how he could have tortured Nafury in such a way. He was never the King’s flesh and blood to begin with.

They all wanted to believe that Nafury was Simera’s, as it was unquestionable to think their King would have taken Nafury in, otherwise. Simera had too much pride. But as much as Serena respected him, she never truly loved him. It was nothing but Simera’s wish for it that led him to accepting Nafury, who Cirrus would later help craft into a monster. After the Prince’s body was found in Mer City, days after being taken by the plumas at the Canyon, Simera hadn’t shed a single tear at his funeral.

A monster. Cirrus remembered back to when he had taken Nafury through the Eternal Waters to complete his Trial of Somn.

“I’m willing to bet the Prince comes back a bright pink.” Kayla laughed as they started to pick on Nafury. The Prince had been made the star for the day, for he was now thirteen and of age to take the Trial of Somn.

“Not happening,” Cecil assured her. “Serena has brown hair and Simera’s is dark mauve, which means his will be a blue. Or a purple... Then there’s the possibility he comes out looking like a nasty bruise, in which case I’m going to find a sand dune to hide under somewhere on the Third Continent.”

“I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” Nafury whined as he rubbed his arms.

“It’s about time you grow up. Do you know that Simera made me do my Trial of Somn at ten? I couldn’t even draw a dragon yet, let alone find a real one at the bottom of the ocean,” Lintrance recalled aloud from his memories, as he looked around for Simera. But he was the only one at the time who expected the King not to show. “Just don’t do what Kayla tried during hers—the mer are not edible.”

“Oh, but you didn’t hear him sing. So go on and gloat, cause I know you’re just jealous.” Kayla raised her chin higher to level out with her pride.

“Naf you best come back, because I still want that mer song my sister gave you.”

“So you can torment the poor daoran with it day and night no doubt?”

“Why else?”

Kayla sent a backhand to Lintrance’s arm, as her brother was just too mean at times.

“No eating the fish, gotcha.” Nafury smiled at Kayla and then looked to Loki.

“If you find yourself drowning, just turn around and go back. Not everybody gets their somn on their first try,” he offered in advice.

“Yes, like my daredevil son,” Crystal said, as she hugged the shorter dragoon from behind and kissed the top of his thin, light green hair.

“What my mother really means is don’t use all of your air too fast, even if your head is nothing but air.” Lintrance smirked and his younger brother chased after him with their sister, so they could beat him down into the sand on the other end of the beach.

Nafury was caught by surprise when Rose hugged him and whispered him luck, but he didn’t hug her in turn.

“Be careful.”

“I’ll be fine with Cirrus, even if I do run into the mer, drown and-or have trouble recognizing my own shadow,” he said as if reciting a list, with a fraction of the confidence she expected of him.

Rose let go of Nafury, and he looked to where Cirrus landed on the beach away from them. He went over to him and escaped the crowd before it could make him panic anymore about the task ahead. “I’ve never been so scared in my whole life,” he said with a shiver as Cirrus crouched down to his level.

I won’t let anything happen to you. You should know that by now.

“But what if we do run into the mer? I heard they drown trespassers. And then there’s this whole shadow thing...”

Cirrus nudged him hard enough to make him fall into the sand, which settled the discussion. No more excuses. You are already too old for this as it is. Today you gain your dragon form, and I get to stop carrying you around everywhere.

“What if I fail?”

No, I won’t leave you to drown, and from what I know Simera never did either. It’s just a scare tactic to push you do what you are already born to. Now stop worrying and let’s go.

Nafury got back on his feet and climbed onto his back.

Cirrus let out a cry to those who watched, before taking to the air and flying just high enough over them all to unleash a tornado of sand to bury all their doubts.

“I better find my somn the first time, or we won’t stand a chance when they kill us for that.”

Cirrus laughed. They flew several miles out, and Nafury hugged his neck tightly as they dove into the dark water.

Nafury had practiced his diving relentlessly for weeks to be ready for this, as he kept his focus on breathing to keep up with the depth they dove to. He could feel Cirrus’ aeri around him, keeping his air supply high. It eased Nafury’s worries as the dragon swam them deeper. After some minutes, they reached the white sands of the ocean’s floor.

He carefully minded the air in him as he drifted off of Cirrus’ back, who glowed like a star cloud in the dark water. The dragon helped keep him to the ground as he swam over the sand, looking for what his shadow would pull up as a reflective somn of himself. Several minutes passed, but Cirrus remained patient as he kept the Prince’s lungs full of air in his continued search. “I don’t see anything.”

Cirrus floated quietly to avoid stirring up a fog of sand, feeling the Threads of the Keol move under them. Something is approaching.

Nafury stopped as he could feel it too. The ground reverberated, causing him to shudder in fear. “How big is it?”

Cirrus began to grow concerned, as something didn’t feel right. Let’s head back.

“Are you kidding? When we’re close enough to feel it?”

The white dragon wasn’t going to argue, and he swam for the Prince and caught him before swimming back for the surface. But the somn would reach them first, as the dark, deformed monster burst from a Rift in the sand and came straight for them. There was no time to dodge it as it went for Nafury, tearing the Prince from Cirrus’ hand and back down into the darkness it had emerged from.

Cirrus whipped around in the water and swam after them.

“Cirrus help me!” Nafury cried to him as his slip began to give way from the side of the Rift he clung to.

The white dragon tried to unsomn, as his claws threatened to tear the Prince asunder before he might pull him out. But his Curse held as he struggled against the force, beating his wings and tail furiously against the sand in reverse. It was no use as the Rift pulled Nafury into it and closed.

Cirrus woke with a surge of pain, and looked next to him where the torn sight of the last Regal he had killed lay beside him. On catching his breath in short gasps, he briefly looked himself over. He was completely splattered in the cats’ blood to match them.

He remembered only a fraction of the pluma fight, before his Ancient lost him again and continued it without his mind in control. He had promised that he would never unleash himself as the White Death again, but it had become impossible to ignore the fact that he had no control it over the chaos that overtook him. The field around him was littered with the bodies of dozens of Regals.

He opened his bloodied hand before his face, but the fairy pendant was no longer in it. It had been a trap all along, and now he had lost the direct Threads of it that led to Sybl.

Sybl.

Cirrus closed his eyes as he focused his aeri to heal the wounds the cats had inflicted on his body. Jolts of pain focused his mind to where he was all bleeding from. The mask to the Awl was gone well.

A cry went out through his psi, and for a moment he thought it was another memory of Nafury’s, before realizing that it was Loki’s. He sent his psi in search of Sybl next, but he couldn’t feel her thoughts anywhere.

Cirrus spread his wings and took to the air as the last major wounds on the flesh of his wings healed. He prayed that Loki was only all the way out here because he was with her.