Dragon Aster Trilogy

34: GIFT OF FLOWERS



Sybl opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by darkness, until a faint light caught her attention. For a moment, she thought she was dead, until a beautiful voice sounded from afar, coaxing her towards it. She got up and began to walk across the cold floor, until another voice who sounded like her own brought her to a stop.

“Erebus it’s perfect!” Asil said as she took the delicate pink life form from her twin. Her white, wispy spirit form solidified to touch and hold the flower.

“I was completely appalled by my first sight of it, hence how I knew you would be busy just short of eternity trying to understand why you love it.”

Sybl looked to the other spirit as his blue eyes were like her own. But he looked so much like Kas.

“It’s so beautiful. What is it?”

“Earth calls it a flower,” the look-alike Kas explained.

“What does it do?”

“They use it to cure illnesses and plant them around to heal their spirits.”

“Why couldn’t they just ask their Eminor or Ancient to do that for them?”

“They do not have spirits to guard their souls as we do, Asil.”

“Why would Hino take away their spirits guards?”

“Mother?” Erebus asked as he looked to Asteria as she approached them and stopped at the sight of the flower.

Sybl looked at the spirit as it became as solid as a Sylvan could be. She looked nothing short of an angel from how her aura glowed a bright white light around her body. Her long, white hair and perfect complexion stood over the two other spirits with a stature of dignity and uncontested beauty.

“They still have spirit guards, my children. They just do not have as many as they need.”

Sybl didn’t know how she remembered Asteria, but as she looked at Kas, his first name, Erebus, came back to her memories as well. She looked back at Asil, but didn’t see how she could be the reincarnation of such a spirit creature. Asil’s hair was a pale white, and the Fay was very frail-looking.

“Can we send them some of the Feharin?” Asil asked.

“No, my daughter. They do not welcome that which they do not understand. Too many have been separated from their spirit guards for too long to so much as recognize us anymore. They would not accept our help—or us.”

Sybl could see that Asil felt bad as she looked at the flower. The Fay tried to hide her feelings, even as Erebus looked to feel it as well.

Asil touched the pink flower, petal by petal as she began to think of what she could do to help. “Then I want to give them more than enough flowers to cure all their sufferings.”

The apparition of Asil vanished as the darker mist of Erebus did the same, leaving only Asteria and the flower in the darkness. It drifted side to side before reaching the cold ground in a ripple that extended its light across the room.

Sybl walked closer, as Asteria’s bright, light blue eyes that moved like air and water within a glass sphere watched her. She looked at the flower at the base of her feet then as it began to wilt quickly, before it dried up and vanished in pieces under the light of the floor.

“You cannot continue to seek redemption for the past, Asil.”

Sybl looked up as there was no mistaking that the spirit was talking directly to her. “Is this the first Aster?”

“It was,” Asteria said with a voice like tiny chimes in the wind, “very beautiful once. Now this emptiness is all that remains of my perfect world.”

“Why are you still here? Why haven’t you come to the new Aster?”

“There is a history that you should never have to remember. I want you to be able to live free of sins, and the answers you seek will only pull you further away from both.”

“So what do you want me to do? What can I do like this?” Sybl asked and looked over her human self in comparison to the spirit.

“You must trust your soultwin, Erebus, who is called in this lifetime, Kas. You were both reborn together, but a tragic twist of Vanir’s wrath colliding with the Iynx known as Gei, killed you. Gei was only able to save your soul and place it in Serena, so you might get another chance to be reborn. And you were, but because Serena was a human, you were also reborn as a human. It is why Nafury, the reincarnation of Damek, is now your twin. He refused to have such a tragedy kill you again. He also took as much of the Aeger that he could from your spirit into his own before you were reborn. But not all of your memories have healed yet.”

“I have a brother…you mean that demon is?” Sybl stopped there as she didn’t want to believe any of it anymore.

“Yes,” Asteria replied to the rest of her thoughts, before pulling her psi away from Sybl’s mind. She left within it only the reality of her past as many more timeless memories that they once shared.

“What about my father?”

“That you will have to determine for yourself. Fay are not born as genetic copies of their parents’. You are Asil. You will always be Asil. Your father is merely a means to allow your immortal soul to exist in a physical form again.”

Tears began to swell up in Sybl’s eyes, as the realization that she would never see Nafury as he once was swelled in her mind. She thought about Cirrus and how it all made sense to why he had taken such good care of her. She was his best friend’s sister. Sybl didn’t so much as know if he knew just that. Princess. They knew. She was the only one left out of the loop. “How did I end up on Earth?”

“Those are answers you must find on your own. First you must help Daath remember who he is. The Aeger has taken many of his memories. He doesn’t remember you, or even me, and he believes he is still a Sentry of Death in servitude to Hino.”

Sybl could see the sadness hiding behind Asteria’s eyes. “How do I make him hear me?”

“He is already listening to you.”

“Is there a cure for this Aeger?”

“The Aeger is the result of the Sylvan Threads of Aster disappearing. When the Sylvan Aur went down, the very balancing axis of light and dark, it left only one possible side for the world to fall into. The estus energy of Aragmoth. Estus uses sadness, hate, jealousy and fear to channel its spread.”

“What about that unicorn?”

“He is Sial, an Ancient of the first Aster reborn through Nephena. You must retrieve the festra he protects with the names of the Eminor. You must do this before our enemies find a way to utilize the Aeger to their advantage. They will make the Ancients and Eminor into slaves. With their help, you will be able to stop the Aeger’s continued destruction and raise the Sylvan Aur once again.”

“Are you saying I have to save the world, while avoiding going crazy by the Aeger, and get a bunch of Eminor and Ancient spirits to listen to me?” Sybl gulped.

“It will not be difficult if you remember who you are, Asil. Now wake up. The time of self-doubting your inborn abilities has passed.” Asteria turned around and began to walk away from her then.

“Wait! Asteria!” But the spirit evaporated and was gone. Sybl looked at the ground where the flower had vanished and knelt down. The light began to drain away like water, revealing where the flower had stopped sinking on top of a layer of darkness below. But it was still dead.

Sybl touched it, and a reflection appeared before her, but not of herself. It looked like the unicorn, Sial. “So what are you, my spirit guide?”

The unicorn shook its brown coat out, and she focused back on the flower to find that it had turned into a festra. She could see now that this one was different from the one Lintrance had given her. Its crystal handle sparkled like a jewel asking her to pick it up.

Sybl reached for it, before stopping midway. “What’s the catch?”

The floor of light dimmed to show the crowd of shadows underneath to answer her question.

Sybl stepped back, only to find that there was nowhere to retreat from the Eminor. Before she could panic, a familiar shape appeared near her feet and looked up at her with light blue eyes. It was the dragon she had seen before in the Texts. “Moon?”

‘Asil.’

Sybl looked back at the weapon and immediately picked it up. But he didn’t attack her in the memory, and it seemed unreasonable that he would try now. “How do I free you from there?”

‘Have you forgiven me so easily?’

“Huh?” Sybl tried to remember what he might be talking about, but nothing came to her. “What do you mean? Forgive you for what?”

‘You are dead because of me. I could not see how much you trusted me to stop myself from harming you through it. I am nothing more than a Curse.’ Moon began to sink behind the other shadows.

“Moon, wait!”

The dragon stopped.

“Not all of us can start again, free of our sins. But we can start with forgiveness. Isn’t that the only hope immortals have of moving on?”

‘Forgiveness…’

“Yes, forgiveness.”

‘Is it truly forgiveness when your heart doesn’t believe it?’

“Your heart?” Sybl didn’t know what he was talking about, as she remembered only a little of Moon’s wish to have a soul. He had existed like he understood what it was to be with one, though he was still an Eminor. At least, he should have been. Then she remembered the Texts. She had healed his soul when he somned with her after the accident. “Where is your soul now?”

Sybl was answered when another shadow appeared, but this one was cast from someone standing behind her. She turned her head around slowly, as the presence sent a cold chill down her spine.