Dragon Aster Trilogy

13: FIELDS OF DEATH



Sybl dreamed herself right back where she had started on Aster, before Cirrus took on the phelan in the Casus Beli fields. This time it was different, as there were no flowers, only the charred bodies of various animal forms strewn about. On the battlefield was a woman who looked much like an older version of herself. Next to her was a grizzled brown phelan, whose shoulders stood taller than her.

“How many of these dark angels are they going to send after me before they give up? I should be sitting pretty in a dress and preaching peace all day like Solar.”

The phelan flared his teeth as he circled their dying kill. He preemptively tasted the air for the best place to begin to tear the Sentry apart. “You are far more beautiful dancing in battle with a sword rising and falling at your side, my Lady Caelestis.”

“That’s only because it makes your job easier,” Asil said with a smile as she looked at the phelan. “But I appreciate you keeping this quiet from Moon and Damek.”

“I am…but a messenger.”

The phelan stopped in his tracks and looked at the Sentry that had spoke. They had cut and tore the transparent wings off of the creature, but it still used its scythe-like arms to defend itself on the ground.

“Messenger? I’m seeing your message very clearly,” Asil said as she healed the deep wound the angry spirit had dealt to her arm.

“The Dragon Moon…will rise against you.”

The phelan blinked his red eyes for a moment, before looking at Asil.

“Well, I have a message for your cael,” she said as she walked over to the creature, aiming her festra at its forehead. “If your Dragon Moon comes here looking for more trouble, I will be more than obliged to give it to him. You will not find this Aster as easy to destroy.”

The white spirit began to grow brighter, as she brought up her festra and drove it into its forehead. When she did, it exploded in a fury of white fire, and hurled her and the phelan across the battlefield in a tumble.

Asil recovered from the blast first, before looking for her companion. “Reol, look out!”

But it was too late as the enraged spirit went straight for the blinded and dazed phelan, before engulfing him in its white fire.

“Reol!” Asil ran to him, but she couldn’t do anything as the spirit was now within his body.

“Strike now! Before I can’t…ahhh!”

Asil fought back her tears as she tried to think of what to do when Reol collapsed. When she touched him, he dissolved into a dark mist, before a human-like man lay before her. It was an illusion, as she could see through the weave of Threads that its wings made to cover his demonic form. The skies overhead split with thunder and lightning through the Animus. She looked fearfully for anymore Sentry that might take their chance at vengeance.

Asil put her festra down on the ground and pulled his face from the mud of the field.

“Why…why are you crying?” Reol asked confused, as he could feel that they were both alive. But what didn’t make sense was how she looked taller than him.

“I’m so sorry.”

He tried to move, before bringing his paw up. Only it wasn’t a paw—it was a hand. “What happened to me?”

Asil wiped clean his face with her hands, trying to find a means to heal him back to what he was.

“How am I...? No…this isn’t human.” Reol sat up on his knees, as he touched the ground. “Is this what it is to have a soul?”

Asil didn’t answer.

“Asil they can’t find out—they’ll kill us all!” He tried to get to his feet, but collapsed as the balance just wasn’t his yet.

Asil picked up her festra and aimed it at him, but her tears wouldn’t let her kill him. For he hadn’t just referred to himself, but the others of his kind as well. Others quite possibly like him.

“There is nothing to…cry about, Asil. I serve her Lady,” Reol said, as he closed his eyes and fell back to his knees, “in life and in death.”

Asil raised the blade higher to strike the Awl. Before it could fall, Sybl woke up to find herself lying down next to someone.