Dragon Aster Trilogy

16: STORMLINE



“I’m not a Custos anymore. Not since your mother was taken by Simera. Neither is Urio or Feryl,” Hain continued, as they walked the hallways of the Sanctus.

“Just how many of you kidnapped my mother?” Sybl asked.

Hain looked to the side of the corridor, then shook his head. “Ah, the good old days. Where you could steal and accomplish just about anything with some gold.”

“Who sent you to Earth to get her?”

“Vanir did, much to Tenu’s prophecy. I didn’t know she had been pulling his strings back then as Nyx. But instead of delivering Serena to him, he had an Awl try and cut us out of the deal. That’s when we stopped working as mercs and became Custos for Kira.”

“Which Awl?”

“The one who found you on the Suzerain Beach.”

“Delare,” Sybl said.

“You might remember him as the cat who had his hide stolen by Tenu, so she could conceal Damek. Xires,” Hain explained.

“And he became an Awl. I’m surprised he didn’t kill me.”

“Why would he? You didn’t drown him. Awls are very specific when it comes to vengeance.”

Sybl stopped in the hallway as she tried to absorb it all.

“Sentry can possess a human when they need to. Sometimes for a random miracle. Sometimes, a random tragedy. But ultimately we’re just spirits, too.”

“I’ve never seen one in their energy form on Earth.”

“Yes you have, you just don’t remember. Come, I’ll show you.”

Sybl followed Hain through the Sanctus, and into the tunnels dug into the cliff overlooking it. A long climb upward finally showed an exit to outside. She heaved and panted on emerging from the stairs, to find that they were now standing over the Sanctus. “You had…best hope this is…impressive.”

Hain only shook his head at his weaker stair-climbing counterpart, before searching the skies. Then he looked towards the impressive mountains that backed the Sanctus’ cliff in the distance.

Sybl looked with him, and saw a few streaks of white lightning. “Lightning? Seriously? So what’s the Aur storms then? A daily convention of Sentry?”

“No, the Aur storms are a result of Aragmoth’s clashing energies. Up there,” Hain said nodding in the direction of the mountain peaks, “are Sentry from Earth, likely looking for willing hosts. We can’t just take whoever we feel like on Aster. Somnus have Ancients or eminor to protect them from before birth.”

Sybl remembered back to the Casus Beli fields, when the Regals would raise their wings like antennae to catch a storm.

“Now you got it. And yeah, it does reign a lot of cats.”

She smiled as it felt like more of her memory had been healed.

Hain sat down with his knees raised, and she did the same. They watched the will of a god from another world dance on the summits of theirs’.

“Damek would be able to use my energy against Earth, wouldn’t he?”

“Likely. But you only remember Damek as Daath. Our Eminor selves are darker and easier to avoid. He has erased much of what he doesn’t want you to remember of him.”

“What can I do? You know Damek better than I do,” Sybl said.

“I know that he has always gotten what he wanted. He has always been perfectly unstoppable. Now with Solar back as well, I’m sure he will show up.”

“What happened after I died?”

“Which time? You forget you were supposed to be Kira’s daughter.”

“When the Last War ended,” Sybl clarified.

“Well, from what I know, Moon was able to hold onto your soul within him. He went back to the Sylvan City and confronted the High Feharin to help bring you back to life. But that didn’t go well with Solar, and she labelled Moon a murderer and tried to throw him out. When he didn’t budge, she sent her Phoenix after him, and then Hell rained on everything.

“Erebus died in the Sylvan City, and Damek set out to find your soul. Gei beat him to it. When you and Kira were killed by Vanir, Gei quickly caught your soul again, and later set it in Serena. Damek abandoned his Eminor, and was reborn with you.

“Your mother didn’t even know you existed, until Nafury found his Eminor during his Trial of Somn and saw you. I think that’s what killed Serena in grief; learning she had a daughter that she didn’t even know about, and then Simera never returning after he went to Earth to retrieve you.”

Sybl went quiet for a while. “What happened to Simera?”

“I honestly don’t know. But there are only two things that can happen to a dragon on Earth.”

“Which are?”

“Be destroyed by the Sentry, or be captured by the humans.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Simera was no pushover. Only so many Sentry would have attacked him before giving up. If I had to bet on it, I’d say he tripped over too many humans.”

Sybl took in a deep breath of air, as too many thoughts and emotions overtook her mind at once. “So what do I do?”

“I’d start by trying to figure out how to contain a small sun, and go from there.”

Sybl sighed at that.