Dragon Aster Trilogy (13 page)

“It’s a European thing from the old days on my world.”

“Oh?” Kayla asked in curiosity.

“When women used to have fifteen or more children.”

Kayla didn’t say anything back to it and changed the topic. “The last human here, Serena, was a human beautiful enough to be made into our Queen by Simera. Perhaps somewhere in those uncanny blue eyes you can see a future that has eluded the best of the Novaists here.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died a short while ago. You see, she was a Seer, or what I think you call a fortune teller on your world. I can only assume that a part of her saw that Simera would never return.”

“Humans don’t just die from grief,” Sybl replied.

“Yet that didn’t stop you from trying to take your own life.”

Sybl now had enough of the conversation and slowly backed out of the water.

Lintrance paced worryingly outside the shower room, as his sister had locked herself in with Sybl.

“This is the daorans shower room...” Loki said as he stopped in the hallway, where his brother pondered the door.

“I’m aware of this.”

Loki caught the rest of his brothers thoughts, before looking back to the door. “You think sis will try something?”

“Of all times not have a daoran on our side in this whole mountain...” Lintrance replied in worry.

“If you intend to adopt her, that makes her your daughter. Go and get her out if you’re so worried.”

“After Cirrus’ stunt just now?”

“Well I’m not passing up the chance to meet her—”

“You’re going nowhere,” Lintrance said as he caught his brother’s shoulder and pulled him back.

Sybl didn’t make it far before several vines caught her foot in the water. There was no time to panic and try to get free, as more caught her other foot. Kayla swam behind her to see what Sybl was doing a miserable job of hiding.

She trembled when the daoran’s hand touched the scars on her back. The hand pulled back as the memory of pain surged through her mind and seemed to strike the daoran’s as well.

“They won’t heal...”

She looked back at Kayla as the daoran sounded genuinely concerned for a moment.

“Who did this to you?”

“It’s nothing,” Sybl said in retreat and got out of the water with no more scars to hide, before going for a towel and drying herself off. Hastily getting redressed from where her night clothes had descended to the floor, she then unlocked the room and left.

She stopped in surprise on finding Lintrance standing outside, before looking back to make sure Kayla had dragged her off to the right bathing room.

“Are you alright, Princess?”

“Yeah I’m fine,” Sybl replied, not wanting to talk about anything anymore.

“I’m sorry about Cirrus. I should have told you about his abnormal sleeping habits.”

“You told me that when a dragon falls asleep, they go berserk.”

“Normally, yes, but Cirrus has been every exception in between most of his life. I do know that he wouldn’t purposely do anything to lose your trust in him.”

“I should apologize then. I didn’t give him much of a chance to explain anything.”

“Then it can wait until morning as he headed out for the night.”

Sybl went silently back to her room at that.

Sybl regretted not paying attention as she rushed back to her room, only to find herself lost in the maze of tunnels again. She kept her thoughts locked up as she tried to calm down to think straight, knowing that would only be possible on finding Cirrus. What Lintrance had said followed Sybl’s conscience like a torch that might lead to her having a meltdown, yet. One week on a different planet and she was already starting fires all around her.

But her anger and despair wouldn’t be unheard as she looked to the end of the hall when it suddenly glowed a red light, as if from flames. It did it again, and she was left confused to how it was possible with water running on both sides of the wall. “Hello?”

It didn’t respond in any way, and she decided to see it up close. She peered around the corner and down the other hall and found it empty, except for a silver-masked, human-shaped statue that was draped in a heavy black cloak.

She feared it to be an Awl, but as she dared to look closer, it had no cloak of feathers and its mask was not that of wood. It wasn’t of deceit, but a beautifully crafted and engraved silver one.

The fiery glow didn’t appear anymore, and she let out a breath of relief. But the hallway was a new one, and now she was even more lost.

‘Did you need some help?
’

Sybl jumped back from the statue in a fright, before letting out a long breath of relief as it wasn’t alive. She was being paranoid. Sybl didn’t recognize the voice, but the Ancient of the dragoon was nearby. It walked out of the wall behind her and stopped a meter away.

It looked like a smaller Lintrance, but it was a fire dragon as the tip of its tail was lit like a torch.

She looked back at the statue, before deciding to follow after her helpful new guide. She guessed he must have been busy in a different room or the sorts. The Ancient used his tail to guide her on.

Sybl was certain she had missed an important place in the mountain when she followed the dragon down several more hallways and down a long flight of steps. At its end was a room of a heavy heat and fire. A flare of it came straight for her, and she ducked. But it passed harmlessly over her, as she was not the one meant to be melted by it.

A dozen fire dragoons worked about the room, using their Ancients to melt and reform metals and glass into what they wanted, with precision and elegance on top of anvils. Sparks and music flew from their hammers striking their will into their creations. Their Ancients seemed to dance about from the center of the inferno of the forge that rose through the ceiling like it was their fiery waterfall of fun.

“Fevre stop working for five minutes of your life and have some fun already,” the same voice spoke. Its source walked across the room from the other side of the forge.

When she looked closer, she could see that it was a living version of the masked statue she had seen in the hallway. He pulled off his black cloak and set it down on a nearby bench. Her mysterious statue looked to be little older or taller than herself. “Sing up a song for us.”

“If you worked more and played dress-up less, something would actually get done around here,” the blond, short-haired dragoon replied. He looked up disapprovingly from his anvil with his dark brown eyes. The older dragoon looked to be somewhere in his thirties and crafted from a fire itself, then cooled in sweat with the fine lines of a sculpture.

“Well, just what is our guest to dance to then?” he asked as he held out his hand towards Sybl.

She froze as the dozen dragoons took notice to where she was sneaking along the wall behind the harmless fires. Their Ancients swept the red clouds across the floor and away to get a better look at who was spying on them.

“Loki, you thief! Lintrance is gonna kill us!” The young red-head from a higher shelf in the stone wall panicked. He began to bite his blackened nails as he watched her.

“Not if we make enough noise to drive him away.” Loki smiled.

“I thought you would lead me to my room?” Sybl said, not feeling very welcome in the forge.

“Why this is your room, my Lady,” Loki said as he stretched his arms to his sides for a moment and turned back to her. “As is everywhere else in our castle.”

The other dragoons laughed, likely thinking it would take a miracle for her to dance with him, before going quiet when she actually considered his thought. In his hand, he revealed only to her the necklace he had stolen from her neck.

Sybl touched her neck as she tried to figure out how he got it, then reached out to take it back. But it was the trap as he caught her hand on touch and lifted it. The drums started, and he settled his other on her waist.
I can’t dance...

“Of course you can,”
he replied assuringly by psi.
“Everyone can dance.
”

The dragoons looked to Fevre for a song to add to the impossibility.

Fevre sighed, but as the younger dragoons preyed on the situation and drummed louder. He gave in and began to sing, which in turn made them cheer.

Loki began to lead her across the floor in a waltz, which she found surprising in the least. There were some silent giggles when Sybl missed a few steps, before catching on quickly enough and following him perfectly. He twirled her, and she smiled as he had made it impossible not to.

The song was over too soon, and Loki bowed to her in gratitude for the dance, as she curtseyed in turn. He used the opportunity to tie her necklace back around her neck.

Sybl didn’t know where she had learned how to dance, but guessed it must have been a psi trick she didn’t know about or the sorts. She pulled her brown hair out from the bind of the necklace, relieved to have it back.

With the drums having stopped, the dragoons went back to work at their own music from their hammers. She couldn’t stop herself from looking at Fevre.

“Eighty-four,” Fevre said to the question in her mind.

“You don’t look a day over thirty-nine,” Sybl replied.

“That’s the power of Moon’s bloodline,” Loki added proudly.

“Be quiet before you see us whipped,” Daston scolded him, as if Loki were the youngest child amongst them.

“You all seem to work so hard down here.”

“It’s what slaves do,” Fevre said as he wiped the sweat off his face with his ash-blackened hand, leaving a painting on it. “Rumors have it that you’re one yourself.”

“You don’t honestly think she is a slave too?” Loki asked.

“My sister thinks so, and I’ve yet to see her wrong about something,” Fevre added.

“Slaves?” Sybl asked in concern.

“Well, we’re free,” Fevre explained as he doused the heat of the dagger he was working on in water to cool it under a rush of steam, “enough to know that we are no longer anywhere near the top of the royal chain.”

“I’m not a slave,” Sybl added, trying to keep her anger in check as it became clear that Kayla had done what females did best—spread rumors like a wildfire. “The scars on my back weren’t caused by a whip.”

“Then what were they caused by?” Loki asked in concern.

She turned around to face him. “Take your mask off and I’ll tell you.”

“It is not polite to ask a knight to remove their armor, unless you wish to protect their body with your own.”

The other dragoons laughed as Loki was setting himself up to be destroyed.

“Oh really?” Sybl asked, now even more curious to what he looked like, as he seemed intent on playing medieval games with her. “Just how is it polite not showing a Lady your face and your true intentions?”

“True intentions can be seen by means other than by the face. You can see the important part of my eyes just fine. And your elegant dancing skills would not be what they teach slaves on the Suzerain Continent.”

“And you’re royalty?”

“If Yri hadn’t put the blame of the Fay Wall’s collapse on Trista, our little Loki there would be next in line to the throne as Prince. Which is also the only reason I don’t kick his backside in for forgetting his chores,
again!
” Fevre finished in what might have been a snarl if he were in his dragon form.

Loki gulped.

“Trista is Cecil’s mom, isn’t she?” Sybl asked.

“A blind Prince doesn’t work very well, even as bright as he may be. But her brother was Estar who was Loki’s and Lintrance’s father.”

“So why doesn’t Lintrance take it?”

“He ruined that chance when a mermaid took his love and swam away with it. Can’t have a bastard kid from Mer City showing up one day to lay claim to Toria. A descendant of Moon must always be who leads us,” Fevre added.

“Why?”

“Because when one isn’t, like now, then you get the Line of Solar in it, and those Chimera-blooded heathens will always fly to the same flock.”

“So you would be Lintrance’s younger brother...” Sybl said as she looked back at Loki. “Well, you can’t possibly be someone I wouldn’t want to see the face of.”

“Is that a promise from her Princess?”