Dragon Aster Trilogy (25 page)

“Sybl, wake up.”

Sybl looked up to find the narrow, red eyes of a familiar ghost looking down at her.

“You are going to be late for school.”

She blinked, as if uncertain she was awake and hearing him right. “You came from another world to tell me that?”

Kas took his hand off of the side of the bed and stood up straighter. “No, but I am concerned about the punishment that comes with disobeying these people.”

“They are my foster parents, Kas. Seriously, get a life already.”

Kas touched her shoulder, sending a freezing shiver through her entire body. But she only shuddered and refused to leave the comfort of her bed. “‘Foster parents’ are those who care for the well-being of the child. Yet all I have heard is the arguments over the money you are worth.”

Sybl sighed and buried her face back into her pillow.

“This is not your first ‘placement’?”

“No, it’s my third one to many more. It’s how the system works,” she mumbled back. “Toss the kids from one home to the next, before they can get too smart to figure a way out of it all.”

“You cannot leave here,” Kas insisted.

“Why not?”

“Because my spirit cannot travel any further from the Rift and my somn on Aster.”

“A somn being that freaky, giant wolf-cat form you can take?”

“I am a phelan somnus,” he replied, “not a ‘wolf’ or a ‘cat.’”

Sybl contemplated hurling the pillow at him, before remembering it would have no effect other than passing through her imaginary, alien friend turned-tormentor. “Why don’t you just take me back with you then?”

“Because the Gate at the Sanctus is still broken. My spirit can reach you to a limit, but not my physical self.”

“Then fix it and come back when you aren’t a ghost.” She peaked up at Kas then, as he looked at her with the expression he made when searching her thoughts. From the looks of it, she was getting better at blocking him out, even if it felt like her throbbing sinuses might let him win, yet. But all she wanted was some more sleep and for him to go and haunt someone else.

The sound of her foster mother’s footsteps came up the stairs, with her voice directed at her room. “Sybl, your worker is coming today, so you won’t be going to school.”

Sybl shot up to a sit so fast, she passed through Kas’ freezing spirit. Half her body felt as if a box of ice had been dropped over her head, but it didn’t douse her excitement of what she had wanted for so long. “Home!” she squealed.

Kas vanished for a moment when her comforter was thrown at him, as if by a magic trick. His spirit became visible again shortly after the blanket hit the floor. “You mean the one in the city?”

“It is almost two years, Kas. I either go home now or never.”

“To the mother who is not yours.” Kas dropped his head slightly, making his dark black bangs cover his red eyes.

Sybl gave him a tight-lipped scream, and then ran around her room looking for the right thing to wear. “Mom likes the color red. I need something red. Kas, help me!”

Kas only dropped his eyes in the direction of the floor. “I cannot see red.”

“Fine, be a useless jerk,” she retorted, then found a black skirt and a red blouse. It was more of a Christmas-suited outfit, but it would have to do. She ran off to take a fast shower, then came back some minutes later to snatch up her outfit off of her chair. Then she glared at Kas to look elsewhere.

He turned around and rubbed his eyes, as if blinded by the color red that she carried. “Please wear something else.”

“Please ghost away!” she shouted back, before rushing out of the room. Sybl would take her best shot at her last strand of hope, with what optimism she had left.

Sybl’s stomach rolled upside down after she finished breakfast, as her anxiety refused to channel her energy to digest anything. She had never been so scared in her life, well, almost, as she looked at Kas who sat in the chair across the table from her. Meeting him in the woods at the back of this foster home still made the top of her lifelong terrified-by list. Vampire, werewolf, or alien that he was, they were a hundred times more terrifying in real life. Particularly in his wolf-like form.

“What kind of ‘worker’ is this person?” Kas asked.

“Just be quiet so I’m not labelled even crazier for talking to myself, okay?” Sybl looked to the stairs as a car pulled up in the driveway and the doorbell followed shortly after. Her body froze.

“Please do not go back to the city.”

Shut up shut up shut—
“Hello,” Sybl greeted the new worker warmly as she came into the kitchen with her foster mother. Then her foster mother turned and left them alone.

“You must be Sybl,” the worker said as she sat down in the chair the unseen Kas had vacated. “I am Mrs. Ceyer.”

It was the same game, only new rules as Sybl quickly sized up what to say to her advantage. This worker didn’t appear to be fresh on the job, and she was as fake sounding as she had seen them come so far. The older ones were always a trickier challenge to read.

“So how have things been going for you?”

“Oh just great, really. School leaves me little time for anything else.”

“Your marks are quite impressive. I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”

Sybl had finished her calculating of the woman, as her mind quickly reverted back in time to where Mrs. Ceyer had failed to introduce herself as her new worker.
Oh crap.

Kas looked quickly at Sybl from where he stood behind the woman’s chair.

“I spoke with your mother yesterday, and we have all but finalized the last papers. All we need now is your signature.”

“She is trying to deceive you,” Kas said.

No shit, Sherlock.
Sybl looked at the papers pushed before her, before stopping her eyes on two words.
Crown Wardship.
She gripped the side of the dark wood table, fearing that she would faint. “The other worker said that everything was looking good for my return home…”

“I’m afraid that’s not what your mother wishes. You are happy here, and your foster parents care about you. This is what’s best. They have graciously agreed to take care of you until you turn eighteen.”
 

Where I then end up on the streets, starving to death like everyone else who finally escapes the system.
When the numbness that had overtaken her body faded, she stood up.

“Your Crown Wardship will pass the judge whether you sign it or not. But for the sake of making less of a hassle for both us and your mother, do consider signing this. I will leave these papers with your foster mother so you can have more time to think on it.”

“I have thought on it,” Sybl snapped back, bitterly. “For two years I’ve been doing nothing but thinking on it! I want to go home, and you are just another stranger who doesn’t give a damn getting in my way. I’m late for school.” She went downstairs and grabbed her knapsack, before leaving the house.

“Sybl, wait!” Kas ran after her as she started down the driveway. “It will take you all day to reach school without a vehicle.”

“Leave me alone!”

“Sybl!” Kas cried at her, before trying to catch her arm, only to pass through her. He tried harder, before resorting to sending her crumbling to her knees by making her legs and feet go completely numb.

Sybl held the rest of herself upright, as she pressed her scraped hands into the stone gravel of the dirt country road. “You got what you wanted, didn’t you? Now just go away!”

“I never wanted to see you hurt. Please go back to the house.”

Sybl could feel her legs after a few minutes, and got up to start walking again. It took a while, but she finally reached the distance of where he couldn’t continue. She turned around to face him. It was as if he were cut off by an invisible wall or tied back by some unseen leash to his spirit. “Why do you care what happens to me? Do I really look like some goddess to you? Do I seriously look like anything other than some cursed, unwanted kid who is now a permanent and official burden to society?”

“You are the Caelestis I have been searching for.”

“No, Kas. I’m not. I’m not like you, or from your perfect little world where Earth is nothing but an exciting new adventure. Go back to where you came from, and leave me to my misery here.”

“What would you have me do to convince you?” Kas asked. His voice was much quieter now.

“If you really care and are something that’s not a figure of my impending madness, then help me go home to where I left my sanity! Otherwise, I never want to see you again.” One of her tears escaped her eyes and fell, and she turned to continue to walk. She would walk until she reached school or couldn’t cry anymore. Whichever came first.

The molten rock moved like blood through the Keol, as the desert-harsh winds burned all that it touched. The red and black clouds above rained hot ash and fire. It was why so many had come to call this place Hell. But Hain had never seen the Keol so furious, as waves of fire rose and exploded to match the anger of the Great Dragon that the world of Aster was.

Hain didn’t know what had broken loose to infuriate Aragmoth so, all he knew was that Kas was somewhere in the Keol that had turned into the center of all chaos. “Kas!”

The Keol before him rose into a swollen mound of fire, as whatever was coming through the Rift was not being taken in well by Aragmoth.

“Hain.”

The weak cry by psi sent Hain rushing through the lava-gauntlet. A wave of fire came at him from the side, and he reached the edge of it before it could collide with him.

Kas was still alive, despite the back legs and tail of his phelan form being submerged in the extreme liquid heat.

Hain grabbed the skin on the back of Kas’ neck and hauled him to more solid ground. Just as he did, the mound of fire burst, and what looked like a winged serpent made of fire flew out from it.

“What…took you so long? I can not…find her.”

A cry from the serpent sounded, and it dove back through the lava with its massive force.

Hain used his body to shield Kas as its spray of fire came at them. He had heard of Solar’s Phoenix three hundred years ago, but he had never seen the creature with his own eyes until now. When he looked down at Kas, even he was surprised. “Is it supposed to be that big?”

“It would seem that its three hundred years on Earth has given it time to grow.” Kas unsomned as he didn’t have the strength to maintain his phelan form anymore.

Hain unsomned as well, and caught the kid’s wrist to try and follow the Threads of his Mei to Sybl. “Either Cirrus has her or Aragmoth does. Either way, we don’t stand a chance of getting her back against this.”

Kas finally passed out from exhaustion, and Hain hoisted him over his shoulder. Then he somned into his phelan form and started to run. There was no waiting this fire storm out.

Sybl opened her eyes to the sound of something striking wood. She pulled her face off of the ground and looked around for its source, as the drumming continued both in the background and from the pain her head was in.

“There be wraiths in the trees, you would be safer not leaning against any.”

She glanced back. Then she looked up to the massive deer staring down at her with solid purple, glowing eyes. Either she had shrunk to the size of a tiny fairy, or it was just that huge. Sybl froze in place as it lifted its impressive sharp antlers, appearing as if it carried the world tree on its head. The deer’s coat was a dull grey that might have been a beautiful silver once.

“The trees are not safe.”

She got to her feet and looked at the tree and then up into its higher branches. The deer was not lying as its antlers struck something that gave a deafening screech. It sent Sybl falling back to her knees in pain. The stag quickly entangled the black shadow of a wraith into its sharp antlers, before whipping it to the ground. Then it trampled the creature into the Keol in several pieces with its sharp hooves. When the spinning in her head stopped enough to let her see straight again, Sybl looked back to the deer. It had returned to watching her.