Dragon Aster Trilogy

1: VANIR



“Master Kas, you know I would give anything for this conflict to be over, but getting you killed is not included in this,” Jru said as he stopped before the start of the courtyard that led to the main gates of the Atrum. His long, black dreads fell away from his old, red eyes as he looked up at the castle that towered over them. The estus-infused purple light that rose from within it hit the sky as a beam, before spreading across most of the Suzerain Continent through the atmosphere.

Jru’s deep wrinkles fell further into his dark skin, as the Armsman tried to remember back to a time when things were much different. When the towering black stones of the Atrum didn’t make it the center pillar for Vanir’s warfare. When it was a place of hungry growls from a united populace trying to fend off starvation and the cold. Now it felt as if the somnus the Atrum Lord ruled over had traded their simpler sufferings for the price of all the decency left in the souls.

Overhead the damp, heavy light continued to drown out anything that might allow the memories of such a time to resurface. “Your father wants the Sanctus to burn, not be a part of his Empire.”

“No, today it is something else,” Kas replied as he came to a stop and his escort of Custos behind them did the same. His mentor’s melancholy thoughts were all heard and felt in his own psi.

As the Atrum’s soldiers came to a stop in their spiked, glinting black armor before them, he could feel the negative energy in the Animus Threads between both sides vibrate dangerously. Their eyes betrayed them in dark shades of grey. If the tension escalated anymore, the peace talks would be over before they could start; with a clash of weapons, claws, talons and teeth.

Kas glanced back to where Gwa seemed to be the closest to his snapping-point, as the griffin somnus straightened his white and grey uniform against the ayame and phelan somnus who walked past them. They left their comments of traitor and corrupt behind as they did. He was to be assumed as once of the Falls, who had become a traitor to the Atrum’s Order by siding with the Sanctus. But they knew nothing past the rumors that spread through the capital and Atrum City like a plague. Gwa may have been a griffin somnus, but Kas would never question how much his friend hated the Falls more than all of the Custos combined. You alright?

‘I’ll be better once we leave,’ Gwa voiced back to Kas by psi, as he caught the Priest’s bright-red eyes with his own brown, rare ones. Most griffin somnus had yellow eyes and white hair, but Gwa’s was white with rose streaks, which was the touch of his human mother’s appearance on him. The griffin somnus was usually light-spirited and calm, but today the young Custos, who was only four years younger than himself, looked twenty years older by the stress.

I will do my best not to drag this on. Kas looked back at the guards as they tried to remain calm. He could feel their fear and couldn’t help but wonder if his father had sent only two of them to serve as a feast of amusement. It was six Custos against two roughly trained phelan somnus, who looked barely capable of holding a blade. One of his older, monk-like guardians of the Sanctus could single-handily take on a small mob of these if necessary.

The Custos were warriors in service to the god Aragmoth, but they respected the other caels of Aster as well—or more importantly—the one Caelestis who was the Great Dragon’s right hand over it. As he thought about Asil, he missed the warm rays of the Soph Aur, and its little bit of light that did reach his mother’s home even more. Only in the Sanctus was there enough peace and safety for him to meditate and see her. After he had left her on the note of a fight, he had returned by Dreamwalking to find her gone. If Vanir had found a way to bring her from Earth to Aster, he had to know.

“Prince Kas, we are here to escort you the rest of the way.”

Kas blinked slowly. He regretted not bringing his glasses to counter whether he might be seeing and hearing things out of meditation.

“Prince Kas...? I don’t like where this is headed already,” Jru voiced to him by psi.

If my father is calling me that, then he can only be assuming that I will give up my position as a High Priest sometime soon.

“Or he intends to use his new feathered allies to try and take it again. Please, let us go back.”

Let us hear what he wants to say. Kas stepped forward, and Jru did the same, but the guards stopped his Armsman.

“Our orders were to bring you alone, Prince Kas.”

“Get that halberd out of my face before I shove it through yours,” Jru threatened the lead guard. “The High Priest goes with me, or not at all.”

“Our orders were clear.”

“Then we will be leaving,” Kas said as he turned to do just that, before the lead guard called to him to wait.

“Lord Vanir will allow this one to come with you.”

“It’s Master Jru, you furless heathen,” he scowled back at the phelan somnus, harsh enough to turn the guard’s eyes to orange in fear. “Remember that in case the Atrum Lord decides to be as welcoming as you have been so far.”

“Jru,” Kas said as he touched his mentor’s arm and held him back. “We are here to talk peace, not start up a fight.” A childish part of him couldn’t help but wish for his Armsman to show the guards a thing or two on the threat. If Jru were fifty years younger, he could stand back and watch. But even in old age, the power and force of a free soul almost always won over those who served blindly out of necessity and lack of virtue.

What the guards saw in his Armsman as barbaric and uncivilized, only proved how uneducated they were. Within Jru was a storm of virtue that continued to build up in waiting for the day where it could be unleashed. It was the same virtue that had help protect, build and sustain the Sanctus after the death of Kas’ mother.

Kas admired his mentor for that. Jru had taught him many things, like a real father might have. Only the weak bowed to anyone other than a cael. Only the weak in spirit bowed to those who lacked any kind of strength in their own, and the blessing and protection of a god over their soul.

Jru kept a careful eye on the guards as they were led inside and through the main hall and up the main stairs to the throne room.

The castle hadn’t changed much since the last time they came inside. When Vanir offered peace talks with him before, Kas had taken it on himself to be the youngest-ever to pass his Trial of Somn. He wasn’t intimidated by Vanir when he didn’t have his phelan somn, and he was anything but intimidated with one now. Nor was he still a child, which hadn’t stopped him from standing up to his father before.

But in the end, he only felt more of a victim to the Atrum Lord’s scrutiny in having passed his Trial. Now with the somn of a black-furred, blood-hungry monster, he looked just like the even-darker side to his father. He couldn’t help but ponder on how it was likely a part of Vanir’s plan for him all along. How much easier to embrace a Prince of his blood when Kas now had the ability to take the form of the future Vanir wished for this Empire. An Empire that accepted all monsters into it; chimera and demons alike. At least as long as the inevitable war with the Torian Continent would last to make them useful.

As they were escorted down the hall to the throne room, Kas stopped at the sight of an ayame who had been framed and sewn into an image with pluma Thread. He didn’t remember it being there on his last visit.

“Your mother was beautiful,” Jru sighed, as his mood changed and lifted the deep, dark wrinkles on his face.

Kas had seen what his mother looked like from the psis of her Custos Pack, who had fallen under his command after her death. But it was the first time he had seen her hung up like a painting. His eyes weighed her features against his own, until the image proved to be less real than the memories the Custos had given to him. So he walked on.

The guards positioned at the tarnished metal doors confirmed who they were by scent and sight before opening the room for them.

The Armsman stepped in first and looked around the heavily guarded room, as a couple dozen phelan somnus lined the walls around the throne from where Vanir sat patiently. “Outnumbered always lifts my spirits.”

“I trust that you had no trouble crossing the border, my son?”

Kas stepped up beside Jru and looked to the Atrum Lord, as his father’s red eyes gazed down on him. Red was a color that phelan somnus couldn’t see, but understood it to be there. Vanir had long mastered the ability to mirror from his eyes the weaknesses he saw in others.

It was the same look he had given him since the day he was saved from the brink of death. Pity. He knew in his heart that if he had been eighteen years younger, the word ‘son’ would mean equally nothing to him. “You ceased being my father the day you killed my mother.”

“Of course,” Vanir said as he shifted in the dark wood of the intricately carved chair. His straight, black hair draped over it like a cloak. “You are here to talk about peace. That being the case, I would like to offer you your rightful title of Prince.”

Jru looked at Kas, with a glance that suggested he was worried he might actually consider it.

“Why now? Why after denying that I am of your blood for so long?” Kas asked.

“One of my Callers had a Vision of the Asterian Caelestis’ return. If it is accurate, as most of hers are, it will be soon. Hence why I believe that settling the dispute between the Sanctus and the Atrum would serve both our interests.”

“Is that concern in your voice I hear? After all these years has your conscience finally surfaced from its withering darkness to see that my mother was right?”

“Your mother was the finest of my Callers, until she lost her way. It seems only Kira’s Visions have proven to withstand Time and stay their course,” Vanir said.

“If the Sanctus is nothing but a symbol for the lost to you, then perhaps you are happiest lost and in waiting. You forget that I too can foresee the future, only I never needed you or anyone else to tell me what I already knew was right. When the Caelestis returns, I will not share her for a title, or for your Empire, or with you.” Kas looked at Nyx then, who was Vanir’s High Caller now, and no longer one of the Sanctus. She did not hold onto the memory of Kira like so many others had, or her friendship to his mother. She only stood in silence behind Vanir’s seat, adding nothing to the conversation. “When the Caelestis returns she will come to the Sanctus. All the bribes you have will not bring me any closer to your corruption any more than it will her.”

“One of your former Custos has seen the potential in allying with me and brings her back as we speak,” Vanir replied.

“I pity the fools you sent for her then, because they will not live long.”

“If the caels are returning to Aster, then the true fools are those who sit and do nothing while waiting for redemption.” Vanir leaned forward and rested his hands and arms on his legs. “They will bring us only death.”

“The dead can still hear prayers. I know death will not touch myself or those who seek shelter in the Sanctus. So enjoy your reign of fear while it lasts for it will not be for much longer. I am High Priest of the Sanctus, son of Kira and leader of the Custos. Your words are of the same nothing to me that they were to my mother.”

Jru followed after Kas as he turned and left. The guards looked to Vanir to hold them, but he allowed them to leave and the doors were opened. When the throne doors closed behind them, he let out a breath of relief for not having to cut an escape with his sword. “That went rather well.”

“Could you feel it?”

“Huh?” Jru asked.

“Nyx was scared. The Animus around her was of a much stronger estus energy. She was concentrating a great deal of her focus to shroud Vanir’s concern as well.”

“The Atrum Lord is a lot of things, but I don’t think he fears anything in this world.”

“No,” Kas said as they reached the bottom of the stairs, “not on this world.”