Dragon Frost (19 page)

Sybl kneeled down and touched her brother and Loki, just as the light of the Soph Aur washed over them. As she did, the light exploded, releasing a shockwave of aeri energy across Aster.

TWENTY-FIVE

Ubi hit a dead end and looked back before collapsing on the ground in exhaustion. She had lost the army of ayame witches. Relieved, she leaned her back against the wall of the alley to catch her breath. Running wasn't her sport. No sport was her sport unless its reward included over thirty grams of sugar in it to make up for her losses. She had to think and the suffocating air in the Atrum made it impossible. Nafury could be dead right now and it would be all her fault. Loki had left immediately to go help, but the flight over would take him at least a day. If something happened to him, it would be her fault. Tears filled her eyes with the thought that she might never see Nafury again. She was destined to be a curse that hurt everyone around her.

 She heard footsteps in the snow and looked down the alleyway. She was expecting a street case or an ayame. Instead, there stood a tall and stunningly handsome man. His long, blond hair and watery-blue eyes glowed in the barely-lit alleyway. She recognized him from her Dream with Nafury that it was Cirrus. Now she wanted nothing more than Loki or Kenshe and his ayame to save her hide as she sprung to her feet.

 Cirrus stared right at her in a rather still-stiff manner. She froze in fear as she waited patiently for him to make his move first. A gesture, anything that might give a hint of what he might do next.

 "You can see me?" he asked in surprise, and he moved closer to her.

 "Why wouldn't I see you?" Ubi began to pray that she was just seeing things and that this wasn't Cirrus. His clothes didn't look to be of Asterian design, though. She heard another set of footsteps and looked the other way down the alley. Kenshe jumped down from the rooftop, as agile as a cat.

 "I told you not to run away," Kenshe said, clearly irritated.

 "Huh? Kenshe?" Ubi asked, then looked at where Cirrus was. She started to back away towards Kenshe, but Cirrus lifted his hands. Silently, the Awl caught the life Threads to the phelan shifter. "How are you back so quick?"

"Stupid pigeon has a Gate. I took the liberty of using it when he opened fire on our asses."

"Where's Nafury?" Ubi asked. She had to know he was still alive.

"He made his own way out," Kenshe answered.

 "Tell him to go away or I will kill him," Cirrus warned, and only her ears could hear him.

 "Kenshe, stop!" Ubi said as she looked back at the phelan shifter, as it was clear that he couldn't see Cirrus like she could.

 Kenshe stopped approaching her, but more out of the fear that resonated from her than by command. He looked around, trying to sense what might have terrified her so. Finding nothing, he tried to look into her psi, but it was completely sealed off. "Ubi, what's wrong?"

She knew that if she screamed for help, Cirrus would kill him. So she turned her fear on him. "I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore! Just get away from me!"

"That's not going to happen. Let's go back to the Atrum. You can finished whining about how you hate everything while there and wait for Nafury to come back." Kenshe took another step forward, but she screamed at him again to stop. "I know you're not scared of me."

"Then you're wrong. Now back--!" Before Ubi could finish, the ground started to shake faster and faster.

Kenshe looked around for just what was causing the earthquake. The Calls were saying that it was coming from Toria. At the same time a shockwave of aeri energy hit Atrum City like a hurricane. He instinctively ran the rest of the way to Ubi, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Cirrus standing there. The aeri energy left a sticky glow to his invisible form. "Cirrus?"

"It's been a while, Kenshe," Cirrus replied.

Kenshe took immediate notice of his life Threads in the former dragoon's grasp. There was also a black, twisting Mei on the Awl's arm. Sybl was still Bonded to him. He instinctively charged at Cirrus, brushing Cirrus' pull on his life Threads aside. Colliding with the former dragoon, he pulled them both into the Keol. He struck the former dragoon in the face once on the other side, then backed off from him. He could see that the Mei to Sybl was keeping Cirrus from burning up from the Keol. It was possible that every bit of pain he dealt him was felt by her as well. "What did you do to Sybl? What's happened to you?"

 "Ah, Kenshe. Always the faithful one to leave your ayame unattended," Cirrus said cooly.

 At Cirrus's words, Kenshe reopened a Rift back to the surface. He shifted and chased after Ubi's scent, landing on her just as a Sentry's scythe-like arm hit. The strike hit him instead, and he let out a yelp of pain. He retaliated and spun around in one swift motion, landing his teeth in the neck of the creature. He tore flesh and bone free of the monster, until it ceased moving.
 

The Calls for battle were out in force now, and he could hear his Pack's psi reaching out for him. He picked up Ubi between his teeth, and made a mad dash for the Atrum. Another Sentry nearly pinned his tail to the ground. He jumped up and over one that had been made visible before him, but didn't see the other one in time. It slashed his leg and sent him tumbling in a roll across the street. He shook off the hit, and looked around for where Ubi had landed. He found her unconscious nearby, and quickly unshifted as he gathered her into his arms.

 "Where you going, Kenshe?" Cirrus asked as he emerged from his restored invisibility in front of him.

 Kenshe set Ubi down and got a grip his own and her life Threads.

"Do you really hope to fight me and win?" Cirrus said as he walked closer.

 Cirrus' question was answered when Tank came down on him from an overhead rooftop. The giant phelan shifter grabbed the Awl by the neck, before throwing him across the street.

 Kenshe wasted no time using the distraction and grabbed Ubi, pulling them into the Keol. He had to find Sybl before he bled to death, and get her daughter as far away from Cirrus as he could.

Ubi opened her eyes as everything in her body started to hurt at once. She felt as if she had been sunburned three miles from the sun and then rolled across the width of the planet. She rolled to her side and found Kenshe lying down next to her on his stomach. His face was tucked into his arm. A pool of blood around his torso had begun to make its way to where she was for help.

 She sat up and tried not to panic as she shook him to wake up. When he didn't respond, she looked around the abandoned building he had brought them too. It took her a moment to realize that they were at the Sanctus, within its lower ruins.

 Ubi stood up and looked around for something she could use to slow the bleeding. Everything around her that wasn't solid stone had been reduced to ashes and dust a long time ago. She wondered what kind of a bomb had been set off in her father's temple. "Everyone keeps coming back here," Ubi said as she pulled off her sapphire blue cloak. She tore a strip off of the bottom of it, and the tearing sound cut into her heart and her memories of Xirel. Kneeling next to Kenshe, she tore off what was left of his grey, blood-soaked tunic. Then she started to wrap the blue fabric around him.

 "Don't...die..." Kenshe mumbled.

 Ubi stopped for a moment. He was talking while unconscious. She touched his wound as the fabric from her cloak began to soak through. His bleeding wouldn't stop. She was sobbing now from fear. Fear of Kenshe dying and leaving her here alone. Fear of dying again and of being completely useless to do anything about it.

 "Ubi," a familiar voice called to her. When it registered that it was Cirrus', she sprung to her feet.

 She wiped the tears from her face and looked back at Kenshe. She pulled her father's sword from its sheath at his side and lifted it before her.

 "Just what do you hope to do with that?" Cirrus' voice sounded amused.

 The Awl had a point. Kenshe had only taught her the basics of manipulating Threads beyond magic tricks. She had never used a sword. So she looked for her second weapon of choice. Kenshe's shift moved along the wall like a protective shadow. She called it to her, and it walked over to her outstretched hand. Ubi kept a careful watch for where Cirrus' voice would appear next. How she wished that she could take the phelan's form and kill Cirrus who had taken everything from her.

"You blame me for all the wrong things. I did not take your mother away from you. She would have never have fallen for me if Kas had not abandoned you both to a life of loneliness and suffering."

 "So that's supposed to be an excuse for destroying the first Aster and then coming after this one!?"

 "What do you care? This is not your world and neither was its previous incarnation. You belong on Earth. We're on the same side and we can help each other, Ubi."

"I'm not helping a delusional freak! You killed Xirel!" Ubi looked back for Kenshe's shift, but the wolf-like creature had disappeared. As her fear rose, so did Cirrus' laughter.

 "The phelan shift is far smarter than you are. But I'm not cruel. Come with me quietly and I'll even throw in the extra favour of healing Kenshe there for you. He will continue to bleed and will die if you do nothing."

"You have some nerve to trespass on this sacred ground, Awl!"

Ubi looked back and found Kas standing there. He looked alive and whole.

"I thought you might show up," Cirrus said as he jumped down to the other side of Ubi. She was now in the center of the imminent fight. "After all, Fay don't really die."

"I said to leave!" Kas took his blade from Ubi and pointed it at Cirrus.

 "I always wondered if you would have been able to give me a satisfying fight on the beach ten years ago." Cirrus unsheathed his own long sword and aimed it at the dark Fay. "I think I've waited long enough to find out."

 Ubi didn't so much as get a blink off when Kas vanished in a swirl of estus energy and reappeared behind Cirrus. The Awl turned in time to catch the dark Fay's sword against his own. Their steel sung to a quick beat as they continued to battle it out. The ruins of pillars and collapsed walls was now their arena.

 Ubi looked back at Kenshe as he still wasn't moving. "Dad, he's going to die!" she said in a whisper of a panic. "How do I get him to safety?"

 
'Cirrus can only be defeated on Earth. You must go there with Kenshe.'

"Won't he burn up from the sun?" Ubi responded to his psi by voice.

 
'Not if you Bind him to you. I can feel that you truly love him as he does you. Do not make the same mistake I made with your mother in thinking that such feelings can be pushed aside.'

 Ubi couldn't think of anything else she could do to save Kenshe. As the clash of steel drew closer to her again, she rolled Kenshe onto his back and picked up his right wrist. She had no idea how to form such a link to him, especially with him unconscious. Ubi closed her eyes and pressed the back of his hand against her lips, willing the Thread around her to give him to her. Her tears fell to his hand and down his wrist. When she looked at it, she saw several silver Threads begin to grow around her left wrist and his right. She could sense his shift again too, and it made its way back to her.

 
'Nafury is the only one who can break the Curse that is giving Cirrus his power.'
Kas' voice said to her mind.

"He's on Earth too?" A sense of dread filled Ubi, and it seemed to spread as a black hole of a Rift from under her. She gripped Kenshe's hand tight as she let the Rift pull them under to an uncertain destination.

TWENTY-SIX

Several hours later, Nafury opened his eyes as a cold chill stung sharply enough to wake him. He stared up at the blue eyes looking down at him. They were the same colour as Cirrus'.

"You have to get out of here."

"Cirrus?"

"Wake up, now."

Nafury blinked as the room around him began to move faster, blurring out the image of his dead best friend.

"Is he conscious?" a voice asked.

The fog cleared and the light over him became more blinding and revealed the truth of where he was.

"Nothing is working on him. It's as if his body is destroying anything we put into him."

Nafury blinked again and took in a deep breath. The room he was in had a chemical and unnatural smell to it.