“So you’re saying you don’t know where the miasma coiling around Lilith’s right arm came from?” Asterios sat straight at her workbench, coffee steaming like ghost-breath. She took a small sip, then studied Lilith’s right hand, the odd patterns crawling like dark vines.
“Strictly speaking, that miasma originally shrouded the dragon,” Nidhogg said, head bowed like a willow in wind. “But the dragon’s power wasn’t the miasma itself, so I can’t tell you its true source.” She bent at the waist, apology soft as rain, and addressed the Silver Dragon Saint. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything useful.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got a guess. If I’m right, it’s an old friend.” Asterios drained the cup, the last warmth fading like embers. She’d been yanked from sleep in a robe, and for a heartbeat she’d wanted to toss them out like rubbish in the night. Instead, she hauled the two younger dragons into her office, and listened to Nidhogg through the grit of lingering dreams.
Asterios stretched, joints clicking like pebbles in a stream. She set the empty mug on the workbench, crossed to the bookcase, and slid out a volume dark as a brick of night.
“Found it.” She placed the book on the table and tapped a page, her slender finger like a silver reed on water. Lilith and Nidhogg craned in close, two heads tilting like birds over grain, and read with her. “This is a natural phenomenon that appeared on the continent 2,300 years ago. After more than two centuries of watching the sky like fishermen watch tides, scholars mapped all its properties.”
“Miasma, academic name: Death Dust. It arose from the schism among the Necromancer Cultists 2,300 years back. Like Black Sun Devouring and Moonswallow Mist, it’s fallout from that great calamity.” Her voice cooled like dew on stone. “It gnaws at any living flesh it touches. It turns every contact into a puppet on a rotten string. It drives the taken into a frenzy that can’t be called back, and in that madness it steals life by degrees. They’re shards sloughed off the true body of the Grim Reaper, the Nameless One, as its machinery turned.”
“For ages, no one found a clean cure. Time flowed like a river through canyons, and tens of thousands of hours ate themselves hollow. Priests, necromancers, alchemists, and astrologers spent their lives like candles in wind, and we finally learned how to break it—no, to suppress Death Dust. The method shifts with each race, like herbs that heal one body and poison another.”
“Dragons have hard scales against magic and thick hide against curses, so we don’t need what the frail races do. They’ll surrender flesh and plug the holes with hammered metal and ore, turning bone to bell. Us? We wash the body with the purest energy we can draw.” Asterios lifted her gaze, night pooling in her eyes. “For dragons, the purest power is Star Energy, taken from the starlight of the night sea. So Lilith just needs a rinse in high-purity Star Energy. It’s not a big hassle. If you want to complicate it, go ask Poseidon. She’ll have a way too, but whether the Little White Dragon comes back whole is another question.”
Asterios closed the book with a soft thud, like a door shut on fog, and slid it back onto the shelf. From her robe she drew a pocket watch. The silver hand crept to the horizon line, sky and earth kissing at a blade-thin edge. The Astrologer’s hour was about to descend.
“I need a quick prep for the ritual tools,” she said, words neat as stacked cards. “You’ve got about half an hour to get settled. Little White Dragon, flip through the star charts. Tell me which constellation calls to you.”
She said her piece and dragged out a dense stack of parchment, a forest of scrolls, piling them before Lilith like fallen leaves. Lilith tapped the heap—at least twenty—her eyes widening like lamps. The Silver Dragon Saint only hurried the parchments into a tidy mound and slapped a tome thick as a brick onto the table beside her. Then she slipped into the next room to prepare, the door closing with a crisp click that cut off any chance to ask questions.
“Alright. First, let’s figure out what Teacher Asterios wants from me.” Lilith stared at the shut door, the sound still ringing like a bell. She hefted the brick-thick tome with both hands and, wrestling a very real fear of thick books, cracked open the table of contents. “Teacher said, pick a constellation I like. So start with anything constellation-related. Let’s see... Star Chart Observation? Not that, she already gave me finished charts. Crystal Refinement? That wouldn’t need this many maps. Ah, here it is! Constellation Resonance.”
The Little White Dragon found the page and read, her voice bright as morning. “Constellation Resonance: use pure starlight energy to wash the soul of one touched by the stars, so they can feel the stars’ language and move the stars’ power. The first resonance marks a novice Astrologer stepping into independence.”
“So Teacher wants me to choose a constellation for resonance?” Wonder rose in her chest like a bubble from deep water. “Isn’t that a bit early for me?” She looked to Nidhogg, worry fluttering like a moth. She was only a beginner, barely brushing her Astrolabe for the first time. How could she be independent already, like a chick shoved from the nest into the wind?
“Most likely she’ll use Star Energy to cleanse the Death Dust, and knock out your Constellation Resonance while she’s at it,” Nidhogg said, thinking, her eyes steady as a lake. “Saves steps. Whether you’re ‘independent’ or not, Lady Asterios will teach you everything she knows. She never holds back on a chosen student. The pacing and order change with talent, that’s all.” She glanced at Lilith. “You’re a newborn White Dragon our kind hasn’t seen in ages. It’s reasonable for Teacher Asterios to quicken your path, like bellows fanning a young flame.”
“Is that so? Then I’d better choose well.” Lilith reopened the brick-heavy Starshine Codex and began to read the constellations, each one glittering like a name carved in ice.
She still remembered the Meteor Cannon Asterios showed at the start. She wanted that one.
