Aster Brooks Books
patreon
Ch. 13: Salos: Partners and Pawns
🕑 Added 2025-08-19 22:00:09 +0000 UTCSalos stalked out to the outskirts of camp. He climbed up the wagon walls, slinking along their length, watching the darkening horizon.
Cass didn’t understand, and she wasn’t listening. It shouldn’t surprise him. She was stubbornness incarnate. Stubborn and naïve.
It wasn’t a hard concept but she just had to make it complicated, dragging some misplaced ideal of dignity into it. She hadn’t said it. But he could feel it. That and her disappointment in him.
His claws scraped over the wooden railings below him.
Why couldn’t she just accept the way things were? She was an up-and-coming combatant. A mage who already had few peers and fewer still her own level. A mage like her shouldn’t have to keep watch at all if she didn’t want to, even as a guard.
There was no reason to worry herself over menial tasks like cooking or—gods help them—cooking prep.
This wasn’t something he should have needed to explain. It wasn’t an explanation she should have gotten upset over.
<<What has you so frustrated, spirit?>> the dragon telepathically buzzed into Salos’s head.
Salos flinched. He glanced down. The dragon stared up at him from where he lay at the base of the wagon, his amber scales glimmering like fire in the early evening dusk, his head still resting over one monstrously sized paw.
A familiar sight. All that was missing was their mistress and it would be just like—
Salos shook his head. Kelstor’s amber scales weren’t even remotely similar to his dusty orange. Only a fool would mistake them. And only a true fool would miss that prick.
He sighed. He should just walk away.
“Sometimes my mistress does the incomprehensible.” Salos didn’t know why he was saying this. Or why he hopped down from the wall. Maybe so he wouldn’t have to shout.
The dragon chuckled. “Your Miss Cass does seem like a handful.”
Salos snorted. “What would you know, lizard?”
His shoulders heaved in a colossal shrug. “Only a certain kind of person turns down slaying a mad dragon when he begs.”
Salos’s claws dug into the dirt. He could hear Cass’s explanation ringing in his head and all the post hoc justification that made her stubborn refusal to kill the dragon the ‘correct’ answer.
But the dragon—the level 38 dragon, bound and beaten, vulnerable and ripe for the taking—had begged her to kill him, and she still hadn’t taken the experience sitting there?
“And I know what it’s like to have a stubborn partner,” the dragon continued.
“Partner?” It came out more of a sneer than he’d meant, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Is that what you call your relationship?”
Kelstor’s head listed to the side over his paws. “Yes?”
Deepest abyss, the man was serious. “Dragons are bound when they unlock their system, correct?”
“Yes.” The dragon nodded.
“To adults. Proper martials, near or past the Gate? People already well set on their paths?”
“How else would our partners protect us?” the dragon asked.
Salos rolled his eyes. “Partner implies equal.”
The dragon stared at him with the biggest, most confused, maroon eyes.
“What?” Salos asked.
“But, we are equals?”
“Are you?” Well, maybe this time they were. The dragon and the swordswoman were mentally the same age given all the time Kelstor had lost to madness, and their level gap wasn’t particularly large. If anything, the dragon with his higher level and greater battle experience should be the ‘master’ of this particular dragon-knight pairing.
Though if that were true, there was little chance the dragon would have let his knight drag him from his home and out on the fool’s errand of a stranger. Whatever the practical power difference between dragon and knight, it was clear this fool still saw himself as the ‘junior partner’.
It was delusion and nothing more.
“And what about in your previous ‘partnership’?” Salos asked. “The Lady Aris, was it? Were you two partners then?”
“Well,” Kelstor paused.
“Equals?” Salos pressed.
“I was the source of her power.” The dragon lifted his head, pride slipping into his posture. “And she the source of mine.”
Salos scoffed. “And you think that makes you equals?”
“What else would that make us?” Kelstor stared down at Salos.
Abyss and blood. This one actually believed all this?
The diplomatic thing to do was to walk away now. Cass would not appreciate him starting fights with her friend’s servant. Moreover, Alyx and her dragon were valuable pieces that could keep Cass safe. There was no good reason to antagonize this one.
Broken Concept shards dug into Salos’s soul. How could the dragon not see that the loyalty he held was a poison? A blade poised at his throat, just waiting to cut the moment the value of his suffering outweighed the value of his comfort?
“And what happens to you if your mistress dies, again?” The question clawed its way out of Salos’s mouth, all the sharp edges of his broken concept slashing through the dragon’s bluster.
Kelstor recoiled like the question had cut.
“And what happens to her if you were to die?”
Kelstor opened his mouth, but no protest manifested.
Salos cut again. “Madness for one, minor inconvenience for the other?”
It was the height of imbalance. Anyone could see it, if they just used their eyes to look. Dragons were cursed. And Alacrity had ‘fixed’ them? He wanted to laugh.
She’d just cursed them again. She’d bound such a proud people to a life of servitude? And these fools thanked her for it?
Salos hopped back up onto the wall. “Don’t talk to me about ‘partnership’. Things like us don’t get that kind of luxury. The sooner you remember your place, the easier your life will be.”
Salos stalked away. That was right. Cass treated him too well. It was too easy to forget.
Embarrassing. What was he doing, fuming over her ignoring him?
That was her right. If she wanted to act like a fool, squandering the power and prestige she should hold, that was her prerogative. He was just a pawn for her to use as she pleased.
Pretending he knew best was only going to get him hurt.
He was better off making himself useful than offering unwanted advice.
<<Is that what your ‘mistress’ believes?>> the dragon telepathically whispered after him. It buzzed in Salos’s brain. His claws scraped over the wood.
Cass? Stupid Cass? Undoubtedly, the fool would agree with the dragon. That didn’t make her right. That didn’t change anything. As if earnest belief could change something.
He almost turned around to say as much. But what good would that do?
Stupid dragon, getting the last word in via telepathy. Rotten pricks, the lot of them. Prideful and stupid.
Fools like that believed that if things were good now, they would be forever. They believed trust would hold for no other reason than it always had.
His broken concept dug deeper into him.
Rely on no one, the pieces hissed as they cut and he bled. Expect nothing. Promises will break. Goodwill will run out. Kindness will kill.
He shoved the pain aside. It only hurt when he dared to pretend otherwise.
He was better off keeping guard and not concerning himself with anything more complicated. Kohen was loose. Who knew what trouble he was scheming?
Where was he? Salos scanned the camp from the wall. There was Cass, still chopping vegetables like a common laborer. She was chatting with one of the apprentices. Was she laughing?
He let his soul touch hers. The shimmer of wind chimes rang over the tentative touch. A soft joy. Had she laughed since they’d been back from the temple? Had she laughed much at all in all the time he’d known her?
He pulled back, shaking his head. Her happiness was none of his business.
He should go find Kohen. Make sure he wasn’t up to something.
Which was why he was settling here on the wall, watching Cass instead. Watching her talk and laugh and care for others. As was her right, as a person.
As an individual.
She glowed in the warmth of the firelight as the cold night descended over the walls, shrouding him in its growing darkness.
Her kindness would kill, he reminded himself. Kill her for sure. Probably kill him too.
But would she be alive at all without it? a soft voice whispered at the back of his mind. Would she want to be?
