Dragon Aster Trilogy

14: LOVELY



Kas didn’t understand the entirety of what Hain was doing, all that he did know for certain was that the older phelan had taken his madness to a new depth. He looked twenty meters down into the Chasm where Hain stood on the wind-ripping edge of an extending crevice. Do you have any idea what you are doing?

“If you have any better ideas that stand a chance in getting that girl away from a lot of dragons, I’m all-ears. Otherwise, females are best spoken to when they have only two options.” Hain caught some control over the Threads around him then and lowered his hand as his long, straight brown hair settled down with his hands at his sides.

Options here being...?

“Kill you or talk to you. Does this look like enough space?”

For what? Are you flying across?

“No, not me. Just the devil I summoned.”

Kas looked the other way in the Chasm as a pair of purple wings flew under him and stopped at a hover before Hain. It was a daoran.

“Hello beautiful.”

“I warned you never to come back here,” Kayla replied in a threatening tone, as her grey eyes flared their full focus on him.

“I know, and I did promise, but this is important.”

“What do you want?” The light of the Soph Aur that did reach into the Chasm made a bright and almost blinding reflection of light off of her scales. It slowly became a dark storm, as the aeri energy in her was replaced with estus from her anger of Hain being there.

“There’s a little human slave that escaped my new mistress, and I need her back.”

“Just what makes you think that I would do anything to help you?” Kayla turned in the air in her hover, but stopped when the Threads to her wings were caught by him. The ash of her eyes looked to ignite now as he held her right where he wanted.

“He thinks about you every day.”

“If you are trying to guilt—”

“No, you’re fine with just your own there, I don’t even need to touch it to see it. But I have a new job now and to stay fine and happy and oblivious the rest of my path through life, I need that slave.”

“The High Guard watch her day and night.”

“That’s not the daoran I remember. Last I checked you didn’t answer to anyone.”

Kayla hovered a bit faster as she thought on it. “You will leave then?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. I will have her dropped at the southeastern Outpost by tomorrow evening. My younger brother won’t prove too much of a problem to move from it, if you have any imagination. Pick her up or don’t, just get lost.” With the grip on her wings released, she turned to fly back for the entrance to the wind tunnels.

Kas wasn’t believing any of it to be so easy as Hain climbed back up and onto the ground, panting.

“I think she was happy to see me. Did she seem happier to you?”

“I think she was on the verge of knocking you off and having your screams lull her to sleep at night.”

Hain thought on it for a few moments with a tilt of his head, before getting to his feet. “That works too.”

“What if the dragon does not move from the Outpost?”

“Well, I’m not making that climb again, so let’s see if we can make use of your talents to draw up a guarantee on our part.”