He floated in the infinite abyss. The Abyss was cool and dark, thick and sluggish, like thick mud at the bottom of a deep, still lake, and yet, as empty as the void.

There was nothing and he was nothing. A tendril of darkness in the dark.

It was a kind of perfection.

In the distance, great beasts glided through the abyss, following lesser prey to incorporate into their growing mass. Perhaps one day he would grow to be a King like them. Or perhaps he too would be subsumed into one of their bodies, just another strand in their being.

These were not thoughts he had. He was nothing. And nothing did not think.

How long he remained nothing, floating in that darkest infinity, there was no way of knowing. Was there even time in such a place? Or was there but one moment, perfect and unique and unrepeating?

But eventually, suddenly, a rend tore through the abyss.

Brilliant, blinding, scalding light shone through that tear.

The nothing around him burned away. Perhaps he too would burn up into nothing.

Around him, he could hear the rush of the abyss trying to surge back into the torn space.

He writhed. He needed to get back to the safety of darkness. He was not meant for the light. He was nothing.

A face stared through the tear. It was a girl's face. Soft and plump and framed in fiery hair. She shone. Brighter than the light.

The girl said something. A name.

He could have rejected it. He would have burned under the power of her light if he had.

But he accepted it. Did he know the consequences of doing so? Did he have a concept of consequences?

Probably not. He had been nothing.

And now he was ######.

***

###### loved to curl around his mistress's neck. It was sheltered there. It was easy to duck back into her hood or under her hair if the light became too much.

Every day, the light was a little easier to stand.

He was her familiar, or so she'd said. A familiar was a summoned spirit, called forth to be his summoner's strength.

He didn't know much about that. All he knew was that her lunch was tasty and that her laugh was the prettiest thing in this strange physical world she'd called him into.

He'd taken the form of a snake because that was familiar. Because it was what she'd wanted. Every day he was a little bigger. Every day the shadows he was made of were a little darker, a little deeper.

Mistress praised him for it.

"Soon you'll be strong enough to protect me," she said, booping his snout with a slender finger.

He would protect her because that made her smile.

***

Mistress screamed, magic flying to her fingers as her Alacrity accelerated her perception of time. Her attacker—a level 23 man disguised as a household servant—lunged at her with a dagger he had hidden in his work clothes.

###### lunged out from the dark of her hood, his snake fangs bared. He bit hard into the extended forearm of the attacker, his long, purple-black, scaled body wrapping around the weapon and arm for good measure.

The attacker shouted, surprise and pain lacing together ever so satisfyingly. But the attacker was much higher level, even if he lacked offensive skills and had limited stats due to his status as a servant of the family, and he tore ###### off with another shout, throwing him across the room.

######'s heart pounded as the attacker took another step toward Mistress. He needed to protect her. He writhed across the ground, wishing he had legs to propel himself faster. Wishing he were bigger to protect her.

Wishing he were more.

***

That was not the last attacker. Mistress was always under threat. Assassins disguised as servants or vendors were common.

Strangers were dangerous. Strangers needed to be watched. Strangers could not be trusted.

Years passed. Mistress was less round every year, growing taller and more angled, her red hair longer and more curling.

But he grew faster than she did. It wasn't long before he was too heavy to hang from her shoulders. Before his tail trailed behind them as she walked.

So she asked him to change. To become something to stand on his own feet.

A lizard he became. Easily twice her weight, with jaws that clamped and crushed and a tail that whipped.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

And she was happy.

There was no shortage of days spent napping in the garden's shade. How he loved lying his head in her lap as she read her books, learning all sorts of magics and runes. He loved the cool breeze and gentle shadows and loved watching her twist the forces of potential to her fingers.

***

"This way, Mistress," Mistress's head lady said, leading them through the Family's gardens.

Mistress followed eagerly. She'd begged for this outing, a chance to see the new epherwing chicks before they were assigned to knights.

He trotted along behind them, uninterested in the birds but excited for Mistress. He listened to the garden pavers as they walked, and their whispers of the people who'd passed through before them.

A gaggle of scullery maids with buckets for well water.

A pair of stablemen hoisting feed.

A company of heavy set soldiers, their equipment padded for stealth.

Odd, what would such a company be doing on this side of the manor? The stealth corps was based along the outer gardens. The family guards didn't skulk about in silenced armor.

He sped up, pressing close to Mistress.

The pavers spoke of the maids turning off here for their water. And there the stablemen turned down that path. Should they not follow them? Where exactly were the chicks being kept?

But no, the head lady led them further down the path, following the footsteps of the soldiers.

###### pulled at the end of Mistress's robes, shaking his head.

Mistress glanced down at him, a frown on her lips. She looked between the head lady and him, her reluctance to turn around obvious.

"We are almost there, Mistress," the woman said as Mistress's steps slowed.

Mistress stood a little straighter, her excitement overriding his apprehension.

It would be fine, though. The head lady had been loyal to Mistress since she was a little girl. The only servant more devoted to her was him.

A shed waited before them. The pavers whispered the soldiers had entered it first. They whispered they had not yet left.

The head lady opened the door.

Mistress entered. He followed close on her heels.

The door snapped shut behind them.

Mistress whirled around, shouting in surprise.

He didn't. He'd feared as much.

He stared into the gloom instead, his gold eyes glinting in the dark.

The soldiers—the assassins—waited in the dark. Four of them, each with long blades and darker expressions.

***

Cass shot up, her blood cold and her body drenched in sweat. She stifled the scream building in her throat.

What was that? A nightmare?

Salos jumped to his feet. His gold eyes swept their room for intruders, his claws already out.

When nothing happened for a solid minute, he relaxed, stalking closer to her. "What was that?"

"A nightmare?" But it had felt too coherent for that. Almost like a memory.

Almost like—

Salos stiffened.

She was no stranger to nightmares. They were usually much more personal than whatever that had been. Her hand drifted up to Salos's necklace. Her fingers absently stroked it.

Had that been his past?

"Did you have the same dream?" she asked.

He looked away. "How should I know what you dreamed?"

She described it to him. The girl with the red hair. The creature of shadows.

He scowled. "Abyss."

"Is that a yes?" Cass asked.

He nodded. "You'd been sleeping better. I thought it was working. But I'm having them now…"

"What?"

He curled up, his chin resting dejectedly on his tail. "You were having nightmares. A lot of them. Every night."

"Not recently," Cass said. Pretty much since they'd been on the road, sleeping had been easier. She had attributed it to getting closer to finding Kaye or Robin.

The only nightmare she'd had for days had been right after the battle with the rhynselks, and there had been lots of reasons that day might have triggered one.

Salos shook his head. "I've been sharing my dreams with you."

Cass raised an eyebrow. "What? How?"

He explained the process in her soul well, how he'd moved her into his chasm each night.

"That worked?" Cass asked.

He looked away. "I wasn't sure. But you were sleeping more soundly, so I figured it wasn't hurting. And, you definitely had another one when I didn't…" He shook his head. "I still wasn't sure. It could have been a coincidence. But." He sighed. "I guess this is proof."

Cass shook her head, unsure what to do with any of that. "I wish you'd told me."

He nodded. "If I were sure it did something…" He trailed off, a sense of guilt floating over their bond.

"And tonight?" Cass asked. "What was that?"

"A memory," Salos said. "Some of my first. Some from before she summoned me. Some from those early days after she had."

'She' he called her. His mistress. Alacrity.

Cass shivered. In the dream, she'd had a reverent idealization of that woman. Was that how a Concept of Loyalty felt, or was that the kind of blind faith one needed to develop such a concept?

"What happened next?" Cass asked. How had that version of Salos and his mistress survived that ambush? She hadn't seen their levels, but she could tell from their appearance they'd been much stronger than the girl and Salos had been.

They must have survived somehow. Maybe another had saved them. Maybe a daughter of the Averentis family was far stronger than hired goons, even at twelve.

Cass paused. Were those assumptions? Salos had mentioned working for the Averentis family. Was it a simple and grounded conclusion to draw that the girl was from that family?

And the girl's age? How did Cass know it?

There was no reason she should. Was this just implicit knowledge from the dream? The same way a character in a dream could register as a co-worker or classmate without looking at all like any specific person from your life?

That must have been all it was.

"We killed the first man," Salos said. An image of black jaws around a man's neck filled her mind. "The second grabbed her." She could see the girl pulling against a much bigger man's grip.

Cass put a hand to her head.

"They dragged her away, but the family guard caught them before long," Salos continued. Men in blue armor fell from the sky. One impaled a kidnapper as he landed. Their corpses were displayed on the manor's walls for a month as a warning.

"If it had been an assassination, not a kidnapping, she would have died," Salos said. The head maid was executed. She was thrown up with the others. Naked. Her body branded with the word traitor.

Cass's stomach turned. This wasn't her imagination. This was too specific. Too graphic.

Salos stopped. "Are you okay?"

Cass shook her head. "I can see it."

"You can see it?" he repeated.

She nodded.

Concern shot across their bond. He dematerialized. She could feel him in her soul well. He rematerialized before her. "I don't know why that's happening. I thought maybe some part of you was still in the crevasse. But you aren't. And I'm not. And…" He forced himself to stop.

She nodded. "It's probably just an extension of our mental bond." Their emotions spilled over all the time. Why shouldn't memories do the same?

"Right," he said.

She didn't know what the alternative might be. She wasn't sure she wanted to hypothesize.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Cass shook her head. "You were just trying to help, right?"

He nodded.

"And it did." She'd slept much better than she had in Velillia. That was worth something, even if they didn't know what this meant yet.

He nodded again, but she had the distinct feeling he didn't believe that.

"So it's fine. Let's just..." Cass hesitated. Light was poking through the window. Dawn was here. She was too restless to go back to sleep. "Just see if there is breakfast ready yet."

He kept nodding.

If only she could really convince him it was fine.

If only she could completely convince herself.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.