We were crouched in a thicket, him and me, hidden under a curtain of thorns and dust. A cliff above the King's Road, just narrow enough to tempt caravans and just steep enough to make you wish you hadn't come this way.
Below us, the road wound like a pale scar through the gorge. The great artery of the realm — Tanagra to Iolika, then Seebulba and Toemacha on the coast, where dreams go to be turned into perfume and debt.
A column was moving through it.
Slavers.
Two of them, mounted on those big twitchy birds — terror birds, they're called, because someone didn't have the imagination to name them after the sound they make when they gut a man. Behind them: girls.
Naked. Barefoot. In chains so thick they looked decorative. Neck-collars linked with black iron rings, each one dragging the next. Some walked with the resignation of someone who's already been sold once. Some were still sniffling, blinking into the sun like it might rescue them.
I watched them go by in silence. Twelve girls, maybe fifteen. Most were Tanagran peasant stock — golden-haired, sun-browned, the sort that smells like milk and hay. A few were paler, dark-haired, slimmer. Iolikan. Not locals.
"They're heading to the coast," I murmured. "Seebulba, more likely. Maybe Toemacha."
Beside me, the dragon didn't move, just shifted a wing to scratch his neck. "And?"
"And then they sell them."
"To who?"
"To whoever's paying. Dockside brothels. House harems. The kind of places where you get named after fruit or jewels. These girls are farm-chattel. No training. No polish. So probably the cheap end."
He exhaled, slow and measured. "Oh. I see."
I nodded. "Mhm."
Another silence.
Then he said, like he was offering to carry my pack for a bit, "Do you want me to do something about it?"
I blinked at him. "Like what?"
"I could kill the guards." His voice was even. "Scorch the birds. Break the chains. Carry the girls away. I am, after all, a demon of chaos."
I stared at him. "You're a dragon with gout."
He gave me a look.
I waved it off. "No, no, I mean… You're serious?"
He said nothing.
I turned back to the column. The girls were still walking. One tripped on a stone and didn't even flinch when the chain jerked her neck.
I shook my head. "You burn the slavers, what happens then? The girls scatter into the woods? Naked? Barefoot? No food, no coin, no clue where they are? You think that ends well?"
He frowned. "It's freedom."
"No." I said it sharper than I meant to. "It's a longer way to die."
He sniffed. "Better than chains."
"Is it?" I turned to him. "These girls sleep on straw. They grow up milking goats, bleeding into rags, birthing at fourteen and buried by thirty. In Seebulba, they'll be fed. Bathed. Perfumed. Somebody will teach them how to lie with their eyes and fake a moan. They'll get silk sheets and soft soap. That's not freedom. But it's not the worst fate either."
He studied me for a beat. "That's a strange mercy, coming from you."
"Don't start."
"You could've been one of them."
"I was one of them," I snapped. "Difference is, I escaped through the front door, wearing someone else's jewelry."
He looked away.
I added, quieter now, "They'll be fine. They'll learn. Cry a little. Smile when they're told. Same as I did."
"You want to follow them?"
I laughed. "Gods, no. Seebulba's worse than slavery. They'll chew you up and sell the bones as incense."
I looked back at the girls. "I'm just saying — don't torch them. Not today."
He nodded. But not quickly.
The line vanished around a bend. Dust lingered like smoke that forgot to burn.
"They'll have a roof," I murmured. "A mattress. Maybe even wine, on good nights."
He was quiet.
"Better to be used in silk," I added, "than left to rot in the mud."
Another long pause.
Then softly, like he wasn't sure I could hear:
"You talk like someone who's still wearing hers."
My jaw clenched. But I didn't argue.
His tail shifted. Not closer this time — just away.
We sat like that for a while, the silence prickling worse than the thorns.
And far below, the chained girls kept walking.
We sat there in the thorns, a dragon and his whore, watching the kingdom grind its daughters into perfume.
Then he turned to me.
"But you ran away from that luxury."
I snorted. "It's not the same."
"You said they'd be fed, clothed, kept clean."
"I was… in-debt-shured," I said, trying to sound dignified.
He blinked. "Indentured."
I scowled. "Yeah. That."
His eyes narrowed, curious now. "So you weren't sold?"
"I said I was indentured."
"You didn't run, did you."
"You're nosy."
"You got kicked out."
"I did not—"
"Kicked out of a pleasure house," he mused aloud. "For being too mouthy."
"It's different," I snapped. "I wanted to freelance."
He blinked, slowly. "Freelance. In the countryside. Among the goats."
I looked away. "Maybe a magistrate and a pillory had something to do with it."
His nostrils flared. "You don't even have a license."
"Shut up."
"You're not a licensed harlot."
"I said shut up."
"Not even a slave girl," he added, scandalized. "Just an unregistered, uncollared, unauthorized street tart."
"Gods, I hate you."
He looked deeply satisfied. "So it's true."
I crossed my arms and kicked a stick toward him. "I was tired of paying house fees, alright? And I don't take well to being managed."
"You don't take well to being told not to bite clients," he muttered.
I gasped. "That was one time. And he asked for it!"
We glared at each other for a beat.
Then the dragon exhaled, curling his tail back around. "Freelance," he muttered, shaking his head like I was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever stepped on.
I lay back in the grass, arms behind my head. "Better to be ridiculous than obedient."
He made a thoughtful noise. "You know," he said, "somewhere out there, there's a brothel madam telling this exact story, except from the perspective of a very unfortunate chair."
I flipped him off without looking. "May she sit on a cactus."
He chuckled, low and smoky. "And may you never get paid in livestock again."
"Don't tempt fate."
And we went quiet again, tucked into the thorns above the road, watching the dust settle.
Two fugitives.
One mouthy, unlicensed harlot.
One gout-ridden chaos lizard with a hoarding problem.
And far below, the chained girls kept walking.
Got it — here's the complete, collated version of the new chapter, combining all your recent narrative bits into one coherent flow, cleaned up just enough for continuity while keeping your tone and rhythm intact.