Of Dragon Riders and Shadows

Chapter Four - The Most Forbidden Act

It was a strange feeling, committing more of the same treason you'd been damned for your entire life.

That is, committing treason beyond merely staying alive and hidden. He looked no different, when he glimpsed himself in mirrors. For the most part, he acted as he always had – living out of spite, leaving the Gray Palace after curfew, futilely learning his lessons. Sometimes, he believed that entire night was a strange, magyk-influenced dream.

Yet his arms could never be bared, for his transgression was etched there for anyone to see; for once, the lack of servants and valets and the like was to his advantage. He met with his dragon almost nightly, now having a concentrated purpose for his wanderings and escapades.

And his reading was much more focused. Every mention of dragons and riders was sought after and voraciously read, made harder by the illicit nature of them. In the two weeks since that night, Rex had only managed to sneak one book out of the Vault. Even then, the information found in that tome was dubious at best. In that one, titled The Arcane Wonders of the Known World, three chapters – three! – described the deadliness of frost dragons.

"No human being may touch the skin of such a fearful and majestik creature. Lest pain be felt in the heart, skin turned to ash, and magyks stolen. The more arcane creatures, even, do not dare to be felled by that of the frost dragon. Here be the warning. No human may touch the skin of that species, nor those humans with the dragon soul within them."

It was rather ridiculous, seeing as that Rex had little trouble with touch in regards to his dragon. His magyk was not gone, nor was he hurt or...dead? The passages were not very clear, vaguely prattling on about the deadliness of the frost dragons. A promising tome had become a disappointment, its only use providing a sense of what scholars believed in the sixth age of Thallium. Rex needed information, not warnings or patently untrue statements.

The urge to know burned through him, with every revelation his dragon uttered, with every action of his that provoked surprise. He had fully chosen to commit the most treasonous act, to be a Rider even informally, and the fact that he knew more about neighbouring nations than Thallium's most important heritage? That hurt. It was the feeling of failing at the reports, hurting all the worse because Rex wanted to prove himself.

I will try another book tomorrow, prayers to the gods.

At the moment, however, he was struggling with a ritual that he actually knew about. The Naming. Every Rider of old had a named dragon, one they bestowed upon the transition from adept to Rider of Thallium. That much Rex knew, and that much his dragon had told him. Sitting in front of a crackling fire, in the smallest parlour available for entertaining Gray Palace residents, Rex despaired of every completing the Naming.

What did he know of naming anything, much less a sentient being? Much less his own dragon! How was he supposed to choose? Where was he supposed to start? Were there naming conventions, like that of the four lines? It would have been helpful to have previous examples, to look at and gain inspiration from.

The names of every Rider's dragons had vanished, after the burning and censuring of history. Like most nobles, Rex knew the names of particularly heroic Riders, before they had betrayed everyone and damned every adept. However, he knew none of their dragons' names. Even asking his own dragon had proved less than fruitful, earning him a surprised hum edged in disapproval. It was against the rules to ask for information or help, it seemed.

"What is the meaning of this!" a powerful voice rang out, startling Rex out of his thoughts. Shifting his aching body in the leather armchair he was seated in, he turned to better see the source of the commotion.