Of Dragon Riders and Shadows

Chapter Five - And Then There Were More

For a brief second, four different gazes were locked onto his.

The next second, all of them dropped to their knees in a show of disturbing tandem. The mass of hovering dragons, Rex noted numbly, left as quickly as they had come. Only five dragons now remained, and only five young boys not yet at majority were left to manage the shock and surprise.

  As his dragon walked to his side, Rex remained frozen in place. He had never truly known other adepts, others born with the cursed magyk. Except, none of them were adepts. Starting from tonight, the Sickness would never touch them – not Athol and Xatho, not Adrien, not Ander. Not any of them...

It was his dragon that broke the still tableau. Snorting, he asked Rex quietly, 'Do you know them?'

"Not truly," Rex mumbled back. "We cross paths, we greet each other – but I keep myself to myself, for the most part."

The movement, and Rex's whispering, was enough for Athol and Xatho and Adrien and Ander to move past the shock.

They all staggered up, dazed and disbelieving.

"You?" two voices cried out plaintively at the same time, full of hurt and surprise. It was the twins, who were looking at each other with identical expressions. Athol and Xatho, clutching each other tightly – and ignoring the two dragons before them – fell to their knees once more.

Rex was not quite sure what was happening – though he had an inkling – and it all felt private. Something he should not be seeing, intruding upon.

"When did...this, happen to you?" a new voice spoke out. Ander of Ravens, a tentative hand on his dragon's side, was looking sharply at Rex.

  "Two weeks," he managed to answer. There was always something intimidating about Ander of Ravens' demeanour, befitting an heir of the four lines. It always made Rex feel as powerless as with the reports.

"My dragon," he continued with a gesture at the frost dragon huffing beside him, "calls this the Time. Dragons are called to adepts every fifty winters, in case there is the possibility of bonding. At the moment, it has been fifty winters since the last one."

"I see," was the only response. Ander was still stroking his dragon, as if he could not believe his circumstances. Rex had felt the same way, and that was before realizing that all of the heirs to the four lines had been adepts.

Adrien, the only one who hadn't spoken so far, had stepped away from the dragon before him. His entire body was shaking, and his usual olive face was much paler than it ought to be. No, no, he seemed to be whispering.

Rex looked around. Athol and Xatho were still on the ground, having a hushed conversation. Ander seemed very invested in his dragon, a wyvern whose scales kept shifting from mercenary black to royal purple. Biting his lip, he made his decision.

Whispering to his dragon, and asking him to stay where he was, Rex began walking toward Adrien. Small, careful steps. Non-threatening, not like the demeanour of Swordsmen, or the learned men. A league, and then two, and soon Rex had passed the very still blue dragon.

Stopping right in front of Adrien, who was so far gone into panic that he was not noticing his surroundings, Rex finally acted. His left hand clamped on Adrien's right arm, and he manoeuvred both of them until they were face to face.

"Huh?" Adrien gasped, eyes finally focusing on something. Just as Rex had known would happen. Unexpected physical touch was a way of grounding someone to reality, a way of taking them away from the panic in their mind.

"Breathe with me," he boldly said. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Somehow, Adrien was listening to him, was breathing with him. Rex could not have said where this boldness had come – he, who had barely said a few words to every person here, who had resented their presence in a home that did not always feel like home.