She knew he’d been allotted two hours a day to train Demelza, but giving her all of his attention would surely call him away from his duties.
Vincent laughed. “Trust me when I say the King won’t be an issue.”
Old Tales
The man had avoided him skillfully for close to a week, and Rhey had let him at first, too busy to chase him around the city, but on the sixth day after the claiming, Nathos came to him, armed with a dozen old manuscripts.
“I had to hunt these down,” he informed him in guise of a greeting, dropping the books on his tidy desk.
Then, his advisor took a seat behind his desk and started to tap his fingers on the wooden armrest, visibly anxious.
Rhey let him take his time.
“So.”
“So,” the King echoed, wondering if the usually collected Elder had sniffed pixie dust.
“Revealing what I’m about to say goes against the King’s order, as well as my personal vow to my own father.”
Rhey didn’t bother pointing out the obvious - he was the only King of their people. He knew their nature didn’t allow them to carelessly renounce a vow, even when those they swore to were gone - he could have meant any King he’d lived to see; Rhey’s father, or Demelza’s grandfather.
“I order you to speak.”
There was no heat behind his words; he was just allowing Nathos to say what he needed to without feeling like he shouldn’t.
“I was born nine hundred and ninety two years ago - just after the Rift. You see this city and call it a jewel; I see pain, and suffering. I recall a time when it was a pretty hill; when we had nothing, and we camped. The men - and the boys, as soon as they were old enough - hunted; not only for food, because they also had to keep the vermin at bay. These lands belonged to those who had no place elsewhere; orcs, goblins, and worse. The children, the women, everyone else, gathered wood, stones, and whatever we could put our hands on. I was born in a tent - by the time I was twenty, we had rooves above our heads to shelter us from the rain.”
Rhey did feel rather foolish for always thinking that the old man took him for a youth; right now, he’d made him realize that was exactly what it was.
“Those days, talks of Riders weren’t outlawed. On the contrary, we lived for the tales of our glorious times - we spoke of our great deeds around campfires and whispered all these stories to children before bed. My own mother had a Rider - a human woman, not unlike your Xandrie. I’ll tell you more about her in a moment. I grew up thinking that one day, if I was just strong and brave enough, I could very well find my own Rider.”
That made no sense, so he admitted, “I don’t think I understand.”
Nathos smiled kindly, shaking his head.
“You wouldn’t. You weren’t told. The dragons inside us are darkness - shadow - and we, their human counterparts, are Aether. We balance each other out. Rider is just a common term for other beings who have been blessed by Aether, or Shadow. Together, our races were so powerful the rest of the world didn’t even need to consider whether they needed to bow before us. They knelt. Our ruling family has always been attached to Aether-Riders, so we were good, merciful rulers. But there always were others, those who wished for war. The Rift is their doing, and so is what occurred after.”
The smile was gone - Nathos looked out the window, but to Rhey, it seemed like he was seeing a completely different world.
“There was a man, not much older than me, who left our town for days, sometimes, just like Demelza did. None of us were worried - we aren’t what anyone could call a weak race, and amongst us, he was one of the strongest.”
“He found his rider,” Rhey guessed; his advisor nodded in response.
“He did; an Elf born to bitterness and malevolence. They’d bonded, and he convinced Marek that what we had built wasn’t enough - that dragons could claim their own Kingdom; steal it from the claws of a weaker race.”
“Marek. I know this name.”
He’d heard it time and time again.
“He went to form Absolia, taking those who would follow with him. What the history books wouldn’t have told you is that he also destroyed everything on his way until he’d found a Kingdom he thought worthy. They also don’t tell you that half of our kind went with him, giving into their shadows and breaking up family bonds. After this, the nobles voted that those who didn’t already have their Riders shouldn’t seek them. We stopped speaking of them because while it’s easy to recall all the good, the Riders we find can be evil, too.”
Rhey thought of Xandrie, and suddenly understood the Elders.
He attempted to see past his attraction to her and wondered if she could possibly be ruled by darkness; but all he saw was her smile.
“Alexandria is Aether-Born, my King,” Nathos told him, and Rhey released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding on to. “It’s easy enough to see. Anyone with high elemental magic possesses both forces, Aether and Shadow. While making use of one, they retain the other. That means that…”
“She pushes golden magics out, and there’s some dark myst surrounding her when she does it because she retains shadow.”
“Precisely. Shadow mages retain Aether. When she first arrived, we knew nothing of her, but we’ve observed her, since. She hasn’t used much magic but each time she does, she does it that way.”
Thank all heavens, as he didn’t think it would have mattered if Nathos had told him the exact opposite. Rhey was ridiculously attached to her - something he didn’t quite understand but he felt the pull down to his soul, down to his beast. With his next breath, Nathos somehow explained why.
“I’ve written these manuscripts over the years - they contain the tales of my childhood, and you’ll read plenty about Riders, as I was quite fascinated with them, for a time. But I’ll answer your main questions now. Riders, as far as I know, always form a bond akin to a familial tie - a brotherly bond - with their Dragons. Often, they’re of the same sex. But Riders do pair with Dragons; always have. The instant they form a bond linking them to our race, one Dragon feels drawn to them, and every single time, they form a bond. And their children are the most powerful of us all. I’m born of a Rider; my father. You’re born of one, too. Your mother was my mother’s Rider.”
“No way, my mother lived hundreds of years, she couldn’t have been human…”
He’d lost her when he’d been forty, but she hadn’t aged a day, like the rest of their race.
“She was a Rider, my King. They’re blessed with the gift of longevity, like their dragons.”