Chapter 131: BOND

RAIGORO’S POV

The dragon arrived alone.

Eleven-year-old Raigoro knew something was wrong before anyone explained why.

The alarm horns began while he was following Captain Toren across the lower military yard. Raigoro had spent the morning watching a drill from exactly where Toren had told him to stand.

Afterward, Toren made him help carry the practice shields back to storage. The work needed doing, but Toren also believed boys who enjoyed watching soldiers should understand that military life involved carrying everyone else’s equipment.

Raigoro was not a trainee.

He was the Grand Duke’s second son, permitted to follow Toren whenever the adults responsible for him allowed it.

The western horn sounded.

Toren stopped.

Another signal answered from the upper Dragon Heights.

"Inside."

Raigoro looked up.

A black shape crossed the mountain ridge too low.

One wing hung below the other.

The dragon cleared Blackharrow’s outer wall with very little height to spare before descending badly toward the upper landing terrace.

Raigoro moved.

Toren caught the back of his coat.

"I said inside."

"What happened?"

"I do not know."

The dragon struck stone.

The impact carried through the Citadel.

People moved immediately. Dragonkeepers reached the terrace first. Dragonkeeper Husen Clair was among the handling team, while Healer Sera Lou came up with the Dragon Healers from the lower treatment passage. Ground crews cleared the nearest landing areas while Dragon Host officers ordered every other dragon away from the upper terrace.

Toren refused to let Raigoro follow the emergency crews.

Once the Dragonkeepers cleared the protected observation gallery, Toren took him inside and up the guarded stair overlooking the treatment court.

He stopped Raigoro at the gallery’s visitor line.

"You remain behind that line."

Raigoro obeyed.

Mostly.

He remained behind the line and watched everything.

The black dragon lay on one side beside the upper retaining wall.

He was enormous, larger than most patrol dragons Raigoro had seen at close range. Black scales were broken along one shoulder. One wing carried dried blood under newer tears, and old straight scars crossed both forelimbs. A section near his neck looked burned.

Nobody near Raigoro recognized an active Dragon Host identification.

No rider or handler had arrived with him.

Nobody knew where he had come from.

The first Dragonkeeper approached with two assistants.

The dragon woke.

His head snapped upward before the nearest keeper could react. One man threw himself sideways as a claw struck the stone where another had been standing.

The dragon tried to rise.

His injured wing collapsed under him.

He roared.

Raigoro felt the sound inside his ribs.

More keepers approached while a containment gate began closing across one side of the terrace.

The dragon saw it.

He struck the gate hard enough to tear one hinge partly from the wall.

"Back!"

The senior Dragonkeeper’s command cut through the court.

Everyone withdrew.

The Dragon Healers stayed outside striking range, and nobody attempted another approach immediately.

Raigoro knew enough to recognize sense when he saw it.

Toren had moved beside him.

"Do you know him?" Raigoro asked.

"No."

"Does Father?"

"Probably not."

"Where did he come from?"

Toren looked at him. "If you ask one more question I cannot answer, I may assign you the shields twice."

Raigoro stopped.

Temporarily.

The Dragonkeepers tried again after the dragon settled, this time with fewer people and a slower approach.

One keeper moved too near the injured forelimb.

The dragon reacted before anyone touched him, forcing everyone back again.

Raigoro frowned.

Hours passed.

His father arrived and joined the senior Dragonkeeper and Dragon Healer near the edge of the treatment court.

Raigoro could not hear everything, but he heard enough.

The dragon was unknown, severely injured, dehydrated, and exhausted. Old restraint damage covered parts of his body, while the wing carried more recent injuries. Confinement made him dangerously agitated.

Nobody knew where he had come from.

His father ordered the upper court cleared of everyone not required for treatment.

Toren looked toward Raigoro.

"No."

Raigoro had not spoken.

"You were about to."

Probably.

He left.

He returned the next morning with permission.

Toren had negotiated it after Raigoro spent breakfast asking whether the dragon had eaten.

"He has not," Toren said as they climbed toward the recovery level.

"Water?"

"Some."

"Treatment?"

"Limited."

"Why?"

"Because he objects to being touched by attempting to kill the people touching him."

Raigoro considered this.

"Reasonable."

Toren looked at him. "Do not say that to the healers."

Raigoro did not.

The dragon had been moved into a large recovery cavern in the Dragon Heights, with two open routes and enough room to turn without striking stone.

Food had been placed well away from the entrance and water somewhat closer.

The dragon remained near the rear wall, watching.

Raigoro sat behind the keeper boundary.

Nothing happened.

It became the pattern.

Raigoro returned whenever he was permitted. Some days Toren brought him. On others, one of his father’s aides did.

Raigoro never approached without permission.

He watched.

The professionals changed their methods.

Fewer people entered at once, and nobody blocked both exits. Healer Lou and the other Dragon Healers stopped attempting complete examinations when the dragon’s agitation made examination more dangerous.

Treatment happened in pieces.

They cleaned one wound and left him alone. The wing support was adjusted later. Food moved closer only after the dragon stopped treating the feeding tray like another trap.

Raigoro noticed every change.

One afternoon, three keepers entered because a wing dressing had shifted.

The dragon stood before anyone touched him, his head low and body tense.

One Dragonkeeper stopped. "We have not done anything."

Toren, beside Raigoro, said, "So?"

Raigoro pointed.

"They surrounded him."

Toren looked again.

The three professionals had not intended to trap the dragon. One stood near the water, another near the feeding route, and the third between the dragon and the nearer exit.

Individually, their positions made sense.

Together, they left the dragon nowhere to move without approaching a person.

"He reacts before they touch him," Raigoro said.

Toren did not praise him.

He called Dragonkeeper Clair over.

Clair listened, then brought the observation to the senior keeper. Together, they tested it.

Raigoro preferred that.

All three keepers withdrew.

One entered alone and stopped farther away.

The dragon remained tense but did not strike.

The keeper left, and another approached along the same visible path.

Better.

The senior keeper changed the procedure.

Raigoro watched.

Being correct felt better than praise.

Weeks passed.

The dragon began eating regularly. He learned to stand without collapsing and eventually started walking again.

The wing healed more slowly. Some of its injuries had existed too long before the dragon reached Blackharrow.

During those weeks, the name Vharos became ordinary in the treatment records. Raigoro heard it often enough that the sound already belonged to the black dragon.

One morning, Raigoro entered the recovery cavern and found Vharos at the water trough.

Raigoro stopped behind the line and sat while Vharos watched him from the water trough.

The dragon returned to drinking.

Raigoro waited. He had become good at that.

Eventually, Vharos moved away from the trough.

Instead of returning to the rear wall, he came toward Raigoro.

One step, then another.

Raigoro stayed where he was.

The senior Dragonkeeper stood several feet behind him.

"Stay where you are."

Raigoro intended to.

Vharos crossed the remaining space until his head was close enough for Raigoro to see every pale mark along his jaw.

Smoke, stone, and medicine clung to his scent.

Raigoro’s heart beat hard against his ribs.

Vharos lowered his head slightly.

Raigoro looked toward the keeper.

The man gave one small nod.

"Hand where he can see it."

Raigoro raised his hand slowly.

Vharos watched.

He stopped before touching Vharos.

He had learned enough during the past weeks to wait.

Vharos moved the rest of the way.

Warm scales pressed against Raigoro’s palm.

The cavern remained around him, but his awareness no longer seemed to end where it had before.

He still felt the stone under his boots and smelled medicine and smoke.

Something else existed beside all of it.

Pain.

Exhaustion.

The cold bite of iron.

A violent need for open sky.

None of it came as words, and none of it belonged to Raigoro.

Through everything ran an awareness of him.

Vharos knew he was there.

Raigoro knew it with a certainty strong enough to catch his breath.

Behind him, the senior Dragonkeeper spoke quietly.

"Easy, Vharos."

Raigoro looked into the black dragon’s eye.

He repeated the familiar name without thinking.

"Vharos."

The response came immediately.

Something surged through the contact.

Raigoro did not understand it as the meaning of the name.

He understood recognition.

Vharos lifted his head, and Raigoro’s knees weakened under the sudden force of what passed between them.

The cavern went quiet.

A metal instrument fell somewhere behind him and struck stone.

Vharos kept his attention on Raigoro.

The senior Dragonkeeper moved one step closer before stopping himself.

"Your Highness."

Raigoro looked back.

The man had become intensely serious.

"Did you feel that?"

Raigoro looked at Vharos again.

The second awareness had weakened, but it remained.

"Yes."

"What?"

Raigoro searched for an answer.

"He knew I was here."

"Words?"

"No."

"Images?"

Raigoro considered. "No."

"Good."

The Dragonkeeper seemed relieved by the answer.

Then he spoke with enough care that Raigoro listened to every word.

"Do not touch anything else."

Raigoro stared at him.

"Why?"

"Because I believe you have bonded."

Toren arrived before the argument finished.

He stopped inside the cavern and took in Raigoro, Vharos, and the senior Dragonkeeper.

"What happened?"

The Dragonkeeper answered.

"The dragon bonded to him."

Toren stared.

"He is eleven."

"I am aware."

"That dragon is older than the Citadel’s current records."

"Also aware."

Vharos made a low sound.

Raigoro received no words from it, but irritation came through clearly enough.

"He is annoyed."

The Dragonkeeper immediately looked at him.

Toren asked, "Can he tell you that?"

Raigoro considered the question.

"Not in words."

"Good. Then do not pretend he can."

Raigoro nodded.

The Dragonkeeper exhaled.

"If this is confirmed, you are the youngest recorded bonded human in Blackharrow’s surviving Dragon Host records."

Raigoro looked at Vharos.

The dragon did not appear impressed.

"And," Toren added, looking at the black body occupying a significant portion of the recovery cavern, "you have apparently chosen the largest dragon anyone here has ever treated."

Raigoro shook his head.

"I did not choose him."

Vharos’s attention moved through the bond.

Raigoro looked at him.

He understood this much.

Vharos had chosen him.