The training yard baked under the midday sun. A roar ripped through the air, a sound of fire and primal fury. Arthur, pushing a cart of cinders and broken training dummies, kept his head down. He didn't need to look. He could feel the wave of heat wash over his back.
"Magnificent, Lord Leon!" an apprentice shouted.
Another joined in, his voice cracking with awe. "He melted the entire Obsidian Wardstone!"
A crowd of young, aspiring knights gathered, their faces turned up toward the source of the commotion. There, perched atop a massive bronze dragon, sat Leon. His armor was polished silver, his blonde hair a stark contrast to the soot-stained air. The dragon, Redflame, snorted, sending a plume of embers into the sky. Its scales shimmered like a thousand sunsets.
Leon gave the crowd a lazy, dismissive wave. He patted his dragon's thick neck. "Easy, Redflame. That was merely a warm-up." He dismounted with a practiced, fluid motion that spoke of years of training. His boots made no sound on the scorched earth.
He walked past the fawning apprentices, his gaze sweeping over the yard with utter boredom. He ran a gloved hand along the intricate saddle on Redflame's back, his fingers stopping at an empty socket. He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a dull, greyish-red rock, no larger than his thumb. It had the dead look of a burnt-out coal.
His eyes fell on Arthur, who was methodically shoveling melted slag into his cart. A smirk twisted Leon's perfect features.
"You. Stable rat."
Arthur stopped. He didn't look up.
Leon flicked the stone with his thumb. It sailed through the air in a low arc and landed with a soft thud in the pile of filth Arthur was cleaning.
"Waste for the wasteful," Leon declared, his voice carrying across the yard. "A perfect match."
A wave of cruel laughter erupted from the apprentices. They pointed and jeered.
"He's right! That's all a Dragonblood Stone is good for after Lord Leon is done with it."
"Even the trash gets a souvenir of his greatness!"
Arthur remained silent. He let the insults wash over him like the heat from the dragon's fire. He bent down, his hands plunging into the muck. His grimy fingers closed around the spent stone. It was barely warm. To everyone else, he was simply scooping another piece of refuse. He tossed the load into the cart, and with it, the Dragonblood Stone. As he turned the cart to move to the next mess, his other hand slipped into the filth and palmed the stone, tucking it deep into the pocket of his ragged trousers.
Night fell, blanketing the stables in shadow and the familiar, musky scent of dragon hide and hay. In the farthest, filthiest corner, behind a stack of rotting straw bales, the boy named Arthur sat alone. The snores of the great beasts were a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards.
He pulled the Dragonblood Stone from his pocket. In the dim moonlight filtering through a crack in the roof, it looked even more pathetic. A dead thing.
Fools, Su Ling's thoughts echoed in the boy's mind, a stark contrast to his meek exterior. They see an empty vessel and discard it. They have no concept of the source.
Her internal gaze pierced through the stone's mundane shell. She didn't see a depleted power source. She saw the faint, almost imperceptible echoes of its creation.
This 'dragon's blood' is a crude catalyst, but it is bound to a flicker of primal life. A concept far older and more profound than their gods of order. They use the flame and throw away the spark.
Arthur placed his right hand, the hand of ash and entropy, over the stone. He had no intention of turning it to dust. The power of unmaking was not just destruction. It was deconstruction. To take something apart was to understand how it was made.
He willed the power. The faint, grey smoke that coiled from his knuckles did not rise. It sank, seeping into the Dragonblood Stone like ink into paper. The stone didn't crumble. It pulsed with a soft, internal red light.
An avalanche of information crashed into Su Ling's consciousness. Not words, but pure data. The biological structure of the dragon. The crystalline matrix of the stone. The symbiotic resonance that allowed a rider to channel a dragon's fire. It was a language of life, of elements, of raw, untamed power. A chaotic but beautiful equation.
Analysis complete, she thought with clinical satisfaction. Now for the extraction.
The grey energy shifted its function. It was no longer a scalpel for dissection, but a filter. It latched onto the single, most valuable thread within the stone's complex weave: the lingering essence of primal life.
A vibrant, red-gold stream of energy, purer and brighter than any flame, was pulled from the stone. It flowed directly into his ashen palm. The Dragonblood Stone, its final purpose served, collapsed into a pile of featureless grey powder.
The energy surged up Arthur's arm.
Pain.
It was not a cut or a burn. It was the feeling of being torn apart and remade from the inside out. His arm felt like a rod of magma. The energy, a living torrent, refused to be contained. It burst from his arm into his torso, a wildfire spreading through his veins.
Arthur's body slammed back against the straw. A strangled gasp escaped his lips. His bones screamed. They felt as if they were shattering into a thousand pieces, only to be instantly fused back together, harder and denser than before. His muscles tore, shredded by the invading force, and were immediately re-woven with threads of raw power.
Sweat poured down his face, soaking his matted hair and stinging his eyes. He bit down hard on his lower lip, the coppery taste of his own blood a sharp counterpoint to the overwhelming agony. He would not scream. This body was his tool, and a tool did not show weakness.
Ah, resistance, Su Ling noted, an observer to the violent metamorphosis. Her consciousness was a calm island in a sea of torment. This mortal shell fights back. It has a will to survive. Good. A crucible needs heat to forge steel. This is a far more efficient method of refinement than their quaint holy water and vapid prayers.
She didn't fight the pain. She guided it. She used her immense will to shape the chaotic flood of energy, directing it to every cell of the boy's body, reinforcing, rebuilding, optimizing. It was a crude process, like repairing a watch with a hammer, but the raw material was exquisite.
The longest night of Arthur's short life finally ended. As the first pale fingers of dawn stretched through the cracks in the stable, the last of the agonizing energy settled. The pain receded, leaving behind a profound, humming strength.
He lay in the straw, breathing heavily. He was still the same scrawny boy. Or so it seemed. He pushed himself up. The movement was effortless, silent. The perpetual ache in his joints from malnutrition and abuse was gone.
He looked at his hands. The grime and filth were still there, but the skin beneath had changed. It held a healthy, subtle luster, like polished stone. He was still thin, but when he balled his hands into fists, he could feel the coiled power in his arms, dense and ready. This was not the borrowed strength of a spell or a blessing. It was his.
He stood and walked to the thick wooden pillar that supported the stable loft. He drew back his fist, not the grey one, but his left. He tapped it against the wood. It was meant to be a light touch, a simple test.
CRACK.
A web of splinters radiated out from the point of impact. The entire pillar groaned in protest.
Arthur stared at his knuckles, then at the damaged wood.
From across the yard, a familiar, hated voice shattered the morning quiet. It was Koro, the overseer, and he was in a rage.
"WHERE IS HE?! Where is that useless, thieving stable rat!"
The guards' voices were placating, but Koro's fury drowned them out.
"My ring is gone! The one from the dungeon! I'll flay every worthless soul in this castle until I get it back! Starting with HIM!"
Arthur turned his head toward the shouting. The morning sun caught his eyes, and for a fleeting moment, the dull brown irises flashed with a cold, predatory gold. He slowly flexed the fingers of his right hand. The ashen skin felt cool, solid, humming with a power that promised endings. He then clenched his left fist, the one that had just cracked a solid oak beam.
A volunteer to test the vessel's new limits, Su Ling thought, a whisper in the back of Arthur's mind. How very convenient.