Chương 235: 41. Dragon Rider 1

When the doors of the Twilight Audience Hall closed behind me, the sound wasn't loud. But I heard it clearly. Like something that would never open the same way again, finally clicking the last lock into place at my back. I stood in the corridor outside, let two breaths pass, and slowly exhaled whatever I'd been holding compressed in my chest.

I hadn't noticed it while I was inside, but the moment I stepped out, I realized my entire back had gone rigid — shoulders aching as if someone had hung me from an iron hook for half an hour.... Wonderful. His Majesty the Emperor didn't need to actually breathe dragonfire at me. He'd only needed to stand up, look at me, and say all of that in that perfectly level voice. That was already more than sufficient to make me wonder whether I'd be having nightmares tonight.

And not the kind I could complain to anyone about. Because every single word he'd said had been exactly right. I was about to lift a hand to press my temple when a voice came from beside me, neither warm nor cold.

"That expression on your face right now. It looks like you're finally starting to understand what you just agreed to." I turned. Ignicia was standing two steps away. She'd clearly come out after me, and I hadn't noticed at all. Whether it was because my head was still echoing with if you betray her, my twilight flame will find you before hers does — or simply because she had a particular talent for appearing quietly at your side at the exact moment you least wanted to face her.

I looked at her for a long moment, then managed:"Honestly, I feel less like I made a choice and more like the entire Dragon Kingdom just held my head down and had me sign an indentured servitude contract too long to actually read." Her eyebrow lifted, just slightly.

"You do have a gift for choosing your words."

"What's the alternative?" I pulled a crooked half-smile.

"Saying I'm deeply honored by His Majesty the Emperor's generosity, and my heart is full of hope for the future?"

"If you actually said that, I'd wonder whether my father went too easy on you somewhere." This woman. Two minutes ago she was standing in that audience hall cold enough to freeze fire solid. The moment she stepped out, she was already doing this. Very on-brand. I fell into step beside her. The corridor was still quiet. The carved dragon pillars stretched away on both sides; outside the high windows, the sky had gone fully light, morning slanting in and cutting our shadows into sections.

No one spoke out of turn along the way. No one dared come too close. Even the guards on duty only lowered their heads as we passed, as if the air on this stretch of stone had already decided it didn't want to be disturbed by anything irrelevant. After a few steps, I finally asked.

"So what exactly is a Rider?" Ignicia didn't answer right away. She walked a short distance first, as if confirming we were genuinely alone in this stretch of corridor. It wasn't until we'd turned a corner, with every attendant and guard retreated to a comfortable distance, that she slowed her pace and glanced over at me.

"Did you think my father just gave you a better-sounding title?" I stumbled on the question slightly.... Right. Sometimes this woman could read what was running through my head faster than I could. I cleared my throat.

"I was trying to interpret it as a special appointment. Dragon Kingdom edition."

"Special appointment." She repeated it, a thin edge of dry amusement in her tone.

"Your kind has a habit of making everything sound more convenient than it is."

"Forgive me. My working knowledge of the Dragon Kingdom's high-rank nomenclature system is currently capped at don't fall to your death off a dragon's back." She glanced at me sideways.

"Then let me correct your misconceptions. You'd do well to pay attention." I shut my mouth without being asked. Ignicia turned her gaze forward, her tone settling into the flat cadence of someone reciting rules carved into the bones of a nation long before either of us was born.

"A knight who rides a dragon in battle is called a Dragon Knight."

"Still with you so far." If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"Someone capable of handling higher-order or specialized dragon breeds — maintaining stable coordination, sustaining their cooperation under command — is called a Dragon Tamer." I nodded. That fit Lei Lian perfectly. That mid-sized blue dragon of hers had never been a standard-issue battlefield mount. Even I, half-amateur that I was, could see it had its own personality — the kind that didn't just follow orders because someone sat on its back.

Managing something like that the way Lei Lian did, as if it were a second life running parallel to her own, put her in a different tier. Made sense.

"So Lei Lian—""Is a Dragon Tamer," Ignicia said, finishing the thought.

"A very capable one."

"Coming from you, that carries some weight."

"I'm stating a fact." I let out a short laugh, then looked at her.

"Then what's a Rider?" She was quiet for half a step. Not long. But that half-step of silence made everything that followed feel heavier before she'd even said it.

"A Rider," she said, "is not a higher-ranked Dragon Knight." I didn't interrupt. Because I could already hear that what she was about to say wasn't a job classification. It was something else entirely.

"It isn't a military rank. It isn't a simple honor. It isn't because you're better at riding dragons than anyone else, or because you can subdue some rare breed that a Dragon Tamer can't." She paused, then finished it.

"A Rider is a position." Something shifted behind my eyes.

"A position?"

"The position at the side of the Dragon Kingdom's throne," she said.... Wonderful. That one sentence cut through whatever last scrap of maybe it's just a special Dragon Kingdom title I'd still been quietly holding onto, and reduced it to ash. We walked a little further. I stared at the strip of light the window frames had cut across the floor and slowly processed what she'd just said. The position at the side of the throne. This wasn't simply staying at her side. It wasn't even a matter of formal standing.

This was dragging my entire person — future included — directly into the most central configuration of the Dragon Kingdom's power structure. Just imagining it was enough to give a person a headache. And Ignicia clearly wasn't finished with me yet. As if she felt my expression still wasn't sufficiently destroyed, she let out a very quiet sigh.

"Since the founding of the Dragon Kingdom, there have only been two Riders." My stride nearly broke.

"... How many?"

"Two." I turned to look at her. She wasn't looking at me. She walked forward calmly, as if reciting a piece of history she herself couldn't afford to gloss over.

"The first was the man who married the Dragon of Time, and stood at the throne alongside my great-grandmother." I went quiet. Not because I didn't understand. Because I understood the weight of it far too well. Married the Dragon of Time. Stood at the throne alongside my great-grandmother. This wasn't some lucky outsider chosen as a royal consort. This wasn't a decorated knight given a prestigious marriage and sent home with honors.

This was being written directly into the Dragon Kingdom's founding mythology — the kind of thing where, even after the person died, the name wouldn't, and centuries later it would still be cited as institutional precedent. I'd just started to ask whether the second one might be— Ignicia had already supplied the answer. She finally turned to look at me, those gold slit-pupils quiet as the innermost layer of a flame held very still.

"The second is you." Wonderful. That line needed no embellishment. It was already sharp enough on its own. I stopped walking. She stopped too. Morning light from the corridor's end fell across her shoulders, laying a thin edge of brightness along her dark red hair and the trim of her formal black-and-gold attire.

The Ignicia standing here in the capital had always been different from the one in the harbor's fire — but for some reason, watching her say something with the power to rewrite a person's entire future in that calm, unhurried voice, I found it harder to handle than her crying in the fire or hitting me in the chest. I opened my mouth, and in the end could only manage the honest version:"... Does the Dragon Kingdom have a particular tradition of talking people to death in a very composed tone of voice?"

"You're still alive."

"Spiritually, that's becoming less certain by the moment." She looked at me, as if she meant to say something, then only let out:"This is still just the beginning."... Wonderful. That was somehow worse. I pressed a hand to the side of my head.

"Give me a moment." I said it slowly.

"Dragon Knights ride dragons. Dragon Tamers handle specialized breeds. A Rider — not a technical distinction, a positional one — is something that has appeared exactly twice since the Dragon Kingdom's founding, and is directly tied to your throne."

"Correct."

"And your father just formally attached that position to me. In front of the court scribe."

"Correct."

"And you are now standing here telling me, in a perfectly steady voice, that the first person to hold this position ended up married to the Dragon of Time and standing at the throne alongside your great-grandmother."

"I'm correcting your misconceptions," she said.

"Your expression just now still had Rider filed under slightly elevated attendant."

"Forgive me. My life experience did not previously include a preparation question for being declared the Dragon Kingdom's future king-consort on the spot by the Emperor himself."

"Now it does." That wasn't comfort. But it was extremely effective at forcing me to look at reality. I stared at her for two seconds. Then I understood, finally, why she'd said she was correcting my misconceptions. Because if she hadn't put it this bluntly, I would almost certainly have found a way to file it somewhere more manageable — as a relationship title, as a special status, as a politically convenient framing to keep me at her side. Some way, any way, to avoid looking at its actual final shape.

But she had just pulled the cloth off and shown me directly. There was no for now. There was no we'll figure it out later. The ground under my feet was that path. Right now. Ignicia looked at me, and after a moment, her voice dropped slightly.

"You'd better look at your road clearly, Cedric. Right now." I didn't answer. Because I knew that whatever came next was the real blade.

"My father's recognition of you as Rider said more than that you could stand at my side," she said.

"He was also signaling something else." I frowned slightly.

"What?" She didn't answer right away. She stepped forward instead. The distance between us shortened. In the harbor's fire, she'd come close before — but that had been surrounded by explosions, smoke, blood, and urgency so sharp there'd been no room to think. This was different. This was Latpan. The inner court's corridor. Stone pillars and morning light and the deep interior of the Dragon Kingdom's order.

That single step forward, somehow, made my nerves pull tighter than when she'd fallen against my chest in the harbor. She glanced to both sides first. Every attendant and guard had withdrawn to a distance where no conversation could reach them. At the corridor's far end, only the sound of wind through the high windows remained, and the faint, almost otherworldly bells of the capital's morning somewhere far off. Then she leaned in, slightly, toward my ear.

Her red hair swept past my shoulder, carrying something faint and clean — fire, or medicine, or something that was simply hers, too subtle to name. And then, in a voice meant for only one person, she said:"Cedric Rosa." My spine pulled taut. She let half a breath pass — deliberately, as if giving me just enough time to understand how heavy the next sentence would be. Then she said it.

"You are the future King of the Dragon Kingdom."