Marek’s quarters take up the top two floors of the Ostomar dragon corps garrison. There are public stairs and landings to the north, but private stairs as well, so Sei can explore the entire suite without straying across anyone. None of the doors are locked. Some of the cabinets might be, but Sei doesn’t try them. That would be intrusive.
He likes the parlor on the lower floor best—more of an all-purpose lounge space than just a parlor. In addition to the breakfast table, there’s a bar with kegs along one wall, and broken-down, comfortable couches. The whole southern side is an open patio, with enchanted heat-lamps keeping the chill at bay. Sei spends a while entranced by the jagged mountains and sparkling city below.
The rest of the floor is mostly storage and miscellaneous rooms. There’s a small library and an armory that smells of leather and iron. One room is clearly some sort of meeting room, with a fancy table and chairs. That room is clean, but clearly barely used. A mural sweeps along the windowless wall, a dark blue dragon across a background of white smoke and yellow flames.
The color matches Loska, which means the rider must be Marek, a small figure raising his fist in triumph.
That mural is the most Sei sees of Marek the rest of the day.
Sei’s next morning in Ostomar is much like the first. He rises with the dawn and performs his morning stretching sequence despite his aches and bruises. Then he meditates until he feels centered, which takes longer than it should. Sei still makes it downstairs by the time Clem brings breakfast up.
Sei likes Clem a lot. Clem is cheerful and talkative, and Sei can't look away from their curly green and orange hair.
“Where does the name Stormrider come from?” Sei asks as Clem tidies the room.
“All sorts of reasons,” Clem answers. “Loska is big and blue and dark like a storm. Then there’s Dire magic, which goes without saying. House Dire mages have ridden dragons before, but none quite like Stormrider.”
Sei sips his tea. “What do you mean? I don’t really have anything to compare it to.”
“That’s right, you got to fly with him. Lucky bastard.” Clem leans on the table, tidying forgotten. “Marek just has an instinct for it. He manipulates the weather like he’s riding the sky itself. The older riders couldn’t stop talking about him when he first joined up.”
“Everyone talks about him like he’s more of a legend than a man,” Sei says. “It’s a little intimidating.”
“Well, he is a legend, isn’t he? You know the story, right?” Clem pulls out a chair when Sei shakes his head. “Well. Most dragonbonds are sort of intentional. We send recruits out to camp in the mountains and hope a wild dragon will take a fancy to them. On the rare occasion we have a tame nest, we assign a gaggle of magelings to shovel shit. The baby usually picks one of them.”
“But Marek was different? I know he’s from Clan Helra.”
“Right.” Clem rocks back in their chair, settling into storyteller mode. “One hard winter, a wild blue dragon rampaged down the mountains, ready to eat anything or anyone he found.”
Sei can’t imagine Loska rampaging. The dragon seems so nice. Less intimidating than Marek, once Sei got past the immense claws.
“All of Clan Helra hid in their caves while Loska burned the outer farms. Nobody dared do anything, and the nearest dragon corps wing was too far away to help.” Clem narrates without pausing to think, as if the story has been told so many times that everyone knows how it goes. “Clan Helra was ready to lose a whole harvest when Marek decided he’d had enough. He rode out until his horse got scared and threw him. So, Marek walked out directly to Loska and told him tostop.”
“And Loska just stopped?”
“Loska just stopped,” Clem says. “The story spread across Draskora until it reached Ostomar. King Imrik was so impressed, he rode out himself to adopt Marek as his own.”
Sei had known Marek was adopted, but not the why and how of it. “What about Prince Marek’s family in Helra?”
Clem fiddles with a green curl of hair. “I don’t think he had one. Anyway, that’s why we talk about Prince Marek like he’s a legend. Believe me, all the recruits hop to his orders. If a wild dragon will listen to him, they’d better listen too.”
Sei doesn’t have a chance to listen to Marek that day. His claimant is as elusive as a legend until that night, when Marek appears in the middle of dinner. He must have bathed somewhere else, because his hair is dark and wet. His bare arms gleam with traces of water, and his sleeveless shirt clings to his broad back.
Do most people even have that many muscles in their backs?
Sei is so surprised, he doesn’t manage to say anything before Marek vanishes up the stairs to the bedroom.
The guild teaches grails to eat slowly and thoughtfully, so Sei doesn’t rush through dinner. When he gets upstairs, he wishes he had. Marek is nowhere to be seen.
“Where did he go?” Sei asks.
Osric answers from his spot lounging on the bed.The stairs, towards the roof. I think he’s sleeping outside like an animal.
“Look who’s talking,” Sei says, because annoying Osric is better than lingering on the hurt. Marek would rather sleep outside than share quarters with Sei. So far, Sei’s mission to win Marek over is a resounding failure.
Marek promised he wouldn’t be cruel. But he can’t be kind to Sei either if he’s never around.
***
