The Dragon Rider’s Code #1

A 4-part fantasy story about a girl, her dragon, and the greatest test of trust and flight she’s ever faced. Part 1: The Code and the Candidate

Jun 30, 2025

The girl began with the tail—always the tail. You started at the edges, her instructor had said, and worked your way in.

She ran a cloth soaked in sage oil along Sable’s scales, tracing each one like a prayer bead. The dragon lay still, eyes half-lidded, exhaling warm breath in steady bursts that steamed in the crisp morning air. His tail flicked once as the cloth tickled a tender spot.

Kaelin smiled.
“I know. But you want to shine, don’t you?”

Sable grumbled softly. He did.

Polishing was more than tradition. It was trust. You learned a dragon’s body the way you learned a river’s current—by touch, not maps. By mistakes, not diagrams. She had made plenty of both.

But today, there was no room for mistakes.

Today was the exam.

Origins

Long ago, before the Code, dragon riders were kings in the sky.

Their dragons were unstoppable—living siege weapons with wings and fire. Riders torched rival villages, toppled stone keeps, and turned entire harvests to ash over petty disputes.

Kaelin had read the records in the Great Library: The Thirteen Plagues. The Soot Wars. The Culling of the Green Lands.

It wasn’t that dragons were evil. They were natural. Wild. Powerful. It was people who failed.

Until Spike.

A farmer’s son turned sky-lancer, Spike rode the most feared dragon of all: the Black Blessing. Towering, ancient, coal-eyed and coal-hearted. When Spike rose to challenge the rogue clans, no one dared defy him.

But instead of conquering, he wrote the Code.

A dragon defends. Never provokes.
A dragon restrains. Never retaliates.
A dragon does not dominate, even when it can.
A dragon is never owned, only accompanied.

From that day on, a dragon was not a weapon, but a guardian of the realm. And riders? They would be tested. Thoroughly.

Training

Kaelin had begun at ten, when the village seer spotted a burn mark shaped like a feather on her wrist after a lightning storm.

“Skyborn,” she’d said.

She was taken to the cliffs—seven years of theory, ritual, and bonding. She learned how to read thermal drafts, calculate dive angles, distinguish wing muscle groups by touch. She learned to fly by instinct, not charts. And above all, she memorized the Code.

Most failed the early years. Some broke bones. A few vanished in sky-churns or fell to wild dragons. Kaelin nearly did, too. But Sable chose her—an orphaned male, too stubborn to bond until she climbed into his enclosure one stormy night and refused to leave.

They had been together ever since.

Arrival

Kaelin double-checked the saddle straps. Sable stretched his wings. She rubbed a thumb against her wrist.

There would be three trials today. No second chances. And they weren’t just testing her skills—they were testing her soul.

That’s what the Code demanded.

The wind shifted.

A black-winged dragon spiraled from above, landing with a gust of leaves and grit. Its rider dismounted—older, bearded, with windburnt skin and a grin that said he enjoyed this far too much.

“Kaelin, daughter of Mareth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am Solas. Sky Examiner. Third Circle.”

He circled Sable. “Well-groomed. Strong-boned. Stubborn breed.”

“Suits me,” she said before she could stop herself.

“That remains to be seen.”
He offered a hand. “Three trials. Pass them all, and the badge is yours.”

He looked at the sky.

“Let’s not waste the day.”

To be continued in Episode 2: The Gauntlet of Stone