I write this to remember them as they were to me, not gods or legends, but family. If I am ever lost, let these pages set the record straight, before the songs twist them into something unrecognizable.

Balmytria#

Mother used to say, we are the last of Malborn’s dragons. An age ends with us. Another begins because of us. Before Thylea, before the war, before everything, there was her. She served the Huorath line for generations, always the second sons. That was not an accident. Nothing she ever did was an accident.

She and Balvolk were … steady, in a way the rest of us never were. What they made together was meant to be the future of Malborn. Their final clutch of eggs was celebrated by the noble houses of Huorath and Phobas, a promise that the old ways would endure.

It didn’t. Two of those eggs were stolen before we ever hatched. Estor took them. One for himself. One for Telamok. To bring deserved glory to the house of Arkelander, he said, as if that explained everything. I have wondered, more than once, what might have happened if he hadn’t. Mother never said. She never spoke of it, not directly. But I think she knew.

After we hatched, they gathered what remained of us into a family. Something Estor didn’t try to stop, which may have been one of his few acts of kindness. Thorpyrax, Vakylux, Elindor, and then later, Hexia. We were not a brood. We were something stranger.

And then Mother chose Xander. Oh, Xander. Born the first son of House Huorath in Malborn, he was a rare anomaly within his bloodline, untouched by the curse that defined his family. That alone set him apart, marking him for something beyond the intrigues of the High Parks. Guided by Mother’s wisdom, he learned to see past Malborn’s decadence and ambition.

He was the only mortal she ever truly believed in. Stubborn enough to defy tradition, and foolish enough to try to save the world. She saw what he could become and built everything around that spark. She united us, convinced us, moved us, and we followed.

When the war could not be won, she ended it the only way she knew how—by sacrificing herself and rewriting the rules of existence.

I still think she cheated at the Royal Game. But only a little.

Balvolk#

Father never said much. He preferred problems to people. Balvolk had already lived a long life before we came along, serving House Phobas and observing their long history of ambition, corruption, and occasional redemption. He wasn’t cynical about it. Just… attentive.

Balvolk did not choose Rizon Phobas. He passed from one ruler of House Phobas to the next, as he always had. But Rizon was different. She rejected everything her house was known for, its poisons, its bargains, its quiet cruelty, and he saw it at once. And with her came the wealth and power that made Xander’s dream dangerously real.

He raised us, in his way. Which is to say, he didn’t hover. He didn’t lecture. But when I was young, he carved a tiny bronze bird for me, no larger than my claw. It could fly perfectly and return to me no matter how far I wandered. I lost it constantly. It always found its way back.

He didn’t talk about the past much. There were wars before Thylea, things he preferred to leave buried. Lyonesse was one of them. It changed him. He only spoke of it once, after far too much quicksilver vapor. Changelings had replaced the heirs of Dragonlords, worn their faces, lived their lives. By the time they were old enough to take on the mantle, it was already too late. The poisoning was discovered only after the dragons began to die. That was the beginning of the end of the Dragonlord era. Father never forgot that. After that, he learned to respect the quiet things. The hidden ones.

It’s why he never trusted simple strength. Even his gifts reflected that lesson, small things that endured when greater powers failed. When he became Volkan, he didn’t change as much as people think. He just turned inward. The forge became his battlefield. Creation replaced conquest.

Thorpyrax#

If Balvolk was a quiet fire, Thorpyrax was a wildfire. He felt everything too much: joy, rage, love, grief. Especially love. Gods, he loved everything. Mortals, battles, songs, wine, sunsets, bad decisions … mostly bad decisions.

From the moment he hatched, there was Adonis. The first face he saw. The first bond he knew. Ah, Adonis. Beautiful, brilliant, doomed Adonis. He rose from nothing and burned brighter than anyone else. Together, they became the heroes people still sing about, like watching two suns collide and somehow not destroy the world.

Hexia came after. She loved him, or at least she believed she did. Fiercely. Completely. She followed him the way storms follow lightning. For a time, it seemed inevitable that they would be together. And they were. Disastrously. Thorpyrax never knew how to love anything halfway, and she expected to be the only thing he loved. That was never going to end well.

And then Adonis died. That was the moment everything broke. Thorpyrax mourned him for decades. Not quietly, either. Loudly. Messily. With all the grace you would expect from him (which is to say, none at all).

Vakylux#

Vakylux has always seen more than the rest of us. Not because she was wiser (though she’ll never let me forget that she is), but because she was willing to look at things exactly as they were.

Telamok suited her. He wasn’t like Estor. He didn’t revel in destruction. He wanted to build. Cities, empires, legacies. He believed mortals should rule Thylea, and he was willing to shape the world until that became true.

Vakylux understood the cost of that vision. She never flinched from it. Not like I did. She helped him raise armies, plan campaigns, and carve civilization out of something wild and ancient. Where he saw destiny, she saw structure. Where he saw conquest, she saw consequences.

And Estor … Well. She saw that too. Telamok gave his brother command. He believed he could control him. Vakylux knew better. She always knew better.

When the end came, Telamok chose to stand and die rather than follow Estor into madness. That mattered to her. It still does.

Narrysar#

Not all of the dragons who followed Balmytria and Xander were of our clutch. Our parents were among the first eggs ever discovered beneath Malborn, older than the rest by an age you could feel even if you didn’t understand it. The others came later, hatched from eggs uncovered in the years that followed. They were older than us, but they were not of that first generation.

Narrysar was one of those. He arrived in Malborn already bonded to a foreigner, a woman named Jasena. She claimed his previous rider had named her his heir before dying. No one believed her, even when Narrysar confirmed it.

He was older than we were, certainly, but not so distant that we treated him like one of the elders. He moved easily among us, though never quite with us. We called him a sibling because it was easier than explaining what he actually was.

Jasena was stranger still. Their bond was… different. My siblings had theories, as they always do. Not human, they said. A changeling. A construct. A vessel. Hexia insisted Jasena was something Narrysar had made.

Jasena had no interest in conquest. Narrysar had even less. While the rest of us were trying to win a war, they were studying it, watching how mortals broke and reformed, as though it were all part of some larger design.

And then Jasena vanished. At the worst possible moment, naturally. Damon called her an oathbreaker. She isn’t remembered among the Dragonlords. Narrysar never explained.

He rarely explains anything.

Yralune#

Now we come to the most important dragon of all. Yes, yes, I hear you groaning. Try to keep up.

I suppose this is the part where I explain Estor. I didn’t choose him. He stole my egg. Mine, and another for his brother Telamok. When I hatched, he was there, waiting. I opened my eyes, and he was the first thing I saw. That was enough. It always is.

So I loved him. Of course I did. He was impressive, even then. Brave. Decisive. Terrifying in all the ways that make mortals write songs about you. Feared even within his own family, which should have told me something. It didn’t.

Estor didn’t fight for victory. He fought because he liked it. The blood, the fear, the sound of things breaking. I told myself it was necessary. That it would end quickly. That he would stop. He didn’t.

When he massacred those who had already surrendered, something inside me finally broke. So I left. It was the right thing to do. It was also far too late. The war that followed, the deaths, the suffering… I helped make that happen. I can dress it up however I like, but that part never changes.

Now I write poems. Bad ones, mostly. I chase heroes and tragedies and anything that might one day become a story worth telling. I suppose I’m still trying to get it right. If I ever do, I’ll make sure it’s a very good ending. Or at least a very interesting one.

13althazar, Hunter Adkins, Junaid Ahmed, Ross Aitken, Alex, Drake Alexander, Allen, David M Allen, Bianca Alvarez, Garvin Anders, Chris “Baelian” Anderson,

Marcin Andrzejczak, Joshua Anstaett, Aonur, Geoffrey Archer, Avery Kid Armstrong, Basil “Baz” Arnold,

Arstasia, Julia Augusta, Michael Bailey, Chris Baughman,

Matt Belote, Emmanuel “Eclipsiste” Berthaud, Shaelynn Bingham, Joel Bonomini, David Bonney, Sweetness Boobear, Hatcher Bose, Bryan L Bowman,

Benjamin Bravo, Tyler Briggs, Douglas Brod, Carey Broadbent, Bryon Broadway, Bruce Bruhnke, Ted Bunt, Stewart Burwood, April Buchanan, Jacob Calder,

Steve Cansdale, Peggy & Shawn Carpenter, Jamie Lee Carpenter, Joshua Cashion, Alejandro Castellanos,

Lareina Chan, Jeffrey Chase, Jesse Christensen, Tristan Cliff, Ben Clarke, Chris Claus, Timothy Cooke,

David Couch, Patrick Cottle, Sam Crawley, Frederick Cundict, Josef Dabrowski, Dylan Dayrit, Gene Demaitre, William Degendt, Christopher Denzer,

Desmond, Dave B, Thomas Duckworth, Ethan Duffy, Armand Dulin, Markus Dyka, Nathan Eddy, Ian Edberg, Tim Elliott, Peter Engebos, Nathan Everson, William Evans,

Derik Fabrizio, Jonathan Finke, Zachary Fitzgerald, Mark Flory, Jonathan Francia, Bill Ford, Gregory Ford, David Futterrer, Etienne Gagnon, Giancarlo Garbagnati,

Ross Gardner, Hervé Gengler, Antoine Giasson, Cherrier Gilles, Giulio Cesare Giorgini, Nir Gonen,

James Gould, Joshua Graves, Charles Griffiths, R. Chauncey Gummere, Szabó Gábor, Cailan Guile,

Chris Hearn, Patrick Healey, Abc Helm, Master Grundahl Helland, Chris Hepworth, Eli Hershberger,

Christopher Hoffmann, Hootmgee, Brandon Hudson, William Truong Huynh, Jonathan Hwang, Shane Huston,

Ian Inman, Ian Loo, Ian Mccall, Ian Mcclure,

Kenny Iversen, Chuck Jamison, Lee James, Jeffrey Scott James, Jezebel Kaye, Aron Kearney, Jørgen Kann,

Michael Kanaris, Jonathan Kemp, Damien Kirby,

David Koch, David Koelsch, Lennert Krouwels,

Karl Krzyminski, James Lavalle, Andy Larson, Chris Larson, Nathaniel Lévesque, Eric ‘Relic’ Li,

Ulf Lilienthal, Christopher Locke, Logandune, Andrew Lotton, Russel Lowe, Justin And Kristin Mclaren,

Kieran Mcevoy, Emiliano Marchetti, Dwayne Marlowe,

Benjamin Margolis, Kim Mantas, Kevin Mattes, Gregory Maddra, Mathew, Manny13, Marcie, Marius, Frieder Meyer, Alex Milgrom, Aleks Mitchell, Lucas Molho,

Matthew Mogridge, Aaron J. Morand, Richard Moye,

Nick Murray, George Murray, Alexander Neumann,

Brendan Neill, Cameron Nelson, Ted Nilsson, Ronald Olexsak, Ryan Oldani, Andrew Oleniach, Jim O’sullivan, David Orna-Ornstein, Adam Ostrander, Jelmer Panman, Paradigmblue, Darth Peregrine, Don Pierce,

David M Pietraszewski, Christopher Pickens, Kiera Anne Peterson, P J Harvey, Patrick Rass, David Rache, Cameron Ray, Edward Ray, Scott Reichelt, Beau Richmond,

Eliza Rico, Konrad Ritter, Simone Romanini, Gavin Roske,

Jamie Rose, Austin Rugh, Dr. Matthew Ruane, Charles F. Radavich, Edwin Sanchez, Tony Sanson, Dawn Schwartz, Michael Van Der Schuyt, Donald Sheppard,

Gwyndolyn Shepard, John Shirley, Nik Siefke, Adam Silkey,

Jack Sliwa, Randy Smith, Gregory J Smith, Dale Snow, Saga Mackenzie, Scott Payne, Scott Stefanski, Val Steklac, Nicholas Stegelman, M. Stracke, Ryan Sundberg, Billy Talbot,

Maya Taylor, Conor Teegarden, Craig R. Thompson,

Carter Thompson, Gareth Thomas, Justin Thomas,

Julian Thornton, Warren Tochor, Jared Trulock, Logan Tutt, Y||B, Glenn Wardrop, Wilf Watson-James,

Tom Wigleven, James Witten, Jon Von Gnielinski, Jon Woods, Seth Woolwine, Mark Wulkowicz, Ethan Vallelly,

Arturo Vera-Felicie, Brigonos Vitiatus, Aaron Vogt, Dallas W, Shane Walden, Warren Walker, Drake Alexander,

Jb Brown, Bishop618, Brun, Carsten, Christian, Christian Margard, Chris, Chris Bonello, Chris Hladik,

Cheeto836, Dæuiot, Dphillips, Drekin, Elizlestrad,

Fado, Gaelicat, Ghost Dm, Aaron Donahoo, Alberto J. Berrios Gutierrez, Alejandro González Pérez,

Alex Doub, Alex Jimmieson, Amal Lamunyon, Anthony Perinoni, Aron Kearney, Austin Rugh, Bill Myers,

B&Mforever, Brenan Kade Flinders, Curtis Brown, Giancarlo Garbagnati, Gil Breger, Jacob, Jeffrey Johnson, Jd Justice, Jeremy Martin-Souza, John H. Bookwalter Jr.,

Jonathan, Josiah, Josh Owoc, Juan Guardado, Juan Martín Rodríguez, Kári Gauti Guðlaugsson, Kate Jordan, Katherine Franklin, Kevin Royalty, Kimasxi,

Leokeros, Les Greenwood, Mabov, Marcin Andrzejczak,

Marcie, Michael, Murray Shaw, Obiwanchunn, Olallafur, Paul, Sam, Samuele Jacchia, Sheldon Mattson, Stefano, Steve, T, Thilenios, Tradzune, Tyler, Tyler Flickinger,

The Peters Family, Ace Vage, Armand Dulin,

Onno Strolka, Michael Grimes

• R I S E A S A V I G I L A N T E

• Old Hunger has been breached. The worst criminals in the world walk free, reclaiming their gangs and territories. You have been summoned to restore the fallen vigilantes known as the

• Nine Sentinels. Hunt the escaped monsters. Defy the hidden kingpins above. Built within the bones of an extinct volcano, Malborn rises in towers of stone

• and steel above a festering undercity known as the Pit. Once the greatest empire in the world, its glory has rotted into corruption and crime.

• Y O U A R E A R E AV E R

• This is Grimnir. A land of oaths and blood-feuds, where jarls rule from storm-battered halls and every warrior wishes to carve their name into legend.

• Sail the black waters. Plunder rival clans. Hunt monsters that stalk the frozen wilds. Stand before kings and dragons alike with axe in hand. Beneath storm-black skies, a longship cuts through the Serpent Sea.

• Salt spray lashes the prow as raiders sing of glory and the honor of a fearless death.