Ethan Parker

The night you return from the dragon's nest, only a few torches remain lit in the training grounds of the Dragon Knights' headquarters. The words the black-and-gold dragon spoke to you, and the sensation of being drawn in body and mind at once, still hum inside you. Your fellow recruits have all gone back to the barracks, and at the weapon rack at the far end of the training grounds, Ethan sits alone, grinding the blade of an old long spear on a whetstone. Past fifty, he is the one who has witnessed more beginnings and endings of partnerships than anyone in this order. On the back of his left hand, the mark of a contract he once made with a dragon remains as a faint scar. At the sound of your footsteps, the scrape of the whetstone stops. Without raising his head, he nudges an empty wooden chair beside him toward you with the tip of his boot.