The anvil glowed dark red in the twilight, and Hans's knuckles turned white as he gripped the hammer handle. The flames dancing in the furnace suddenly transformed into a strange, ghostly blue, stretching his shadow across the cracked earthen wall.
It was at this moment that the sound of hooves tore through the night.
Twelve-year-old Aiden crouched behind an oak barrel, watching as his adoptive father stuffed a bronze pocket watch into the pocket of his chest. The emerald dragon pattern on the watch's case pressed painfully against his ribs; it was the only object he had brought with him when he was wrapped in swaddling cloth. "Go to Gray Harbor and find the Night Watchman." The blacksmith's calloused hands trembled, and Aiden had never seen this man, who usually scratched him with his stubble, display such an expression.
At the moment an arrow pierced the thatched roof, Aiden caught a glimpse of the attacker's black robe—a dark golden serpent, embroidered in filigree, matching the crest he had seen countless times in his nightmares. As the burning hay hut collapsed with a roar, the waves of heat toppled the barrel, and in that instant, the emerald-scaled mark on the back of the boy's hand suddenly turned hot.
He ran through the thick smoke, his throat filled with the taste of blood. The curses of the pursuers grew closer, until the first crossbow bolt whizzed past his ear. Aiden's pupils suddenly contracted, and something dormant in his blood awakened. When he opened his eyes again, the entire world was suffused with a strange indigo hue, and the burning arrows hung suspended in the air, three inches from his forehead.
It was the Frost Month of the 137th year of the Starfall Era, and it was the first time Aiden Starrynight heard the dragon language roaring in his bloodstream.