Renzati

The clan leader. The absolute power; greater than all the members of the cult. The Shade communer.

From the beginning of her reign, Renzati sought to transform the lair into a beacon for the Shade, to call down its influence, and aid in its complete takeover of Sornieth. Most dragons did not know what motivated her to follow something that would ultimately end dragonkind as they know it, but Renzati saw the Shade as absolute perfection. It promised her eternal peace of her being once it consumed Sornieth.

She began by dealing with the old residents of the clan. After she conquered the LucidLight clan, most members were enchanted and transformed into statues and still art. A few of the nocturnes were put under the control of the Shade, to act as her spies and scouts. And she tricked the clan’s greatest warriors and spellcasters into wearing ghastcrowns that allowed the Shade to control them.

Next came the Shade manifest. Renzati started with a few pre-bred shadelings received from the Ichor Covenant. She gathered dragons of similar appearance - dark, oozing hides, fit to be the children of the Shade - and put them under the control of her dark overlord as well. Together, the impure, once-dragon shadelings produced pure-bred shadelings, infused with the Shade's essence before they even hatched.

With an army of shadelings at her side, Renzati began her conquest. She wove together magics that caused the lair itself to vanish, only to reappear somewhere else in Sornieth every day. She bid her army attack and destroy clans of every element, and it would move like a tidal wave of darkness until every dragon in the each targeted clan drowned.

---

Impossible.

How could this be? Renzati never once refused to obey the Shade's every command. She was its most loyal, devout disciple, supporting and strengthening the Shade for ages. For the entirety of her reign.

So why is it that, when the Shade requested sacrificing Him to it, Renzati hesitated?

Some primal, draconic instinct in her held her back. Whenever she imagined those shining, yellow scales and sunshine-dappled wings disappearing into the inky black nothingness of the Shade, some part of her soul recoiled at the very notion.

She finally realized what was happening to her.

She didn't want to let Him go.

She held a worldly attachment in her possession.

---

It only got worse as time went on.

With each passing day, Renzati was falling further. She wanted to keep Him around. She didn't want to give Him over to the Shade.

Every attempt at severing her attachment to Him was futile. What was more, her own mortality seemed to be swaying her further from the Shade's side. The revelation finally came to her one day.

She didn't want to die.

She didn't want to be erased from history like the Shade's goal would do to all.

So, finally, Renzati's resolve cracked, and she blocked out the Shade entirely. It was oddly not that difficult. Normally this would have alarmed her, to know the Shade's connection to her was weakened. But she had fallen too far from grace to care anymore.

Then she did what she had vowed never to do from the moment she first had the clan in her grip.

She courted Him.