Rhew

Rhew never knew his parents: he was sent away before his egg hatched, before he could ever meet the dragons he would much later grow to blame for his malady. Maybe that was a good thing. He was sure he would hurt them, should they show their faces.

He grew up in a fire flight, a hot land where he was always uncomfortable and his fur would burn if he got too close to the forge. His adopted parents, two male dragons unable to have children of their own, cared for him as best they could, but there was always something wrong with him: something melted that should be frozen, something dark and insidious and caught in his chest, right up against his heart. His mind worked differently, saw things in odd ways, learned in a way unfamiliar to the blacksmiths he was apprenticed to as a child. They said it was because he was a Gaoler, but they were wrong.

The Shade first made its presence known in nightmares, horrible terrors that left him screaming and spasming come morning. Then it stained his ice, the magical whorls and eddies of frost he used to temper metal and keep himself from overheating unnaturally darkened. Then it slipped into his feet, marking his footprints on the hot stone beneath him and leaving blemishes on his tools. Then it overwhelmed his eyes and his voice and his tongue, and slowly but surely the clan fell beneath him, indiscriminate but silent assassinations, death dealt emotionlessly in the middle of the night.

And at the end, only one dragon was left standing.

His adopted father, an Imperial who had never shown him anything but kindness and empathy, watched the clan die around him. He was suspicious, he was horrified, and when the final massacre tore apart his mate and the last four dragons of the clan, he was called to action. He struck down his child, but he couldn't bare to kill the only creature he had left to love.

Instead, he bound him and delivered him safely into the hands of the Cadaver Recovery Sub-Order, alongside a note asking them to treat him and a sealed note for Rhew should he recover.

After years of growth and therapy, Rhew still struggles with the Shade in his blood. They've never been able to remove it, just suppress it and monitor it. His emotions are volatile, and on bad days he hardly has control of himself. His ice magic is still heavily tainted by Shade, and Hearth, a Gaoler excelling in fire magic, was brought in specifically to keep that magic from spreading.