Silver Dragons are arguably one of the most beautiful types of dragons. They live in high altitude habitats such as mountains. Male Silvers hunt and eat meat. While not as beautiful or radiant as females, silver males possess better physical attributes, such as strength.

Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.

Silvershadow's early years were difficult; his mother, Songsilver, fled with him as an egg from the tyrannical Weyr of Flame. Hatched while they fled, his earliest memory is of one cold night they were almost caught, how his mother gripped him and flew faster than she ever had, clutching him so hard his ribs ached for days after. He doesn't remember the pain, or her grip, or the dragons pursuing them, but he remembers looking down into the rushing trees, seeing light falling away behind them, his mother's wide eyes staring ahead unblinkingly, tears streaming as she forced her eyes open in her flight.

But they did escape that night, eventually lost the hunters, and arrived to a safe place, the Weyr of Soft Flowers, a secretive collective of dragons whose primary tenet is pacifism. Silvershadow, ever quiet, became fast friends with another hatchling his age, a Tercorn named Softskies. Very oddly, they share the same birthday, and since Silvershadow's arrival, they have been as brothers.