Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It spends a lot of time stalking and pouncing playfully on the tails of adult dragons nearby.

And look! It has grown wings! It must be close to maturing.

Young dragons are relatively defenseless. They are born with relatively soft scales, which are shed and replaced with harder ones as the hatchling matures. Once a hatchling’s wings grow in, it typically marks the beginning of maturation. At this point they are often capable of hunting on their own and are usually left alone by their mother.

Stealing is wrong, but starving is worse.

Forced to fend for herself from an early age--the result of an abandonment brought around by political scandals and the shadow of assassins--this female soon grew hard to match the world in which she found herself. Snatching food from unguarded wagons and market stands, she soon took to calling herself Thief, as it was the only name she had ever been given. Yet she deserves the title fewer than do most, for even when her hardships had only just begun, she was a thief with a sense of honor. Loving others in the fashion typical of coppers, her exploits were always limited to the rich and snooty, the wares of the laboring and honest utterly ignored, and what goods she gained she was always ready to share with those in more need than herself. In this way, she was content.

But her life is soon to change.

Things are stirring--a long lost family, a strange friend, the black mind of the king--and Thief will never guess where fate is about to lead her.