Review: A Dragon and His Knight by M. Raiya

Rating: 3 stars

Dragon Justin and his Knight, Wells, have been together for over 1,000 years, never apart for a moment. A decision to reenter the  human world once more sees them settled in a college town in New Hampshire.  Wells enrolls them both as students in the local university to pass the time and gather knowledge, a seemingly innocent pastime that becomes fraught with danger. What will happen when their bond of a millennia is destroyed?

A Dragon and His Knight is a short story in the same universe as Notice and A Sky Full of Wings.  The author doesn’t say specifically where it fits in but I would put it at the end after A Sky Full of Wings otherwise very little in this story will make sense to the reader.  I am very fond of the dragon lore and dragons/knight relationships that Raiya has created for this series. A Dragon and His Knight adds some additional facts of dragon lore and part of the backstory of the ancient black dragon and knight that appear at the end of A Sky Full of Wings that was missing from that book. But in some circumstances it also muddies the very history that has been laid down before, including adding a somewhat abusive relationship between a secondary dragon/knight couple that was just confusing.

What the author does so well is to portray the loving master/servant relationship that does exist between Justin and Wells, one that has endured over 1,000 years.  These two characters make the story.  When they appeared out of nowhere in A Sky Full of Wings, I wanted to know more about these remarkable characters who had such a large impact on that story.  I still feel that way.  This story was so short that it truly was only a sip that whetted my appetite instead of a drink that satisfied my thirst.  I still want more of Justin and Wells backstory as well as those other dragons and knights from their era.  A Dragon and His Knight is truly just a glimpse into a very small section of an ongoing story.  I hope that the author has a much longer book planned that will help fill in the many gaps left by A Dragon and His Knight.  Until we get more exposition, I think I would skip this addition, and if you love dragons, read Notice and A Sky Full of Wings instead.

Books in the Notice series or universe are:

Notice, Notice #1

Nice: The Dragon and the Mistletoe, Notice #2

A Sky Full of Wings, Notice #3

Origin (in the Shifting Steam Anthology)

A Dragon and His Knight, 29 pages published previously in the Mine Anthology