Dragon. Thief. Mastermind.
Who is Darius?
Darius Vermu has become one of my favorite characters to write. He is an acid green dragon with black spikes, orange flames and a human form with the unique ability to create mind bonds with others. However, after losing his family, Darius fell so far down his dark path that he didn’t know how to get back to who he once was.
The fallen dragon used to be so much more than what he currently is. His green scales showed he was once a dragon with strong earth magic abilities—primarily in relationships with others. He’d been gifted with the ability to relate and form bonds with any living creature.
A power he used to create a mind-bond with his cousin Auryon. Through this bond, he could speak and share emotions telepathically. It caused many late nights and lost sleep because he and Aury wouldn’t stop talking.
Losing his family and his thirst for vengeance corrupted his abilities. This act turned his magic, something that once brought connection and love, into a dark and manipulative control over another person.
Once he corrupted his magic, the fire he breathed also went from green to orange. Further showing the perversion of his power.
This brilliant shape-shifting dragon was the only son of clan leaders, Gerwin and Jendalee Vermu. He lost his parents when their Flight (a grouping of dragons traveling together) was attacked by gray, smoke-wreathed monsters call the Reykur Mir. The smoke monsters killed several dragons in the group in the initial attack, but took the survivors hostage for their human masters in Hadrian.
Since that day, Darius has been an orphan. He lived in the confines of the prison beneath Hadrian’s stadium with his aunt, uncle, and two cousins whom we meet in The Prisoners of Hadrian.
The loss of his parents and his near-death escape from the ancient Roman-like civilization of Hadrian left Darius with a bleak view of the world. He gave up anything that tied him to his old life and the pain that lurks in his past. Instead, he recreated himself into the Terror of the North, known as “Cadaras.”
Darius’s hatred of the Northern Tribes also started when his masters used tainted darts on him and his kin when they tried to escape. In revenge for aiding the people of Hadrian, he turned his wrath upon the tribes, and that is where we meet him in The Queen of the Night.
To make Darius’s story even more tragic, we learn that an engagement had existed between him and Fiora prior to his capture. Once he got free and they were reunited, they married in secret, unable and unwilling to trust anyone around them.
Fiora fueled his hatred of the other Guardians to accomplish her own ends of getting back at Tellen for his crimes against her.
However, Darius only ever wanted to get back to Hadrian to free his family. Something he gave up on after his imprisonment in the ice caves beneath Aros’s Temple on North Pointe. Since then, he believes his family was all killed either in their escape from the prison or over the course of the past one thousand years when he was trapped in the ice.
Darius makes his first appearance in The Raider’s Curse, as the looming threat. Then, we really get to know him in The Queen of the Night as our primary villain. He is Reina’s master, teaching her how to climb, harness her abilities, and how to steal just about anything. Yet, he makes the mistake of letting her belief that there is still some good in him open up wounds he’d thought had scarred over.
Despite all his efforts, Reina shows him he still has a heart, even if it is buried deep.
Going into books four and five, you can expect to see much more of Darius and Reina (Nienna) struggle to overcome the other.
