One of my eyebrows rose a little at the way the young man addressed me. In hindsight it must have been because I was tired and exhausted, both physically as well as mentally. Finally things clicked. Of course he would look familiar. He didn't look much like the king. He obviously came more after my, or rather our, mother. His looks were quite similar to my own in many regards. Another man, this one a dark elven attendant approached. My brother spoke up again. “He will see your attendants to a nearby tent.”

The elf picked up the banner of my domain, under which we had gathered, as the king finished his proclamation and turned to address the two harpies who were with me. “Please follow me.”

I nodded as Quu'za looked to me for guidance. “Go, get something to eat and rest up. I will find you when it is time to get going again.”

Then I followed my brother in the direction of the king's great tent. We didn't head for the front entrance. My father had seated himself there once more, holding court and receiving individual petitioners now.

My guide followed my gaze. “It will be a while before he is done with that.” He flashed me a grin. “At least that will give us some time to look after your wounds properly. I'm Tero by the way and I have grown up in the Domain Thaa, all the way out on the western border, little sister.”

I nodded as I followed him. “I'm Keza, of the domain Zoth, but you knew that already of course.”

He grinned. “Of course. The herald made a spectacle of your introduction as is proper. It probably was kind of like that at the capital as well when you were introduced to our mother.”

We passed several royal guards as we approached one of the tent's side entrances. They mustered us carefully but did not step in our way or stop us. Tero held the entrance open for me before entering as well. Most curious, I almost expected a servant to take care of things like that. And although he wasn't dressed like a warrior he most certainly did not carry himself like a servant either.

The tent's interior was divided into several sections by multilayered cloth walls that muffled sounds, both those from outside as well as those from other partitions of the tent, quite well. My brother led me into one of those. There were stands both for weapons and armor as well as simple cot. Well it might have been simple by most standards but it still was a welcome luxury to me.

Tero gestured for me to make myself comfortable. “I will get Una, she is one of our elder sisters as well as an accomplished healer. She will look after your injuries. And once that is taken care of we can introduce you to the others.”

I just nodded and put my sheathed glaive into the weapon stand, glad for once that I could relax a little. I tried to take off my armor as well but I didn't get far. Considering that I had one arm in a sling and that I hurt just way to bad all over there was no way I would get out of the thing without some help.

After a while Tero returned with an older woman who was in turn accompanied by two girls who probably were a little younger than me. Was that the Una he had mentioned? She looked old enough to be my mother. I looked from her to the two girls and back again. She was old enough to be my mother! And those two probably were nieces of mine!

The older woman chuckled and I blushed. I probably had been staring in a less than polite way. She didn't seem to mind though. “I get that look a lot in recent years. As a matter of fact our dear Tero here wasn't all that different only the year before the last. It seems as if you youngsters have a hard time grasping just how long our father has been ruling the realm.”

Her daughters giggled and entered the compartment with their mother who in turn shooed Tero away. “Go, we will take care of things here.”

He shrugged in an apologetic way and left. “She is all yours. I'll try to make sure that there will be some food left for the lot of you by the time you finish.” His words trailed off as he disappeared deeper into the tent.

Without too many words the trio started helping me out of my armor. Una traced her fingertips across some of the scales. “Real Wyvern scales. It has been a while since I got to see something like this.” She smiled with a faraway look on her face. “Father had one of these when he was much younger. He had a matching shield as well. Maybe you should look into getting one as well. Some of the scales of that big beast you killed probably would be big enough.”

I groaned as I sank back down onto the cot while the girls draped my scale male across the armor stand. At her last words I raised my bandaged arm, at least a little. “Something like that might have saved me some trouble. I'll see if I can have it done.”

One of the girls disappeared only to return with a bucket of steaming water, a sponge, soap and towels a little later. I wanted to protest but the older woman hushed me before I got even a single word out.

“I can tell that you had a bath before getting here. You are not smelling like you spent days or weeks in your armor after all. You did sweat on your way here though, so please bear with us.”

I just sighed and shrugged my tunic off my shoulders so the three could give me another sponge bath. I couldn't help but blush a little. At the same time a rueful smile found its way onto my face as memories of my childhood surfaced, when mother had to chase me around the mansion to get me into the bath. Those had been fun times, unburdened by things I knew now.

Una must have noticed as she pulled me into a quick hug as she finished toweling me off. The gesture of affection elicited a pained groan from me as there was no way she could hug me without hitting some of the bruises covering me.

While the two girls backed off a little Una turned me around at arms length to get a better look at all my injuries. She turned to one of her daughters. “Get me some ointment for the bruises.” The girl nodded and ran of like the wind.

Next she undid the bandages around my arm to get a good look at that from both sides and close up as well.

“An arrow punched through my shield. Had to push it all the way through to get it out.” I tried not to grimace.

She nodded at my explanation. “It looks like it was taken care of properly. We can still speed up your recovery a little though.” Without further explanation she gathered Mana and cast a healing spell with practiced ease. It wasn't the spell Kaele used. It was similar but yet different. It worked much faster for one.

Even as I looked on the wound closed little by little as she kept feeding Mana into the spell matrix. After a little while she nodded satisfied and stopped. She showed the wound to her other daughter as well. “It is better to let the healing finish naturally.”

I moved the arm around carefully, testing its range of movement. It felt a little hot but otherwise it was indeed much better.

Una watched me for a moment then she reached out to grasp my face to turn my head sideways a little. “Lets have a look at that horn next. I'm sorry to say that I know no spell that could regrow it though. Still it is a wound that we need to tend to.” She examined it a little closer. “At least it was an exceptionally sharp blade.” She grimaced before she continued. “I have seen some badly splintered horns lately.”

I grimaced a little as well. It being cut was bad enough. It splintering even further was a nightmare. “It was the blade of Gothol'uin's corpse king and I was quite lucky that it didn't take of my head instead of just cutting off a piece of my horn.”

Una's face darkened as I mentioned the ghoul king and his blade. “Are you sure? I have seen some wounds caused by these weapons. They seem to close up just fine at first but keep reopening soon after as a terrible fever starts eating up the body. I fear the worst for those poor souls.”

At her words realization dawned upon me. I turned to show her my other flank. “I had a wound like that after facing the ghoul who dared attack my home. It did almost kill me if it weren't for the troll healers who took care of it. They said that it was a curse that kept the wound from properly healing.”

My older sister traced a finger over the scar that was all that remained from that particular nasty experience before jumping to her feet. “I'm sorry, if you are right I have to make arrangements to save those wounded if it is not already too late for some. My daughters will take care of the rest.”

She turned to face them as the one who had been gone for a while returned with the ointment she had been sent to fetch. “Ointment for the bruises and a Regeneration spell for the horn. It doesn't look too bad. Get her one of my tunics as well.” Her words were curt and before either of the girls could say anything she was gone.