Author's notes:

Hello and thank you for taking your time to read through my story. This is the first time I seriously try to write one of my stories, so any kind of feedback, good and bad alike, is highly appreciated. English is not my first language, but I hope my writing is clean (enough). But please, I personally hate grammatical errors, so if you spot any (WHEN you spot any!), please notify me to fix them.

Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter II: Lady of the Emerald Dragon

Tisior straightened his white and silver robe nervously as he kept his eyes glued on the sturdy double door. The engravings in the dark wood depicted a dragon swooping down on its prey, and at this particular instant, he could perfectly relate with how the prey would probably have felt before facing its doom.

His grey, neatly trimmed, hair, his stoic stare, his proud posture, betrayed nothing. His own silver dragon embroidery on his robe warning everyone of his Master rank. Yet, every time he had to give a report to the duchess he felt like he was the same young apprentice that had appeared before her fifty years ago. And like then, this time too, he knew that he wouldn't have the answers she would be looking for.

After a short bow, the knight on the right side of the door gently knocked and opened it.

“Master Tisior, deputy commander of the support division here to report to you milady” The knight announced and closed the door behind him.

As the old woman slowly raised her head from the pile of papers she was absorbed in, Tisior felt like he was thrown alone inside a cage with a dangerous beast, and it was sizing him up to determine if he was food or not.

“Proceed” Her voice was low, gentle, almost motherly in tone. Yet he knew better than to be tricked just by her tone of her voice. The woman in front of him once held the monicker 'Daeva of destruction', and he didn't have good news for her.

“Milady, the last two knights and the last adept in the treatment ward lost their lives yesterday. This brings the tally up to twenty three knights and seven wizards lost in the battle the previous week. Everyone else is either recovering or completely discharged by now”

“I expected better of you Tisior. So many loses over an almost finished battle... What about the boy?” Her grey eyes left his as she lowered her gaze to the papers in front of her.

This was the question he was dreading to answer.

“He is... wierd”

Her eyes once again shot up to him. This time there was no pretense of kindness in them. “Explain”

“You know how badly injured he was. Whomever treated his internal injuries in the battlefield left everything else a mess. We repaired all of his fractured bones and all of his external wounds, but the main problem is the blood loss. When we look at him with mana sight, it is easy to see that he still misses a ton of blood, but when I try to use healing magic on him to replenish it, the spell fails, almost like it would fail if I was trying to heal a healthy man. Furthermore, since yesterday that his own mana replenished enough to put up a natural mana shield, we are having problems even monitoring him. His mana shield is extremely tight weaved, it is even tighter than what a lot of adepts can achieve when they actually try to bolster their defenses. This means that a lot of my apprentices and even some of my adepts can't pierce it to monitor his progress or to cast basic spells on him.”

“I see. Notify me immediately when he awakens.”

“We don't know if he will awaken milady. The blood loss was extreme and...”

“I said, notify me WHEN he awakens Tisior. Was it not clear enough?” The edges of her mouth twisted to the previous, kind, smile, as she continued. “Oh, and Tisior, a medic who cannot pierce a simple, unattended shield, is worthless in the battlefield. A wizard with the the rank of adept is not only presumed to be an active force in a battle, but sometimes they even lead squads. Tell your adepts that by the end of the week, I WILL have a full list of the names of the adepts who can't pierce the child's shield. They have until then to improve by themselves, after I get the list on my hand, I will personally supervise the training of whomever is in that list. That's all, you are dismissed.”

Tisior left a sigh of relief as the door closed behind me. “Well, that went better than expected” He murmured to himself.

*

Martyn grunted as he tried to shield to his eyes from the bright daylight that was pooring in from the window. His whole body felt like he was on fire. Every single heartbeat felt like something was pummelling every inch of his body with a hammer.

He tried to focus on the two people who were standing in front of him, but his vision was blurry. He saw one of them moving away from his field of view, but as he tried to turn his neck to follow the movement, a piercing pain shot up from his spine.

The person in front of him waved his hand and, suddenly, the pain all but dissappeared. A shrivelled old lady was standing in front of him. She was dressed in regal red robes with gold trimmings but her attire seemed to pale in comparison to the dragon emblem on her chest. It looked to him like it was made out of some sort of green, precious, stones that reflected the light and bathed the whole room in myriad of colors. His eyes barely caught a man in white robes with silver trimmings as he was leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

His stare returned to the old lady as she started to speak. Her hair was white, almost silver, arranged in a tight bun behind her head, and her kind, grey eyes, along with her wrinked face, reminded him of the midwives of his village.

“Don't strain yourself child. I've only relieved you from your pain a bit. Whatever is causing that pain is still there, and it would be a shame if you ended up hurting yourself more after all we've been through to fix you. Now, would you mind answering some questions of mine?”

Her voice was soft, gentle, but the tone in her question was known to him. It was the same tone his master used to use when he wouldn't take no for an answer but still wanted to appear polite enough to make it sound like a question. His own voice came out harsh, much harsher than he wanted, but his throat was coarse and dry, and despite whatever that old lady used on him, talking still made his lungs flare up with pain.

“My village... Master... What happened? Where am I?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure as well child. Answer my questions, and perhaps we will find an answer to your questions as well. Do you know what this is?” She continued, procuring a small black stone from inside her robe.

Martyn's arms moved almost instinctively towards his torso where a small pouch used to hang. “My charm... Give...”

“Your charm?”

“Master... No... Give it back.”

“Child, you are my guest here. Do not take my kindness for weakness. I've given you too much of my time already, and I've given you too many opportunities to answer my questions. But here you are, still defying me.” For a second, her eyes glowed white and the temperature in the room fell down to freezing. “If you don't answer me, I WILL kill you” As her eyes returned to their normal color, the temperature rose again, and the kind and warm smile returned to her face. “Now, let's try again. Do you know what this is?”

For a split second Martyn saw the old woman's eyes turn to white, like she was channeling her mana. As he instinctively opened his mana sight, he saw the whole room fill with pure mana. Her aura alone was enough to bath the place in the chilling embrace that mana had when one tried to perceive it through enhanced senses. That second he knew, he could easily lose his life here.

“Master gave it to me. He said that it would protect me. He said... if anything happened to him, I should take it someplace.”

“Where?” Her eyes kept looking at him with their previous kindness, but Martyn had already experienced how quickly they could become the harbringer of his death. All pretense of resistance left him as he continued.

“To the great academy of Ecten”

“What is your name? You've at least earned the right for introductions.”

For some reason Martyn felt like he was treated as a puppy that was given a treat.

“Martyn.”

“Well, nice to meet you Martyn. My name is Grant Magister Sivath Ecten. I'm one of the nine...” There was a silght pause as she seemed to swallow a knot in her throat “...eight Grant Magisters of Iles. I'm also the current administrator of the Great Academy of Ecten. Lastly, I'm the duchess of Aren, which is the province you are at this moment. You may address me as either Magister, or Duchess, or Milady. Now, let's talk about your 'Master'. Who is he?”

Martyn could feel the old woman capitalizing every word, every title she held, as she introduced herself. Their shaman never bothered with southern politics or history lessons, especially about one of the inner provinces like Aren. And his master had only taught him just a sliver about politics and the world outside their small village. But, from the little he actually knew, the woman in front of him was either insane enough that she would claim such a title without her actually having it, or one of the most powerful mages in the continent. From her little show earlier, he was betting it was the second.