I Will Be the Greatest Knight

Irene's heart thudded as the Commander jumped forward and put himself between the dragon and wizards. She wanted to shout for him to stop, considering knights were meant to protect their Duke—thoughts of needing to protect him since he wouldn't do it for himself were still fresh in her mind. They were her last memories before falling asleep, after all.

She couldn't say anything. One of the mages spoke first.

"Do you expect us to idly stand by when there's a bloodthirsty beast roaming the area?" An old mage stepped forward and removed his hood.

Bloodthirsty? Irene practically snorted. This is more of a dog than a dragon, they'll soon find.

She could only glare at the mage, noticing Siverly stand up the second the old man revealed himself. It must have been someone he knew.

Grandfather, Siverly noticed him right away.

The mage was divided, not knowing who he should oppose in that moment. He felt cowardly as he stood off to the side, but he couldn't stand in front of the head mage and think he would survive.

The Commander had no choice but to answer for everyone as he insisted, "Anyone here will tell you she's harmless. We've been traveling with her for two days. The only violence she has shown was toward monsters who posed a risk to us. If you need a magical orb so badly, someone has to know that I'm already sending one here in the first place."

It was obvious to Siverly that a few of the mages who weren't directly tying down the dragon were holding forth mana weapons to try and see if Henry possessed any mana. This caused the dragon to stir, wanting to protect the knight she had chosen as her person, imprinting to him when she was just out of her egg in Polona, at least in Siverly's opinion.

The barriers around her began to spark under the stress of her movements. Muscles underneath her scaled skin were flexing as she struggled, giving only a small showing of the power she truly possessed.

"Sylaron, calm down," the Commander urged. "I'm fine."

The knights didn't dare lower their weapons. It seemed that now that they had the dragon tied up, their focus had turned to the Commander. It was a tense moment when neither party knew if they were going to attack or defend.

The dragon struggled further, and the mana surrounding her mouth fell apart. For the first time since the other knights had seen the beast, she blew fire at the mages.

Irene gasped at that, unsure of what to do. It certainly wouldn't help their discussions any if the dragon hurt a mage. Would they kill her?

However, the mages showed their true power. Working together, they sent forward a shield of mana that soon turned invisible and knocked the beast to the ground momentarily. Even though she was still, her eyes behaved wildly as she looked over the situation, seemingly trying to find an opening to attack those who opposed her knight once more.

It was the Commander, who was in the most internal debate, not wanting to ruin talks with the mages but also finding it unbearable that Sylaron was in distress. Unable to hold back, he decided on his next move.

"Stop!" the Commander shouted, his powerful voice filling the space.

As he yelled the command, he unsheathed his sword finally. Only the others had their weapons drawn first, he had been trying to hold back.

To everyone's disbelief, the moment the Commander's sword pointed to the sky, a flash of lightning erupted from the tip and shot to the heavens.

Mouths hung open at this. Irene's eyes went to Sir Trenton or Siverly to see if this was something they knew the Commander could do. They were in just as much disbelief as everyone else.

Irene's heart thudded. Was the Commander in trouble?

However, rather than being angry at this, the old mage with a long, silver beard, much like Stanley, became amused.

"Much more of a mage than you are a knight," the old mage snapped. "Siverly, where have you found people like this? Or is this why you insist on staying in the north?"

Siverly could only stand there in just as much disbelief as the others, but being addressed by his grandfather, he clasped his mouth shut and his eyebrows merely lowered. This was not something he wanted to get in the middle of.

While he had been suspicious that there was something more to Commander Henry than meets the eye, he had pledged his loyalty to the man so that he had someplace safe to stay and a way to be paid to survive in the world.

Since Siverly wasn't going to answer, Aurium continued, "Now that we have this information out of the way, I'm finally interested in speaking with a group of unruly knights. Please, light a fire. It's awfully cold in this place."

Despite his request, there was no movement. Every knight and apprentice was waiting for their Commander to make the first move. He had finally sheathed his sword, but he stood before them with his muscular arms crossed over his bulky chest.

"I won't utter another word until you release her from your magical constraints."

Irene felt proud of her Commander. He was finally defending what was important to him, but she hated that being cornered was what caused him to finally do it—and it still wasn't directly defending himself.

Aurium made a point to sigh before he raised a thin hand and silently directed the other mages to do as they were told.

Only when Sylaron had her freedom of movement back did the Commander settle down. He sat with his back close to the dragon's side and her head, connected to her long neck, wrapped around him until it was on the ground next to his legs. She didn't take her golden eyes off of the mages.

Now that things were a bit more handled, Henry turned his head towards his dutiful apprentice.

"Bren, build us a fire," Henry requested. "We'll need it to last a while. We have plenty to discuss."

However, once Bren had built up the logs, Siverly pushed the apprentice so he would go and sit back down.

"I will light the fire with mana so we don't have to deal with smoke and it will last," Siverly insisted. He was replenished enough to do that much.

Only when golden yellow light escaped his finger and the fire was large enough did the head mage sit down and the other mages all sat to his right. On the opposite side, the knights and apprentice sat down as well. However, they refused to put away their weapons and made a point to rest their blades against their legs or in the grass beside them.

Siverly decided to sit next to his grandfather and not make the horrid man have to sit close to the knights. It was clear he was already coming into the discussion with preconceived notions and now that Henry had displayed some sort of strange magical attack, it was clear his biases had risen.

Finally, the talks could begin.