Heir of the Dragon

Counsel

The counsel room was magnificent. I could hardly believe they'd built such a place just to hold meetings. It was a spacious, circular room. The many levels of polished wooden benches that wrapped around the room were tiered downward, sloping toward the sunken center platform. A wooden staircase cut through the rows of seats and allowed access to the lowest part of the room. The whole thing was arranged such that no matter what seat you chose, you could still easily see every other counsel member. The twelve seats on the lowest level of benches, with banners draped from their separate podiums, were reserved for the highest twelve counsel members. The royally decorated seat at the head of the room, opposite the huge wooden doors at the top of the stairs, remained empty, even as counsel member after counsel member filtered in and chose seats around the room. It must have once been the priestess's seat --when she hadn't been so ill. The three of us sat in one of the upper levels near the stairs.

I sat with my head in my hands, elbows propped on the raised desk area that accompanied every bench, watching the room fill with elves. Fennec and Aywa sat beside me, discussing something I hadn't yet picked up on. Four of the high counsel seats were now occupied; three older women, and a man with greying hair and a timeworn face. One of the women looked particularly aged. Her hair was thin, white, and whispy, and she stared forward blankly, with a pair of pale glassy eyes.

A gust of fresh air made me glance up toward the door just as a broad shouldered man in a dark green cape brushed past me, descending the stairs toward the center of the room. He took the counsel seat decorated with a green and voilet banner bearing the image of crossed blades. His face was hard--- aged and stoney. The lines in his skin ran like unmoving rifts through his dark expression. He was wearing chains around his neck, gold and silver, resting against the unpolished armor he wore. From one hung a twisting metal pendant embellished with a single deep-violet stone. His thick greying hair was brushed back, but a few strands still hung around his icy green eyes. The sullen look in his face had me staring at him for just a little longer than necessary. He seemed familiar for some reason, but I figure out why.

"Aywa," I said, trying to pry her attention away from the handsome ingryd that sat between us.

"Fennec!" She scolded with a smile, batting his hand away when he reached to play with her braid. "Yes, Ellany?" she added, leaning around him to meet my eyes.

"Who is that man?" I gestured in his direction with my head, "The one in the bannered seat?"

I watched as her eyes found the man's stone-still figure.

"Oh-- Four?" She asked.

"..What?"

The noise level in the room had risen and it was getting harder to hear her over everyone else's voices. Had she just called him Four?

"Everyone calls him Four, but his real name is--" She paused and furrowed her brow, glancing back at the man," ..Actually, I don't know what his name is. I've always known him as Four..."

I gave her an incredulous look.

"His name is a number?"

"He's a legend. Everyone took to calling him that because he was the general who defeated ten thousand ghere with a force of only four thousand." She looked down at her folded hands on the desk, "That was their first attack; the beginning of this terrible war."

I looked back at the stone-faced man. He certainly fit the image of a war general. How long had it been since that first battle? How long had the ghere been spreading death like this?

At that moment, the volume of the voices dropped abruptly. I glanced up to see a particularly unattractive, middle-aged woman rising from her bannered seat. She was also adorned in chains and wore a rather unfitting silver crown.