Elven Legacy

Chapter 40

Frankly, Tessa wasn't too clear on that part. Dylani had never been very specific. Perhaps he hadn't had a clue where his dragons sodded off to either, and hadn't wished to admit it.

Whilst she waited, she could still hear the dolla dancers outside, the musician's rather repetitive melody, and the clink-clang of their skirts. The short breaks they occasionally took were blissful reprieves.

The second hour was also punctuated by the clashes and thumps of practice blades from the courtyard. And from classrooms on the first floor and second, teachers' lecturing voices drifted and mingled. Sadly her grasp of the Chyulin language proved insufficient to catch anything substantial.

Until finally – thank the gods – the dark-haired woman from before was gracious enough to lead Tessa all the way across the building, and out into the courtyard. Anticipation clambered back up Tessa's chest.

A long strip of the flagstone courtyard was dedicated to the pupils' training, with their wooden practice swords. An older man in a tunic as black as his marks, with long gray hair in a ponytail, paced back and forth beside the fighting pairs, proffering advice here and there. Tessa was reminded of Kitera with her castle guards.

Next to the wall fortressing the courtyard, a set of stone table and benches lay nestled under a trellis ceiling decked out in silver-flowering creeper. This was where the helpful woman directed Tessa, before leaving her with the dark-haired man who sat there alone, his back to the wall.

As if to mimic the flowers that ran up and along the trellis, the master's tunic, too, was a bright silver. Placed before him on the table was a large shallow bowl bearing fruits that looked, for Tessa, quite exotic. She recognized persimmon, kumquat, lychee and plum, but there were others she'd never seen before. Her stomach rumbled in protest to how starved she'd let herself become over the past day.

Beside the fruits was a much smaller plate where the master had set his currently unused tobacco pipe. At his inviting gesture, Tessa sat on the stone bench facing him, her back to the swordsmen in training.

He offered a kindly smile, for all the world like some benevolent father – or perhaps grandfather; she found it rather impossible to guess his age.

Yes, immortality will do that to a person, Tess. Let's try to keep up, shall we?

"Thank you for accepting to see me," she said in the best Chyulin she could muster. She would've added 'on such short notice' had she known the words.

"Could you take off the hood?" He spoke in Azurian, and a wave of relief washed over her.

"Of course," she responded in the same language – her most fluent, after Felleran. She lowered the hood, and for a lovely moment the wind ruffled at her hair, and the morning sun filtered past clouds and vined trellis to kiss the side of her face.

She rested her arms on the stone table as the headmaster observed her.

"You're from the north?" he asked, his voice smooth and as ageless as his appearance.

She smiled. "From Fellera, indeed."

"You're far away from home," he said.

Behind her came the telltale thump and grunt of a student falling to the ground. Juna's dark gaze briefly flickered there, but he soon glanced back at her. The clashes of training swords resumed.

"And yet, in some ways I feel more at home here," she answered. "For obvious reasons, I suppose." She glanced down at her marked hands.

"How old are you?" Juna asked.