I Will Be the Greatest Knight

Chapter 517: The Man and the Dragon

Even though it was practically freezing outside, Irene opened the window eagerly, knowing who was on the other side. A breeze came into the room that chilled her exposed legs as well as her face and chest, but she wasn’t going to complain.

"Where have you been?" she asked Henry.

The knight leaned into the window so he could drop his helmet inside and reach for his wife, but he looked down towards his feet before he could escape entirely.

"I’ll be back out in a moment," he said to the dragon who was precariously allowing him to use her head and long neck as a means to climb into a window.

Sylaron merely blew steam out of her nose and waited patiently for the knight as she always did. She existed in two states... waiting for Henry and being with Henry.

Irene helped her husband through the window that was hardly wide enough to fit his large frame through, but he managed it anyway. Once he was on his feet, Irene wrapped her arms around him despite the fact he was wearing cold metal, and it was freezing to the touch. One of her hands went into his hair, and she breathed him in.

"You smell like the cold," she uttered.

"Forgive me for leaving the winterization," he responded quietly.

He held onto her tightly. At least the undersides of his arms were still open, so he wasn’t entirely crushing her with the metal plates—not that she minded in the first place.

"It must have been something important," Irene insisted.

Henry pulled away and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. A sigh escaped his lips, and he shrugged.

"Let me remove this cold armor, and I’ll explain," he answered, but as he looked at his wife, he couldn’t help observing that the underside of her eyes seemed a bit darker than usual. "Are you tired?"

"Depends," Irene admitted.

Henry began removing his armor, and Irene helped him loosen the straps so it wouldn’t take long. She piled the metal onto an armor stand as she listened to his explanation.

"Would you visit Siverly with me?" he wondered. "I need your expertise."

"Of course!" Irene immediately agreed. "But please give me more details, so I’m not going in blindly."

As he spoke, Irene decided she would have to get into clothing appropriate to face outside, and since the temperature dropped, she knew it would need to be warm.

"I am certain Sylaron saw a wyrm, but when she retrieved me, by the time we got there, there were too many clouds further north to see what she had discovered," he admitted. "She kept repeating ’foe,’ ’snake,’ and ’big’ over and over again."

Irene turned to look at him when she had an outer coat over her tunic; her eyebrows were lowered as she contemplated this.

"How close?" she asked.

"Just beyond the mountains, it seems," he admitted. "Closer than I would like a wyrm to be, especially considering its significance to you."

Before Irene could put on her boots, she rushed to Henry and grabbed at the front of his coat.

"It was much further than that before," she realized. "There must be something we... I can do."

Henry gingerly grasped Irene’s hands with his.

"There is no ’I’," he insisted. "I will go there with you regardless. It’s my job as the Duke."

She breathed out a slow sigh, knowing she was getting ahead of herself.

"Then let us see what Siverly thinks," Irene responded. "If there are any precautions we can take."

Since there was a dragon waiting for them, the two of them slipped out of the window and onto the dragon’s head so she could place the two on her back. Even though the walk to the mage’s area was short, the dragon seemed to be clinging to Henry, and based on what Irene saw when she experienced a wyrm, she didn’t blame the dragon for being fearful."

The dragon stayed close even when the two of them knocked on the infirmary door. At least they knew that someone was awake inside because the window not yet covered by oiled paper for winterization revealed candles still lit inside as well as a large fire in the fireplace.

A disgruntled Siverly appeared at the door when the two knocked. He put a finger over his lips.

"Stanley is fast asleep," he warned.

"We’re here to talk to you," Henry responded.

The mage opened the door, but he still held a finger over his lips. With his other hand, he rummaged through a pile of mana stones and placed a yellow one on the table beside where Stanley snoozed in a chair. Soon, a yellowish boundary surrounded the old mage, which caused Siverly to gesture for them to continue as he settled down at one of the tables inside.

"We discussed a wyrm previously," Henry explained.

"And we came to the conclusion that there wasn’t evidence of a spell on the dame any longer," Siverly snidely responded.

"That isn’t what this is about," Irene interjected.

Henry nodded in confirmation. "Sylaron saw a wyrm north of the mountains. Closer than when Irene and her father faced it last."

Siverly was suddenly interested. He had picked up a closed book to show them he would rather be reading than chatting, but quickly placed it back down on the table. He had been in a slump after Arthur’s death and hiding himself away with books and research, but this was turning out to be a worthy distraction.

"I just can’t decide why it would go further south than where it’s safe in the deep snow far north," Irene admitted. "From the top of the mountain during winterization, I noticed that the snow was already falling there."

"Well, the snow will fall here soon as well," Siverly reminded them. "Since wyrms don’t travel without snow, there’s only a bit of time to prepare before it can make a drastic move."

His warning was heard loud and clear. It made Irene’s blood run cold despite how warm the room they were in was.