A Symphony Of Frost And Flame

7 • LARICE

Heavy rainfalls had only been bad luck for Larice. She had the same trouble before, the biggest trouble she had in her entire life, where she lost control of her curse and accidentally killed those people in the past. Larice tried not to remember, as it would only worsen her condition now.

"Move," Grand Arien Homeli said, pushing Larice at her back up to the wide stairs.

Larice glared back at the middle-aged Grand Hunter before heading on. She held her broken necklace close to her chest as her hair, clothes, and boots were all soaked up from the rain.

In front of them stood the main fort of Shavath—the Fortresi. It only sheltered the upper ranks of dragon hunters who administered the whole fortress, as what Larice had learned.

The top of the three-story building hung two different banners already soaked from the rain—one was the banner of Shavath and the other one of the Dravalon Empire. The country's flag depicted a symbol of a golden sunburst, in honor of their Sun God and Summer Deity, Phlareus—an enormous bird having skin and feathers of blazing fire.

Larice had learned from some books in Librad that Phlareus had a heart which they called Orb of Phlareus. It had been kept inside the Emperor's Palace in Sunvar City, the capital of Drava. However, despite her interest, she never believed in Dravalonian god. Back in her country in Glacia, they also have a different deity, but she couldn't remember.

"I said move," Arien spoke with a louder voice this time.

Larice had never been inside the Fortresi. Two guards stood on both sides of the entrance and opened the huge double doors for them. A warm gust of air sighed on her face. The doors revealed a dark hallway with dim lamps that hung on both walls.

Larice made her way inside, leaving wet tracks on the floor of black quartz. The hallway led the path towards the Gallerion. It was where the dragonites were displayed—those tiny, amber spheres collected by dragon hunters after slaying a dragon. The dragonites were framed in glass, displayed under the name of the hunter who collected them, and attached to the wall. Larice slowed down as she gazed at the ranks of hunters based on the number of dragonites they had collected.

Hunters who have slain a single dragon were ranked as 'Slayers'—then they could reach the rank of 'Crusade Hunters' if they collected ten dragonites. 'Grand Hunters' like Arien Homeli had slain over twenty-five dragons. Above them were the 'Archon Hunters,' dragon experts who had defeated more than fifty dragons. And last, the 'Master Hunters,' the highest rank in Shavath who had collected over a hundred dragonites.

Currently, there's no Master Hunter in Shavath. The last one, Gariffon the Dominator, had died of age a couple of years ago.

Larice gave a sad smile when she found his name. "Riqui the Swordmaster ..." she whispered. The name was displayed before Gariffon the Dominator under the Master Hunter rank, but Riqui's dragonites had been taken away.

Larice knew that her mentor had been from Shavath long before he found her and raised her. But she didn't know why he had been banished from the country of Drava. Riqui never mentioned it before. But he was a good and honorable man. Larice did not believe he would do something bad enough for him to get banished.

At the center of the Gallerion stood the statue of Murgal, the first dragon slayer who founded Shavath and was named as the First Hero of Drava. His black sword, called the Unburnt, drove its point through the dragon's head. And so the hunters used it as their banner in Shavath—the black sword with a pair of white dragon wings on both sides.

As they climbed to the second floor, Larice's thought went back to the incident she caused earlier. It wasn't her fault—but in everyone's eyes; it was. The new hunters would probably talk about her and despise her by now after what they had witnessed. But she did not care anymore. All she needed was to get out of this forsaken place. But first, she had to get the truth or the clue or whatever it was waiting for her in the Ardrad.