The Dragon Witch
The square before the royal palace thronged with knights, spears and bows held ready.
It was the usual sort of performance — a message that the kingdom still stood firm.
Somewhere between noon and afternoon, a woman in a black robe walked into that crowd.
The sunlight at that hour was feeble.
There were many people in the square. But for all their numbers, there was no life in them. No one laughed loudly. No one talked long. Even when they jostled one another, a sigh came before irritation.
The Empire had crossed the border.
Three eastern fortresses had fallen in a single day.
The Black Iron Legion was on the move, and the mage corps rode in its wake.
Those words had already traveled through every street of the capital and arrived here, at the square before the palace. People had heard the news too many times. The ones standing in the square that day were no different.
If they lifted their heads, they saw the palace. Higher still, the flags. Farther out, the low-hanging clouds. None of it offered comfort. The palace was too white, the flags too limp, the clouds too low. So people looked at their feet instead — as if to confirm that their own soles still touched this ground.
The woman in the black robe walked into that square.
Not everyone noticed her at once. The plaza before the palace had always drawn strangers, and after war broke out there were more of them than ever. A black robe alone was suspicious, but hardly rare.
This woman, however, was strange.
Her pace was not hurried. She did not seem lost, nor did she flinch at the knights before the palace gates. She simply walked — as though it had already been decided that she would enter. That was what caught people's eyes.
An old woman selling bread was the first to still her hands. Midway through handing a loaf to a customer, she saw the black robe approaching the palace from the outer edge of the square. The robe fell to her ankles; its hem brushed the cracks between the stones and swayed low. Beneath a hood pulled deep, a little silver hair spilled free, and the eyes visible between the strands were red.
The old woman could not lower the hand that held the bread.
"Granny?"
The customer called. The old woman did not answer. She had lived a long time. The long-lived do not know everything — but when they see something that must be avoided, the fear accumulated over years reacts first.
That one, you stay away from.
The thought rose unbidden. Even so, she could not cry out. She had no way to explain why.
Soon others began to look. A servant hauling supply crates slowed his steps. A messenger bound for the gate turned his head. A noblewoman's maid carefully tugged her mistress's sleeve. Near the fountain, a child stood with a wooden sword, mouth open.
"Mama, that person's eyes are red."
The child's mother clapped a hand over the little mouth at once.
"Don't look."
But it was already too late. Telling someone not to look only makes them want to look more. The adults were no different from the children. One by one, people slowed their steps. No one stopped outright — standing out for no reason before a palace on the brink of war was unwise — yet none of them could quite tear their eyes away.
The woman in the black robe kept walking toward the palace gates. Wherever she passed, the flow of people parted a little. No one had told them to make way, and she had not gestured. Still they edged half a step aside, faces blank with the knowledge that they did not know why. That was more ominous still.
"A witch?"
Someone muttered under their breath. The person beside them jabbed an elbow into their side at once.
"Watch your mouth."
But the word had already reached several ears.
Witch. Black robe. Silver hair. Red eyes. A path that led straight to the palace.
People hate ill-omened names — and yet when something ill-omened acquires a name, they feel relief. It lets them pretend they understand the incomprehensible.
Lakia felt those stares. Of course she did. A great many people were looking at her. Having come without the Agnotu, there was no avoiding them. If she went to meet the king and no one remembered her afterward, that would be a problem. She had to say she had come to stop a war — and if the speaker slipped clean out of people's memories, the whole thing was finished before it began.
Still, walking under every eye like this made her want to pull the hood down even lower.
Black robe. Silver hair. Crimson eyes. The square before the palace. Alone. Suspicious, yes. Even she had to admit she looked suspicious. But she could hardly change clothes now, and she was not sure she owned anything less suspicious in the first place.
Lakia swallowed a sigh.
Carnepisara really should have talked me out of this.
No. That old elf would only have worn a look of private amusement and said something like, "What a fine impression." And by "fine impression," he generally meant that other people would take one look and freeze solid.
As she drew near the palace gates, the knights finally reacted in full. The foremost of them leveled his spear. The tip stopped a little above Lakia's chest — a distance no ordinary person would ever reach, and yet close enough that the knight felt a flicker of unease. Enough to threaten; one step short of a thrust. A trained man's distance.
"Halt."
His voice was low and solid. The people in the square grew quieter still. Everyone was watching now.
Lakia looked at the spearpoint. Gleaming metal. An ordinary spear. Dangerous to a human; not even a toothpick to Alduin. The thought left her feeling faintly strange. It was dangerous to her. Mother of dragons she might be, and still she had to stop before a human's spear. Whether that was unfair or fortunate, she could not decide.
"I've come to see the king."
The knight's brow shifted.
"State your identity."
"Lakia."
"Your house?"
"I don't have one."
A small stir ran through some corner of the square. No house. Before the royal palace. Claiming she had come to see the king.
"Your affiliation?"
Lakia hesitated a moment. Not the Mage Tower. Not a guild. Not the church. Not a noble house. There was no reason to lie. That left only one answer.
"The Valley."
This time the murmur swelled a little. The Valley. The knight's grip on the spear tightened.
"This is no time for games."
"I'm not playing."
"The palace is not a place the unauthorized may enter."
"I know."
"Then withdraw."
"I can't."
Lakia looked past the gates. Tall doors. Moving soldiers. Servants hurrying to and fro. The light of a council chamber visible beyond an open colonnade. The kingdom was still holding. But Lakia knew what came after. The eastern line would buckle, the mountain roads would be cut, supply would collapse before spring, and the capital would burn. She could not simply leave that course alone.
Neither could she drop dragons on the imperial army. Five adults, and the war would end. Gargantua's words still lingered in her ears. So she had come to meet people first — to see whether a human path still remained in a human war.
"I need to see him now," Lakia said. "The king."
The knight's face set hard.
"I will warn you one last time," he said. "Withdraw."
Lakia looked at him. A young knight. Exhaustion under the eyes, lips dry, too much force in the hand that held the spear shaft. Not a bad man. Just doing his job. War had begun, and a woman who looked suspicious by any measure had appeared before the palace. Stopping her was the right call.
Right — and still she could not step back.
She spoke quietly.
"Sorry."
The knight's gaze shifted.
"I don't have a normal way in."
That was the end of it. The knight dropped his hand.
"Subdue her."
Two knights in front moved at once. Spears closed off Lakia's flanks, and another knight drove the sheathed length of his sword against her shoulder, trying to force her down onto the stone. It was not a killing motion. But it was fast, and it was strong. An ordinary person would have gone down, arms twisted, and been dragged away.
And yet — somehow —
The knights shouted in sudden alarm.
"Archers!"
Bowstrings drew taut above the gate. The knights ringed Lakia and opened distance; the civilians in the square surged backward. Not all of them fled. Fear and curiosity held them.
From the palace colonnade, court mages emerged — an old man in a gray robe, younger mages in short combat cloaks. They saw the severed spear, the empty scabbard, the woman in black, and the empty space around her. The eldest mage's face went rigid.
"Binding formation."
Blue light fell from the tip of his staff. It drew a circle on the stone and stretched toward Lakia's feet. The civilians held their breath. The craft of a palace mage was always wondrous and terrible to common folk. The lines of light moved like living cords, reaching for the hem of her robe, seeking her ankles, trying to cinch her wrists.
Lakia watched them and, for the briefest moment, thought something else entirely.
Clean work. People who actually studied really are different.
And the next instant —
Bang!
The blue formation burst in midair. The lines of light scattered like cut thread. The mages' faces changed. The civilians who saw those faces grew more frightened still. Knights startling was understandable. A mage looking startled by his own magic was a bad sign.
"Again!"
Three young mages moved together. Wind blades flew at Lakia; ice chains erupted from the floor; a red seal-sigil descended from overhead. This time, everyone thought, it would end. But all of it shattered before it reached her. The wind split in two and streamed aside. The ice chains fell to the stone like severed snakes. The red sigil lost its light, its center hollowed out.
Lakia still had not lifted a hand.
That was the most frightening thing of all. A strong knight swings a sword. A skilled mage chants. A saint prays. This woman did nothing — and yet nothing touched her. People do not have many names for a being like that. So they reach for the most familiar one.
"A witch..."
Someone whispered in a shaking voice. This time no one stopped the word.
Then the great doors of the palace opened. A low, heavy sound rolled across the square. Knights snapped to attention as one; the mages stepped back; the civilians bowed their heads by instinct.
The king emerged.
He wore no ornate crown. In its place he had thrown on a cloak marked with the kingdom's crest, and at his hip hung not a ceremonial blade but a sword that could actually draw blood. His face said he had not slept properly. His eyes, though, were not clouded. The people in the square saw those eyes and breathed a little. There was a king. The king was still here. That fact alone could hold a person for a moment.
The king looked into the heart of the square. Scattered remnants of spellwork. Frozen knights. A small woman in a black robe. He did not give the order to attack. He approached Lakia slowly, stopped beyond the wall of spears, and asked in a low voice,
"Are you the cause of this disturbance?"
Lakia considered briefly. She was already suspicious enough; there was no need to add more. She simply nodded.
"Yeah."
Breath caught across the square. Casual speech to a king. One knight started forward at once, but the king raised a hand and stopped him. He seemed to care less about Lakia's tone than about the fact that she had not fled even now.
"Your name."
"Lakia."
"Where have you come from?"
"The Valley."
A small stir passed among the court mages. The civilians heard it and grew more uneasy. Names that make mages react first are rarely good ones.
The king asked,
"Your purpose?"
Lakia looked straight at him. She was not large. The black robe made her seem smaller still, and the face under the hood looked almost young. And yet, in that moment, she did not seem small at all.
"I've come to stop the war."
The square went quiet. Someone nearly laughed. They did not manage it. I've come to stop the war — spoken by a suspicious woman in a black robe, in the middle of the palace square, to the king himself. On any ordinary day it would have been madness. But knights' spears and palace mages' formations had already been cut away before they could touch her. The evidence lying on the stones was too clear to dismiss as madness.
The king asked quietly,
"You mean the Empire?"
"Yeah."
"You alone?"
Lakia answered,
"Not alone."
Chrrrrrrk—
Beside Lakia's shadow, the air wavered. At first it looked like a film of glass catching the sunlight wrong. Then came a sound like hundreds of small pieces of metal shifting direction at once. Everyone in the square stiffened by instinct.
The scales did not stop at one. A long seam split open in empty air, and along that seam steel-colored scales flipped outward one after another from the inside.
Chrrrrk.
The transparent membrane that had covered an unseen body peeled away, and the blade-like scales hidden beneath it aligned in order. The neck appeared first — long and slender but not frail, each scale packed tight as stacked knife-edges. Then the shoulders and the ridge of the back emerged, and the raised scales along the spine caught the light and flashed cold.
Chrk. Chrrrk.
When the wings took form, several people swallowed screams. Those wings looked like leather membranes and like panes of glass that pushed the light away, and along their edges a line trembled faintly, as if the thinnest blades in the world had been joined end to end.
Last of all, the head appeared. A head far larger than a human's descended slowly behind Lakia, and steel-colored scales chrrrk'd into place down to the underside of the jaw and closed. The two eyes were quiet. That quiet was the more terrifying thing.
Masor did not roar. He did not bare his teeth. He did not strike the ground with his tail. He simply stood behind Lakia and looked down over the entire square.
At first the civilians did not understand what they were seeing. It was too large. Too quiet. And the fact that no one had seen it until a moment ago was more terrifying still. Someone sank to the ground. Someone began to recite a prayer. The old bread-seller dropped the loaf she was holding. The child behind the fountain could not even cry, mouth hanging open. All of them thought the same word.
Dragon.
A thing out of legend. Something that lived beyond the mountain ranges. Something that burned kingdoms in the old songs and died at a hero's hand. Something parents only mentioned when they wanted to frighten a child. That dragon was standing in the palace square.
One young knight raised his sword by pure instinct.
Srrk.
The blade vanished just above the hilt. The knight stared blankly down at the remaining grip.
Lakia spoke at once.
"Masor."
Srrk.
"I told you not to attack."
Srrk.
The sound managed to convey a sense of grievance.
Lakia narrowed her eyes.
"Cutting a weapon still counts as an attack."
Srrk.
"Don't talk back."
The square had frozen solid. A woman in a black robe was scolding a dragon. The dragon was answering. Probably. No one could find a way to accept that fact. Flee, prostrate, pray, or watch the impossible through to the end — no one could decide.
One of the court mages spoke in a trembling voice.
"You... brought a dragon?"
Another mage stepped backward as he answered.
"No."
His face was white.
"She didn't bring it."
He looked at Lakia. Black robe. Silver hair. Crimson eyes. A dragon standing in her shadow.
"This child simply follows me."
The words spread low through the square. A woman a dragon follows. The phrase was too heavy. The king was silent. The knights could not move. The mages still held their staves, but they cast no further spells.
Then someone murmured, very softly,
"Dragon..."
The word broke off there. But everyone already knew the next one. Fear wants a name. To believe they understand the incomprehensible, people attach labels. Someone else took the word up.
"Witch."
The name fell into the square.
Dragon Witch.
At first it was a whisper. But a whisper passes from mouth to mouth and quickly takes shape. A woman in a black robe. Silver hair and crimson eyes. A being who cut attacks apart without lifting a hand. One who kept a dragon like a shadow.
Dragon Witch.
Lakia turned her head at once.
"What?"
The reaction was oddly ordinary — so ordinary that a few civilians felt a strange sensation for a moment. Did she just not like the nickname? But it was already too late. A name once stuck does not leave people's mouths easily. Names born of fear least of all.
Lakia said quietly,
"No, that's not what this is."
Srrk.
Masor made a sound at her side. It sounded unnervingly pleased.
Lakia said immediately,
"You don't get to like it."
Srrk.
"And don't pretend you didn't."
The civilians watched the exchange and grew more certain. If that was not a witch, what else could she possibly be?
Lakia looked at the king. The king was looking at her.
"I have a great many children. I didn't intend to take part in this war... but I came because of their stubbornness."
"I—I see. Thank—"
"Of course I'm not doing this for free. My children are a considerable risk."
Using dragons as mercenaries. The king, thrown off balance, started calculating budgets and figures in his head. He could not begin to assemble that kind of wealth.
"What compensation would you require...?"
Lakia's eyes narrowed slightly at the corners.
"Give us the valley at the far left edge of the continental map as our land. It's no good for farming anyway, and it's full of dangerous monsters."
"Th-that would be enough?"
"Yes. I'm going to make a paradise for non-human races, not a human kingdom. Think of it as adding one more neutral nation."
The terms were not bad — but the king's dignity made groveling awkward.
"E-even so, if we could negotiate further inside—"
"The Empire's ambition has gone past all bounds, and their invasion will become a massacre."
In the original story, the Empire would do anything for power. In the end they touched a forbidden thing and pulled off a legendary disaster that linked the continent to the demon realm. If I don't stop them now, the Empire will only grow more troublesome and larger.
With the existence of dragons beginning to spread, the Empire is the greatest threat to the Valley. They have a few transcendent beings of their own. If I don't deal with this now, the children will be in danger. They're nothing next to Carnepisara — but they do have a small chance of killing a dragon.
Cold red eyes fixed on the king.
"Considering the military power of dragons, these terms are more than fair, don't you think?"
"...Yes, ma'am."
And so the kingdom gained dragons as a military asset.
In an age that could not field aircraft and at best managed to tame avian magical beasts — dragons.
"Your Majesty. Every front where the Dragon Witch has been deployed... complete victory."
"Wow."
It was an unstoppable catastrophe.