Klaus's voice echoed across Iskandriel like thunder trapped in crystal. "I AM KLAUS LIONHART, ENVOY OF THE RIKXIA EMPIRE—"
Silence followed. Not the silence of disbelief, but the stunned quiet of recognition. Of legend made flesh.
In the merchant district, a shopkeeper dropped his ice-carved wine goblet. It shattered against the frozen counter with a sound like breaking stars. "Klaus Lionhart?" he whispered. "The boy who shattered a Mythril Crystal? At twelve?"
Three streets away in the scholar's quarter, a historian abandoned his scrolls mid-sentence. His quill clattered to the floor as he rushed to his balcony, his rheumy eyes straining at the white-haired figure on the dragon's back. "They said he became the youngest Swordmaster on the continent," he murmured to his apprentice. "Stronger than anyone his age. Stronger than anyone period."
