The Ritual of Blood and Bone

Chapter Forty-Eight

Shay Dinara.

Seraphina frowns as Professor Mallaroy writes the name on the board.

"Shay Dinara, do you know what it is?" she asks as she finishes.

Kirnon clears his throat awkwardly. "I know we all come from measly Stain Education, but it isn't so bad that we aren't taught about the country that shares our border," he says, then smiles charmingly.

Professor Mallaroy rolls her eyes and then lets out a long breath.

"You'd be surprised at how terrible Stain education can be. Trust me, Kirnon, I've had Stain students join this Academy who don't even know the name of our capital city."

"Whose fault is that?" Nysa mutters under her breath.

"What was that, Nysalanai?" Professor Mallaroy asks.

"Nothing," Nysa replies. She narrows her eyes and then turns back to the board. She reaches up to a small chord above it and pulls down a large map.

"Shay Dinara is the only country that borders our own." She reaches out with her cane and runs the tip of it along the Northern borderline on the map, which shows the whole continent.

Narenna is at the bottom, and the biggest country on the continent of Orishan. It is practically its own country, surrounded by sea on all sides with the exception of the strip of land that connects the two nations.

"What do you know about the Shay Dinarians?" Mallaroy asks.

"They have dragons," Seraphina replies, remembering Calla's lessons. 

She nods her head. "Yes, dragons." 

Seraphina frowns slightly as the professor's face pales slightly. 

"Turn to page 572 in your textbooks," she instructs. They do so quickly. Seraphina's eyes widen at the detailed illustrations of the dragons. The drawings make them look terrifying, with evil eyes and grizzly, monstrous faces.  Seraphina gets the sense that it isn't doing the creatures any justice.

"Tensions between Shay Dinara and Narenna have always been tense. The Shay Dinarians, as a race, are religious zealots. They believe that they need to spread their false religion across the world." She pauses and points at the other countries that sit above Shay Dinara.

"Over the last hundred years, Shay Dinara has slowly invaded the rest of the continent."

A gasp ripples throughout the room and Seraphina gulps, remembering Calla talking about it in one of her history lessons.

"What about us?" Ari asks.

"And this is where Stain education fails you," Mallaroy says. "The Shay Dinarians have tried three times to invade our lands. Each time resulted in a long, bloody war with mass casualties on both sides."

"How did we fight off their dragons?" Nysa asks, frowning as she flips through the book and reads over the dragon's many strengths. Seraphina does the same, her heart sinking as she reads over how they are almost invulnerable, and how they can breathe out fire so hot that it can melt cities amongst these creatures' other terrible powers. A chill runs down her spine.

"Despite our nations being at war, we have always come to a mutual agreement during wartime. They don't deploy their dragons, and the Order doesn't get involved. Though there may not be much even the strongest Ethereal can do against a dragon, the Basilisk and Dragons are fairly evenly matched. Neither side wants to lose their greatest asset."

"So the main battles have been at the borders," Nysa says.

"Yes," she replies. "The Shay Dinarians do possess magic as we do, but we've always managed to fend them off..."