after which he slumped to the ground beside the dragon. He gave the reptile a somewhat appraising look and whistled through his teeth. ‘You look as if something’s chewed you up and spat you out. Well, several times, anyway.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Our dear commander isn’t shouting at you, so it looks like this is your first bout of exhaustion.’
‘Yeah, the first… Although I thought I’d reached my limit a few times during training…’ Draco managed to string a longer sentence together, and the lack of any negative physical reaction was like a light at the end of the tunnel.
‘Oh! During training.’ The elf pointed this out as if it were the answer to the endless stream of questions swirling round the dragon’s head. ‘Probably slowly and under supervision, using energy-sapping but safe spells. And that’s your current problem.’
‘Why don’t you go and be spiteful somewhere else, Zane?’ The second voice belonged to Noah. ‘You can see it must have been his first time, can’t you?’ Parthir crouched down opposite the dragon. ‘Shall I remind you what happened to you when it occurred to you?’ he snapped menacingly at the elf.
‘You don’t need to say anything; I remember it perfectly well. Unfortunately.’ Zane barely muttered the last word.
‘Back to the problem, Draco.’ Noah turned his attention to the reptile. ‘It’s nothing more than Excessive Mana Overload and Source Exhaustion Syndrome, commonly known as a mana hangover.’ As Cedric said, you’ll feel fine in a moment, but if I were you, I’d wait until tomorrow before using any magic. Otherwise, you risk fainting, at the very least.
‘Or death, at worst, hehe…’ The elf cackled.
‘I suppose I’ll have to remind you of a few things after all.’ The parthir threatened him.
‘All right, all right, I’m off.’ Zane was back on his feet in no time. ‘In my opinion, it was a bit foolish, but you proved yourself.’ He patted the dragon on the shoulder. ‘Cedric didn’t kick you out of the team, so you could even say it ended well.’ Without giving
