Author's Note: This is the same first chapter as my old story 'Seer', but some new details added. It's unusually short, but that's because it's nly an introduction - more of a prologue than a chapter but still. This story will have the same characters as 'Seer', but the storyline will be different as I wasn't really happy with the old one at all. Please review and give me some ideas about where to take the story! I have the next few chapters already written :)

Chapter One - Beginning

The woman's screams shattered the air with a battering intensity. It seemed like the atmosphere would shimmer with each cry, as though the weight of the woman's pain was too much to carry and the world was faltering. The darkness that had closed in during the hours that she had been in labour was unnaturally incomplete – as though the sun couldn't decide whether it wanted to shine or not. And by all accounts, the sun is one of the only things we can trust as a constant…when the sun is unsure, it bodes ill for the world. It was early evening after all and by all rights the light should have faded much more by this point. As it was, the bed chamber had a sort of hazy appearance; it was there but not a reality. All the remaining light seemed to flee from one corner as though something that should not have been was expelling it with poisonous force and the shadow that moved slightly within the dark had a murky aura.

The thin, white hands that gripped the thick, wooden bed posts didn't help the appearance of a black and white scene either. Another shriek ensued and the hands clenched; tendons standing in high relief and straining at their human restraints. At her cry, the shadow wavered, a sigh in the still air. It seemed as though it was growing bored with waiting for something to happen and wanted it all to be over in one outcome or another.

"Lady...push again. It's nearly over." The otherwise unseen maid kneeling with a damp cloth to her mistress' clammy forehead spoke urgently, a moan from the tortured woman punctuating her statement. She'd been saying the same thing for nearly an hour now.

The maid's course, brown hair was twisted back into the uniform bun that all of the servants in that place shared. It looked dry and knotted, brittle. It was as though each individual hair would snap in two at the slightest breeze or touch. The lines on her face were deep set and dusted with coal soot from the many fires that she was forced to tend despite the unusually warm weather. Her pale lips were cracked and split in some places – the sandpaper tongue that came out every minute or so to wet them only served to dry them up even more. Above, small eyes squinted through the haze in the short-sightedness that had come with her old age. But the face of her mistress was familiar to her and it would take more than near-blindness to prevent her from recognising the woman that she had served for many long years.

Those years had not been kind to the woman, but in contrast to the old maid's haggard and unkempt appearance, she was beautiful, even in labour. Her thick hair was long, shiny and black as midnight. Her face – though screwed up in agony, betrayed no age or long years labouring in fields. She was pale as moonlight, with soft, full lips that carried just a hint of pink and were parted slightly – forced open by the desperate pants trying to fill her lungs. Her normally dark eyes were bright with pain, glinting with tears that didn't fall.

"I can't!" She cried in a voice as hoarse as a hollering chimney sweep, "I'm so…tired."

The maid cooed some reassuring words in a similarly rough voice, but they sounded half-hearted. It was clear that the labour was taking longer than it should for a woman as young and healthy as her mistress. She turned her head towards the shadow with a pleading look, but when her eyes found the evil and her whole body shuddered and her face turned quickly away.

She could not look upon it.

It was only later, when the sun had finally decided to evacuate and the light had dissipated completely and left the high set windows as faint silhouettes that the first stirrings of a new born could be heard. The woman gave a final sob and then lay heavily on the bed while her maid fussed over a tiny baby that refused to make a sound. Large, blue eyes that were so unlike its mother's simply stared up at the servant solemnly while breaths came in tiny pants – as though it, not the mother, had just been working hard.

"A girl, lady." Came the quiet, drained murmur.

The new mother tried weakly to lift her pale arms. "Give her...please...give her to me..." But the strain was too much on her exhausted body, and they trembled before falling back to her sides awkwardly. The deep red velvet of the top cover seemed to blur the boundaries of her skin, and appeared for all the world to be seeping out of her body.

Regretfully, the old maid again looked over to the shadow and failed to suppress a shiver.

The shadow smirked.

Looking back at her mistress, whose eyes were slowly closing despite the fight she was putting up, the maid shook her head. "You're too weak, lady."

"Please!" The woman too looked for the shadow, knowing that if she wasn't given her child now she would never see it again, "You promised...you swore my child would not be taken away from me!"

The shadow emerged with a lazy swagger and leered down at the woman.

"I lied."

And then Galbatorix, self-proclaimed king of Alagaësia snatched the newborn child out of the arms of the terrified maid and left the room – now empty save from the dead mother, her dead servant and the ringing of the Ancient Language in the air.