...he then cast the spell. The spell which cannot be described in words, merely in feelings. What he did, was force the great king to understand what he had done. Understand who he was, and understand the devastation he had caused. It was using this spell, that Eragon Shadeslayer, managed to rid the land of Galbatorix, and free them from his cruel rule.

Phew. I slammed my pen down on the table, and quickly stuffed my history essay in my bag. It had taken me ages to complete that, but to be honest, who actually cares how a wrinkly old king died? It was 500 years ago!

I got up off my hard wooden chair, and slumped down on my bed. I looked over at a picture of my Mum, Leyla. She had bright green eyes (like me) and dark wavy hair. Only the tips of her pointed ears were visible, poking out from her hair. My fingers rose to my ears, and I felt the odd shape. Not rounded, like a human, but not completely pointed, like an elf. I was half of each. My Dad is human, my Mum elf. There are good points and bad points about that. One on side, I am faster, stronger, more graceful than all the human girls I know, which is good. But on the other side, I am abnormality. There have been very few human/elf couples. So human/elf children are very rare. By humans, I am seen as elfish, and although racism had died down a bit, elves are still looked down on by humans. The same goes to when I visit Nädindel, my other home in Du Weldenvarden. I am seen as a weak human. I can't do anything they can, and I don't even have magic. My brother, Toby does, and he's only 2! Although of course, elves practically worship kids, so I get top quality treatment.

"Lydia" called my Mum from downstairs. "Come on! School starts in 10 minutes, and it's on the other side of Gil'ead. How do you think you are going to get there in time?"

"Urgh. Coming. Why do you always have to be so stressy?" I groan, and grab my bag with my newly completed essay inside.

"I'm 'stressy' because I'm your mother and its my job!"

I jumped the last step of the stairs, and landed with a thud in the hall. I grabbed a cereal bar, and left.

"Bye Mum" I yelled, and I heard a faint reply from inside. Followed by Toby's wails. Dad was already at work, so Mum had no help calming him. The thing is, he actually knows quite a bit of the ancient language, so when he's mad, he can cause serious damage.

I pulled out my time table, and saw the lessons I had for today. Great, history, dwarfish, geography and science. The only one of those I actually like was dwarfish, I was pretty good at that. I boarded the bus, and it drove off towards Gil'ead School.


The buses were cancelled after school for some unknown reason, so I called my Mum to come and pick me up. We were flying to Nädindel straight away after school, as that was where we always stayed for holidays. Dad would meet us there, like he usually did, as his plane flew at an earlier time.

We filed onto the plane, and I picked up the newspaper lying in my seat. I scanned the page, looking for something interesting. My eyes caught the word dragon at the top of the page, so I read the article with interest.

Earlier this week, elfish archaeologists discovered an ancient dragon nest. Three eggs were discovered, and were taken to labs immediately. DNA samples prove that there is a strong link to the famous Saphira and Fírnen. Saphira is thought to have layed these eggs before she knew she would be leaving Alagaësia. The three eggs have not hatched, as they were unofficially given to the second era of riders. The three eggs are on display in Ellesmëra, and there will be several sessions for hopefuls to see if they area future dragon rider. With these eggs, we can hope to rebuild the dragon race once more. For more information on dragons, see pages 14, 17 and 20.

I flipped forward several pages to page 17, accidentally skipping page 14. This page was about the second downfall of the dragons, the neclanx plague that wiped every single one of them out. That happened about 300 years ago, although legend has it, Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular live on