Prologue:
Sitting alone in her cave, the riderless dragon smiled sadly. The circumstances that had brought her here were complicated.
She had hatched for a young two-legs-round-ears, and they had formed an immediate bond, as was customary among dragons and their partners-of-heart-and-mind-riders. "Only a week," she thought to herself, "only a week passed before he was murdered by the two-legs-horned-Urgals." But what a week that had been. She had had another being inside her mind, and could hear all his thoughts, though he could not yet hear hers at the time, and never would.
The dragon had gone mad then, but it had not... Oh! She was doing it again, thinking about herself in third person! She would have to stop that. She had not shown her madness to the other dragons, they thought it was her true personality, as some wild dragons had acted similarly in their youth.
Her partner-of-heart-and-mind's name, oh, what was it again... Raul! That was it, Raul! "He gave me a beautiful name," she thought, "a wonderful name. Esmira." The name was just like the name of Elesmira, the tree-bird-city she grew up in, just without the "El." Esmira had grown up there, unawares of her impending madness, until the egg-breaker came.
She even became pregnant by a brown dragon – he was a wild one, but dashing all the same! After she mated, her madness was discovered, and she was locked up! LOCKED UP! A dragon imprisoned by other dragons. They learned of her madness when she disgorged her Eldunarí, just to look at it! But it was so pretty, she just couldn't resist. Pretty, bright, shining! Just like her eggs, there were so many pretty-rainbow-colour-shades reflecting off of its many shining-faceted-gem-sides.
But then the egg-breaker had come, and killed all the dragons with his rider-killed-mind-broken-dragon-Shruikan. He had broken the eggs too. The eggs! How could he! But egg-breaker-Galbatorix had not killed her. He, in a strange bout of kindness, had let her free.
Perhaps it was because his dragon, like her rider, had been murdered by the two-legs-horned. Whatever reason for doing it, he had let her go, and watched, smiling sadly, as she flew away. She had flown, almost without ceasing, until she had reached a valley. She did not know why she had come to this valley, or what had led her there, but there she was.
She had lain her eggs hours after she had landed, and she had dragged them into this cave, where there seemed to be the hatched eggs of countless dragons. In a moment of strong emotion, her magic had been used, and she had protected her eggs, made them so that they would not hatch until their riders appeared, for she knew in her heart that they must be rider's dragons. If they did not, all Alagaesia would be lost forever to the egg-breaker.
Thinking on all these things, Esmira curled up around her eggs, smiled, or did what was as close as she could get to a smile with a dragon's mouth, and breathed her last. Then, she jolted awake, inside her own mind, and screamed. She was dead, and there was no one to protect her eggs. But how was she still thinking? The Eldunarí? Yes, that was it, she could feel others surrounding her. She called out with her mind and was greeted by a mind voice she knew well. It was Umaroth, and he told her that she was safe in the Vault of Souls.
One hundred years later, she sensed a pair of children in the valley. They were the ones, she knew it. Somehow, she could tell that they were the ones who would fit her children, but not yet. They would have to wait a few more years before they were ready. they were too young just now. Yes, much too young... And thus, she waited longer.