Arrynatha, known as Ryna, felt a hot wet tear roll down her face as she remembered the events of the night before.
"Get away, Ryna!" Halindor shouted over the roar of the magic fire that was about to devour him.
"Halindor!" she shrieked.
"BRISINGR!" a deep voice shouted gleefully.
And Halindor, her dearest friend and companion, had succumbed to Galbatorix's minion's cruel flame. Halindor had been an elf, Ryna had discovered. Sent by Queen Islanzadí of the elves for her, Ryna…Halindor had trained her in rudimentary magic. He had never said why the elven queen had sent him.
He had always been a tutor, no more, though to Ryna's eyes he'd been the most handsome man ever.
And I loved him, Ryna reflected, sitting up in her blue cloak. She had run until Gilead was a shadow to the south. Why, she'd ride straight to Ellesméra, on her horse Vöndr, so named because he had been a skinny foal… Halindor'd taught her how to enter Du Weldenvarden. And so Ryna would.
She got up to gather wood to boil water for breakfast.
A large black stone was sitting right in front of her face.
It was smooth and diamond hard. More than diamond, the eighteen year old surmised. What was it? It might be valuable. She put it in her satchel.
She mounted the bay stallion and spurred him on, stopping every hour to walk him for twenty minutes. "Good boy," she murmured fondly.
She ate a sparse lunch of greens and the dried fruit she had left. If she'd gotten away with more, it would have been a lot better.
Farther on she saw a trading post. "Sir," she asked a trader, "how much is this stone worth?"
He was eyeing a certain part of her chest, blast him. She should have worn something more concealing, but the one tunic was all she'd gotten ahold of. It came three fingerspans below her collarbone.
"Ah, my precious…I wouldn' know, would I? Still, you're a pretty young thing…"
"Tell me how much it's worth, man!" Her hazel brown eyes flared.
She got no worded response. She went to another tent.
"Well, I wouldn't know…where did you say you got this?" he said in such a greedy tone that Ryna flinched.
"The Spine." she said, suddenly liking the rock. He had no right to speak like that.
"No deal." he said coldly. Ryna strode out of the post pleased with herself.