AN: Oh. My. God. I am SO sorry that it took me so long to update! Regular updates will be back soon, I promise! I'm not going to annoy you with a long AN this time so that you can just get to the chapter that (I hope) you have been waiting for.

Chapter Four
Oath

"Wake up."

The voice startled Taize back into consciousness; she had just been drifting into an uneasy sleep. She looked up, and saw that the speaker was Murtagh. She closed her eyes again, not caring what he had to say. He was probably here to torture her again.

She couldn't believe she had ever thought that Murtagh might not be so bad. She had learned over the past few days that whenever he came down to her cell, she would soon be in pain.

"…Did you just hear a word I said?" he asked.

Taize wanted to continue ignoring him, but she was too curious. Usually he didn't speak to her. Especially not in an almost-friendly way.

"No…" she reluctantly admitted.

"Galbatorix is coming to see you today."

What little color that was left in her face drained from it. Shit. This is not going to go well. "What? Why?" she asked.

"Apparently he thinks that it's about time you decided to swear your loyalty to him. He tends to get…irritable, whenever someone refuses to serve him." Taize thought she saw his eye twitch a little.

"No, really?" she replied dryly. "I hadn't the faintest clue."

Murtagh frowned, but didn't offer a retort. "And… when I probed your mind, a few days ago… Galbatorix has seen everything that I saw. I thought you'd like to know."

That could be debated, she thought to herself. On one hand, now she would be dreading meeting Galbatorix again. But on the other hand, if he had just shown up and she'd had no idea that he was coming…Ugh. Either way, she knew she was in for it. Especially since he had seen her memories.

With nothing else to do, Taize was brooding.

Maybe she had been stupid and rash. Maybe she should have just agreed to serve him. It would have saved a lot of trouble – Her thinking was cut off by the dragon, who gave her a little mental growl and a death glare that would have done her mother proud.



Suddenly, she heard footsteps. Two sets of footsteps. One had to be the king's, but who would he bring with him? Murtagh, perhaps?

At any rate, the other man didn't show his face. Galbatorix, on the other hand, leered at her through the small barred window of her cell door. Down here, surrounded by the stone that was almost as cold as he was, he looked even more menacing than he had in the throne room.

"Hello, Taize." His voice sent shivers down her spine. He managed to make those two normally innocuous words sound very scary. "I have someone here that I'd like you to meet." There was a nasty gleam in his eye as he spoke.

The other man stepped forward. She still couldn't see him very well, but she could tell that he was well-groomed, unusual for an average citizen of Urû'baen. He was probably a noble, she thought. And, she couldn't help noticing, he wasn't bad-looking.

But he was still a noble (probably). Why would Galbatorix bring a noble down here…?

"Shit," she blurted out as she suddenly understood, then: Damnit. Why couldn't he have just brought some drunk off the streets?

Because he has easier access to nobles. Besides, if it was someone random it wouldn't really be the most effective form of torture, now would it? She answered her own question in her head.

Galbatorix smirked at her as he opened the cell door. Taize leapt to her feet, briefly forgetting the pain that came every time she moved. It came back full-force once she was on her feet, however, and she nearly fell. She grabbed at the wall for support, her face pale.

As the noble entered her cell, Taize spoke. "You bastard." She wasn't sure whether she was speaking to him or Galbatorix, but she was sure that they both deserved that particular insult.

The noble slowly backed her into a corner, but when he reached down to undo his pants, she cried, "All right! All right." Gods, she hated him. "If I swear to you… Will you call him off?" She glared at the king with a mixture of misery and hatred. She hated feeling so helpless. And she hated Galbatorix.

He smiled, not saying a word.

"Call him off."

"You," he said, " are in no position to bargain." Nevertheless, he nodded slightly, and the noble backed off a little. "Repeat after me: Vel eïnradhin iet ai Shur'tugal, weohnata sköliro Galbatorix un Murtagh. Äfweohnata weo morre elos ö memorre. Un äfweohnata dece Galbatorix sï pode. (AN: I made almost all of that up, so don't bother trying to figure out what he just said.)



As she said the words, Taize almost felt like she could see them binding her, swirling about her in complex patterns. But almost as soon as she had the thought, the sensation subsided.

She made a mental note to ask Murtagh later what the words had meant. But no, he wasn't to be trusted. Or maybe… she wondered if Ineb was still here. Probably, since she had only been away for a month or two. But one never knew. She would head down to the slaves' quarters as soon as she got the chance.

"Murtagh will be down to fetch you." Galbatorix's voice cut through her thoughts. "In the meantime, you will be allowed to see your dragon."

He left her cell door unlocked behind him. Not that she was going anywhere, anyway. She was exhausted just from being so terrified a few minutes ago. (Not that she would ever admit how scared she had been, even to herself.)

Soon, someone came in with her dragon. Had she been standing, the dragon would have been up to her knee. Although she still couldn't speak with him due to the lingering effects of the drug that she had been given regularly, she hugged him tightly, carefully avoiding his spikes.

"I guess I'll have to name you soon," she mused aloud. "I don't suppose you'd be very happy with me if I just called you Dragon."

He squawked his disapproval.

"How about I name you now, then." Despite her earlier reluctance to name him, it was one of the things she'd been thinking about to take her mind off of her situation. She had already decided that she was going to use a word from the desert language she knew from her childhood, and she had narrowed it down to four choices: d'naey, which meant no; sremiy, or sword; ludec, east; and – ironically enough – c'koro. Hope. She hadn't picked the words for any particular reason, she just liked the way they sounded.

The dragon, knowing what she was up to (the drug didn't affect his ability to know her thoughts), stared at her with his piercing green gaze as she compiled her mental list.

"Would you stop staring at me? It gets a little creepy."

The dragon blinked and cocked his head.

"That's better. So… are you D'naey?" An indignant squawk. "Hey, no need to get touchy. Sremiy?" Another no. "What about Ludec?" No. "…C'koro, then?"

He hummed contentedly.



Taize sighed. It was just her luck to get a dragon whose name meant hope. Who would remind her every day that there was so obviously no hope left for her. But he seemed to like the name. And he was giving her a look that said, I have my reasons.

As C'koro squawked happily, enjoying his new name, the door opened. It was Murtagh. Taize hugged C'koro just a little closer, taking comfort from the warmth of his emerald scales.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

"You of all people should know," came the icy reply.

"Should have seen that coming," he muttered, more to himself than to Taize or C'koro. He took the few short strides across her cell and picked her up before she had time to protest. She was so surprised by the action, and still so tired, that she didn't even attempt to struggle as they left the dungeons, with C'koro following quietly behind.

As they began to mount the steps, what she had done began to sink in. She had just sworn herself to Galbatorix. Now, she thought, she had even less freedom than she'd had as a slave.

But even with that terrible thought looming over her, she was too exhausted to worry about it just then. She found Murtagh's rhythmic footsteps soothing, and soon she had fallen asleep in his arms.

AN: Just so you know, the next few chapters are going to be really short, because I'm doing run crew for a show and I don't have much time, but there WILL be updates if it kills me. But they will be short. Just thought I'd let you know that. Oh, and please review! Constructive criticism is welcomed.