After Brom's tale of the hardships wrought upon this land by their mad king, Yuna was startled to hear that it was a true story. Yes, it could have been skewed by age and retellings, but it was abundantly clear that the fundamental details were true.

Even so, Garrow took the three teenagers back to the house, the wagon empty of produce and now filled with everything they'd need to survive the winter.

The next day, very early in the morning, Eragon asked Yuna to help him with something. Curious, she met him in his room, where the sapphire stone sat with three tools beside it. The first was a small wooden mallet; the second was a heavy leather hammer; and the last was a small chisel. Yuna did not know what he was up to, but she let Eragon proceed.

Eragon first lifted the mallet and lightly tapped the surface of the stone. Yuna sat up straighter, worried for the stone, but calmed when Eragon looked up at her.

"Look, there isn't even a mark," he said in a low tone as the subtle ringing left from the strike faded away. "The trader Uncle and I visited said that it was hollow. That's why it rings like that."

Eragon picked up the leather hammer and it let out a mournful peal when it struck the smooth surface of the stone. Finally, he repeated the test with the chisel. The sound was clearer than all the others, and still left the stone unmarked.

"That's incredible," Yuna murmured as the last note died away.

Yuna watched the silver stone warily, crouched near it on the ground.

It was very late at night, so late that daybreak was but hours away. Yuna, who tried her hardest to avoid being a morning person, still managed to rise before the sun.

Today was no different.

What was different was the whining squeak emanating from the large silver stone, accompanied by an occasional rocking. Yuna watched with half-morbid fascination, unable to look away as the squeaking grew louder. Then, as suddenly as the noise had begun, it ceased, leaving the young woman to stare at the stone's smooth surface curiously.

She sighed after a moment of nothing and turned back to the bed, determined to get another hour of sleep, when the stone resumed shaking with increased urgency. Yuna turned back to the stone and it rolled unsteadily towards her in fit of shaking.

Suddenly, just as suddenly as the noises began, a crack appeared on the stone. Then another. And another. Transfixed, Yuna took a cautious step towards it, one hand ready to defend herself.

At the very top of the silver stone, where the cracks originated from, a small shard of the stone wobbled before being lifted and discarded towards the floor. Another piece of silver chipped away, revealing a small angular head. Yuna noticed distantly that the shading of the creature matched the silver of the stone.

Not the stone... The egg, she corrected herself, watching as the dragon hatchling pulled itself from its old home.

Yuna was powerless to do anything but stare at the small creature as it stared up at her, staring into her green eyes, before licking at the membrane it was still swaddled in. The dragon, when finished, looked back up at the young woman and skittered forward, trilling happily.

Yuna studied it as she subconsciously took a step back. The dragon paused; looking up at her with intelligent and aware eyes as Yuna nearly stumbled to the ground.

The dragon's body was about a foot long. It's head, with strong angles, was powerful looking even minutes after hatching. The dragon's scales were bright silver which, as Yuna noticed on closer inspection, were edged with a deep violet. Wings, which extended from the creature's shoulders, fanned out above him and were several times longer than its body and ribbed with narrow fingers of bone that formed a line of widely spaced talons. Two white and curved fangs extended down from its upper jaw and looked very sharp, just like its pearly claws. A line of spikes ran down the hatchling's spine from the base of its neck down to the tip of its tail. Where its wings joined with its body, there was a break in the spikes that was larger than the others.

Yuna, overcoming her initial shock at the creature, immediately warmed up to it. She knelt towards the small dragon, cooing softly under her breath. The dragon noticed this and, cocking its head curiously, went to explore the girl. The silver hatchling sniffed her gloved right hand curiously before placing its head into Yuna's palm, ordering her to scratch at its neck. Yuna obeyed willingly.

Suddenly, just as soon as her bare skin contact the dragon's scales, a searing rush of ice flooded her veins, trailing up her arm and into her chest before spreading throughout her body. The energy burned as it raced through her, forcing a soundless gasp of pain from her lips as she fell back in agony. She tried to move, to force the pain down, but was unable to. After what felt like hours, warmth seeped back into her limbs, leaving them tingling. Shivering involuntarily, Ella forced herself to a sitting position. Dully, she noticed that her right hand still echoed of that pain, while the rest of her seemed past it. She tore her glove from her hand to reveal a shining silver patch of skin in the middle of her palm. It itched and burned, reminding her of the time she had been bitten by a spider in Niva's gardens.

Something brushed against her subconscious and Yuna froze. To her, it felt like the warm embrace of red iron on her skin. Comforting, but she didn't know why. It faded away for a moment before returning with a growing curiosity. It grew stronger into a tendril of thought. If not for her training in meditation, the openness of her mind would have been startling. However, she had been trained to rein in both her magic and her mind and kept herself tethered to her body. The connection stayed quietly in a corner of her mind and Yuna looked down at the quiet dragon. It looked up at her with an open eagerness to discover and Yuna smiled down at it.

"Don't you know it's rude to enter someone's mind without saying please?" she tutted jokingly. The dragon only pushed its head back into her now-exposed palm. Yuna waited for the burning energy, but it did not come. Instead, the contact sent a warming jolt through her system, as if she had just come inside from the snow to a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

When the dragon was content, Yuna felt its mind grow hungry. It stared up at her with a tortured look in its eyes and she sighed, a smile on her face.

"Oh, alright," she said warmly, kneeling and holding her arms out. The dragon, seemingly understanding, climbed carefully into her arms, snuggling into her chest when Yuna wrapped her arms around it so as not to drop it. She carefully carried the hatchling to the kitchen, where she proceeded to snatch two strips of dried venison. She sliced the venison into smaller pieces, offering them to the dragon, who ate them as soon as they were near its shiny teeth.

By the time the dragon was full, the two strips of meat were safely tucked away inside its now bulging belly, Yuna was wondering what to do with it. According to Brom's stories, there were only a few options for her at this point; if the dragon were discovered, it would either be killed or coerced into joining the king. The only way to avoid both, at least for as long as possible, was to try to keep the dragon's existence a secret. As the dragon nestled closer to Yuna, the choice became painfully obvious, even if it caused some trouble with Eragon's family.

Speaking of Eragon... What about the blue st- egg? Will it have hatched as well? Yuna pondered.

There was a creak on the stairs.

Eragon crept into the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder.

"You're up late," Yuna greeted calmly. Eragon jumped into the air, nearly dropping the bundle in his arms. "Hey, don't drop the poor thing. Here, give it to me. I'll feed it."

Yuna gestured towards the silver dragon, who was now curled up on the table, facing the dying coals. Firelight glinted from its silver scales and Eragon looked startled by its appearance.

"Did that thing happen? To your hand?" Eragon clarified. Yuna's brow furrowed slightly but she nodded, showing him her dully glowing palm. "Well, at least you can hide yours' with your gloves."

Eragon placed the dark blue dragon, who was just a little smaller than the silver one, on the table and held out his right hand for Yuna to see. There, on his palm, was a matching oval of silver that shone in the light.

Yuna nodded at the mark and stood, fetching another two strips of meat. She cut it up just as she did with the silver dragon and began feeding the second hatchling. When the blue dragon had finished, it sighed contently and curled up beside its silver counterpart.

"What are we going to do?"

"Raise them in secret?" Yuna responded easily, shrugging. "The way I see it, that's our only real option, unless you want to join the king."

"But look at how much food they eat. They've hatched only an hour ago, and they've already eaten two handfuls of meat."

"Horst said that I could help around his forge for some money. And I'm sure that, between the two of us, we'll go hunting often enough to scrounge some food up until they can hunt for themselves."

There was a long pause in which Eragon merely stared at the dragons. The silver dragon was curled almost protectively around the blue one, their tails intertwined. Eragon smiled.

"We're really going to do this, are we?"

"It looks like it," Yuna nodded.

"You don't know these woods," Garrow said, shaking his head. Yuna crossed her arms, Eragon's bow slung over her shoulder.

"I've already decided, Garrow. We don't have enough meat to last us the winter and our best shot at getting it is going before the freeze really sets in. I've fed a family of seven for more than two years."

Garrow thought for a moment; he knew Yuna was right, but he was too stubborn to admit it plainly.

"Where is Eragon? Is he going with you?"

"No," Yuna shook his head. "I'll only be gone for a few days, and he has chores around here to take care of. Trust me; I'll be back before you've noticed I've gone."

Garrow finally sighed and a rare emotion entered his eyes: sadness.

"You've been a ray of sunlight 'round here, girl. Don't wander too deep in those parts. There are all kinds of things in those woods, just waiting to attack you."

"I know, Garrow," Yuna said, a warm smile on her face. Turning towards the door, she almost missed Roran's last words.

"I wonder when Eragon's finally going to start courting that girl," he murmured good-naturedly. Yuna blushed ever so slightly before fighting it down, pretending she hadn't heard a word.

He doesn't like me like that. He doesn't like me like that. He doesn't- she chanted in her mind.

This game would continue for weeks. Eragon built the dragons a shelter in a tree, then a larger shelter on the ground when they outgrew the rowan tree he had selected. The two began to almost entirely feed themselves when they were two weeks old, relieving Yuna of her weekend hunting trips. The dragons grew exponentially in height, with the silver in the lead. By the end of a month, the blue dragon had grown to Eragon's elbow at the shoulder. The silver dragon was level with his chin. Both dragons could fly, although neither had breathed fire yet. In the span of a month, they transformed from squeaking, if not adorable, creatures into powerful beasts.

After a short revelation that Eragon shared the same mind-bond with the blue dragon that Yuna had with the silver, it was obvious that it was a bond not to be trifled with.

It was with that that Eragon and Yuna decided to tell Garrow and Roran about the dragons after learning more about them. That knowledge, however, was needed from the only source they had: Brom.