Beta-reader: Dragonblooded

Though Murtagh was still lost deep in the realm of nightmares, he guarded his thoughts well with the memory of his last moment awake, swimming on the surface of his mind. The moment he started to graze the shallowest levels of his mind, his breathing unbalanced, and he remembered exactly what had happened, and in what situation he might wake.

Murtagh did not dare open his eyes. He tried to even his breathing as much as he could. He waited a few minutes to make sure he had not alerted anyone before he truly listened to his surroundings. He could hear the deep rumbling exhale of a creature many times bigger than himself, and soft scrapes that reminded him of the tip of a sword gliding over stone floors. The last thing he noted was the whinging of the wind as it crashed against walls of the room.

Encrusted ice covered both of his shoulders, numbing his nerves and sealing his blood inside his body. He could tell he wasn't properly healed, and, according to the empty feeling inside his stomach, it had been a few days since he was last awake. Heavy, cold weights on his hands and feet stopped him from moving, or even clenching his fingers. The numbing cold paralysed his limbs in a frightening lack of sensation.

The Red Rider waited patiently for another hour or more, certain the she-elf was in the room with him, but he couldn't figure out where. The repetitive sounds were slowly lulling him to sleep again. He tried to distract himself by touching the link to Thorn's mind, but felt nothing. Murtagh knew they were too far from each other, but was certain that if Thorn had died, he would have known. He could still be hurt, though.

The scraping suddenly stopped.

"Will you talk to me now?" said someone with a deep, sharp, male voice. Rustling echoed from across what felt like a rather large room. No one answered him. "You haven't spoken in three days. You can't keep ignoring me." The voice sounded more irritated now.

Another voice joined, this one familiar. "Can't I? I can try. I did not create you to be my therapist," answered the she-elf.

A sigh escaped the man. "There has to be something I can do. I want to help you. You are everything to me." There was some more rustling.

"How could you help? They were my everything, and I lost them all in a single second! I have nothing left! I dedicated my life to them!" For the first time, Murtagh heard some emotion in her voice, and it wasn't good. The storm outside grew louder. An icy breeze flew through cracks in the walls.

Murtagh expected the man to get mad at her exclamation, but to his surprise, he only sighed again. "Come here." The whispered words carried through the room to Murtagh's ears. The Red Rider slightly opened his eyes.

There was no fire in the room, but a ball of white dim light hovering in the middle of the large room, leaving no shadows around it. The room was half filled by a huge mountain of white scales, seemingly sleeping.

Next to it stood an elf-like ice statue, shining with energy from within. Carefully, as if approaching a wild animal, the statue wrapped its arms around the she-elf. As soon as he touched her, she immediately fell into his embrace and clutched desperately at him, releasing a heartbreaking sob.

"They were all so young! So many young Urgals, just trying to earn glory and honour, without harming innocents, and without stupidly endangering their lives." The she-elf paused again as she hiccuped. "And they are all gone. Because of a stupid spell that honed in on their horns. Isn't it ironic? Their greatest pride, became their weakness. There was nothing heroic about their death, nothing worthy of a storyteller. They will just disappear, forgotten, as if they were nothing more than dust. And all because of me, because I decided to leave the goddamned Varden!" Her voice was quivering from the effort of containing her emotions – not very successfully. Murtagh could hear her anger, bright as a flame, and the guilt eating her up.

The ice man glided his hand over her silver white hair, pressing her face deeper into his shoulder. Murtagh was upset he couldn't see his expression. The king had had the bright idea to give him the speed and strength of an elf, but not their eyesight.

"They chose to follow you. What happened to them is not your fault. You cannot predict every possible spell to make their wards impenetrable," the man paused for a second, continuing to caress her hair affectionately. "That spell would have been used one way or another. It could have been with the Varden, which would have killed every Urgal you know. This way only some died, sacrificing their lives so others could live."

The she-elf cried into the man's shoulder, mourning her lost friends. The ice man patiently hugged her, offering a comfortable silence, until she herself decided to break it.

"What am I to do now? We have nowhere to go, and I don't know what I am," the she-elf said with a steadier voice.

"You have always had an affinity for ice and the cold. You are no different than before. Just more powerful. I will do my best to help you control it. Besides, we also have that disgusting bloody knot over there." The last sentence the man said with such disgust it made Murtagh shiver. Especially when he realized the ice man was talking about him.

For another long moment they just stood in silence, the she-elf lost inside her mourning and the ice man lost inside her. When she pulled out of the embrace, it seemed to Murtagh that the man did not enjoy letting her go. He seemed rather overprotective. "I'll stand watch. I am not letting anyone inside this tower." Turning on his heel, the ice man left.

The girl started to prepare meal – a stew. That surprised Murtagh; he thought elves never ate meat. When she needed a fire, she just raised her hand to the wood and without a word a bright white fire started to burn. An uncomfortable knot tied itself in Murtagh's stomach. Wordless spells were known to be dangerous. Even the king used the ancient language to control his magic.

Murtagh waited a few minutes until he was sure the ice man would be further away. Then, he let the guards around his mind down. He felt only one other mind in the room with him. He immediately shot with full force at their shields.

He slipped through the strange, spiky, icy walls protecting she-elf's mind as if his mind was the thinnest blade in Alagaësia. Marzanna – rang inside his head as soon as he invaded her mind. A clank resonated in the room as she dropped the things she was holding.

Marzanna's mind felt so much stranger than any other he had ever encountered. His consciousness appeared in a forever frozen land, plains buried under layers and layers of blinding snow. Sometimes, a cold wind blew around his personification in her mind and removed some snow from atop what frozen puddles. Under ice of various thicknesses, he could see memories locked inside lakes throughout the plains.

Murtagh noticed the thin ice over some puddles starting to crack. Sometimes, he could hear a faintly whispered thought. He was so consumed by the strange place that he didn't notice his own mind was slowly being turned into another block of ice. He only realized it when Marzanna pushed him with a brute force out of her mind into his own warm place.

The Red Rider was so shaken that he didn't realize his eyes were closed. He could feel the chilly wind devouring his warmth, leaving nothing behind but the touch of winter's hands. Murtagh had been freezing before, but now it was nearly unbearable.

His eyes shot open and looked directly into an icy blue pair only inches away, filled with a stormy rage promising only pain. Murtagh was in no shape to push her away, or even come up with anything to say to her.

He noted her hand placed on his naked skin directly above his heart. Murtagh groaned in pain as her nails dug into his chest, scratching his skin open. "After all you have done, how dare you!" Marzanna hissed. A strange white fog clouded her eyes. "You won't harm me again!"

Icy laces shot out of nowhere into his chest and started wrapping around his heart, zigzagging into various loops, tightening and restricting the organ inside an icy cage. Murtagh yelped and tried to free his hands so he could relieve the itch that he now felt in his chest. With every beat his heart hammered against the cage around it.

As soon as the last laces tied together, Murtagh was panting. Her hand immediately left his chest and she pulled away to a safe distance. The Red Rider suddenly felt a cold emptiness from within tugging on his heart, reminding him of its chains.

"W...what have you done to me, witch?!" Murtagh shouted. Immediately, he felt a strange stab of pain, which he was certain did not belong to him. He searched for Thorn's link, half hoping their connection was appearing again.

Marzanna, standing now, was looking down at him with distaste and disgust, yet Murtagh could see confusion in her eyes. "I just wanted you to not harm me anymore. As long as I need you alive, you will be under this spell. Or...whatever it is." Then she walked away from him back to her slightly overcooked stew.

As the distance between them grew bigger, Murtagh felt the chilly emptiness inside him expand deeper. He lapped for air for a while until he grew used to it. Subconsciously, he tried to free himself of his shackles again so he could scratch his chest and break the cage apart, but the ice surrounding him held still.

"Take it off, you godforsaken witch!" Murtagh yelled after her angrily. The pulsing pain inside his chest resumed. "You are a monster, just like your ancestors!"

"I suppose we're a match made in hell, then!" she spat, "Morzan's son and the Winter Witch, or whatever the hell I am. You can hardly hold the crimes of my ancestors against me when I do not even know what they have done."

The pain Murtagh now felt was certainly his. He clenched his teeth. Being reminded of his father was something he hated. He realized he had just done the same thing to another person, no matter how bad they were. In a way, they were really more alike than they were different. "I am sorry." He whispered, but was sure she would hear him.

A small warm breeze suddenly washed over him, feeding the emptiness. Murtagh sighed in relief. Marzanna watched him curiously, almost surprised. In the end, she had very little control over her powers. The Red Rider wanted to feel that warmth again, but before he could say anything, the ice man barged in, looking rather alarmed.

The first glance he gave was to Marzanna, scanning her for injury. As soon as he finished, his eyes fell to Murtagh. "What did that bastard do to you?! Please, let me kill him for you."

"Not yet. We need him."

+BREAK+

The next day, Murtagh was lost in his thoughts. Typically, he would have been planning his grand escape. But instead, he was so desperate to feel that strange warmth in his chest again, to make the icy cage a bit more bearable.

He tried to observe the two more, to know them better. It seemed to him as if the white dragon did nothing but sleep. The ice man sometimes stood watch, but usually returned only a few minutes later, as if not to leave him alone with Marzanna. He tried to start a conversation with her, but with no success. The she-elf ignored him pretty well.

She would lift her eyes every once in a while to give him a stern glance, and then returned her attention to the armour she cleaned. Murtagh became hopeful when she rose holding a bowl of stew and turned in his direction.

Just as she was about to take her first step, the ice man barged in with a frown on his face.

"Little one, I will do it. It may not be wise to go too close to him. He is just as treacherous as the king." The ice man's fingers slid gently over her hand to the bowl, taking it away from her. For a moment, it seemed as if she was willing to argue with him, but she let go of it. Something about the endearment he used sounded familiar to Murtagh.

Marzanna then turned back to her armour, and the ice man approached him in long strides. With something that looked like a spoon made of ice, he started shoving food down Murtagh's throat. The Red Rider gagged, unable to properly swallow with the spoon buried in his throat.

When the ice man was finished, half of the stew lay around Murtagh, never having reached his throat. His still-empty stomach growled angrily. He gave the ice man a bitter look, but did not say anything, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

Murtagh wasn't sure which person in the room hated him the most. The ice man obviously detested him for harming Marzanna. He tried to list the man's weaknesses, but he couldn't spot any in the solid form. Sometimes, he spotted a flickering light inside the man's skull, but he didn't know how he could use that to his advantage.

Marzanna certainly hated him, but she seemed guilty over putting him under her spell, so she wasn't cruel to him. The Red Rider lamented inside his head over what could have made her hate him so much. He had certainly done terrible things, but which one had been the last straw.

She had attacked him first with Eragon I's sword, which had cut through his defences around Thorn. Yes, he had tried to attack her back over Gil'ead. But she had destroyed his army; a fight between them would be expected. That was not enough to make her hate him this much. Had he killed someone close to her?

He noted her armour. It was not elven-made. As he started to connect the information he had overheard, it dawned on him. She blamed him for the death of the Urgals.

The next chance he got was a few hours later, when the ice man left again. He fidgeted in his place and moaned in pain, drawing her attention to him. She observed him carefully, looking for any danger he could cause. "I am freezing. I get it: you only need me alive, not healthy. But I am going to freeze to death here," Murtagh complained.

His complaint was met with silence.

"You need me for information, right? Why not rip it off of my mind and let me die quickly?" he asked. It was not his plan to die soon, but he needed to get risky. A little pang of pain appeared in his heart, making the emptiness expand slightly.

"I am not entering that vile place you call your mind," she sneered back at him. Her tone suggested she did not mean it fully, though. She walked closer to him, but stopped a few steps away.

"I'm not going to bite you, princess." Murtagh felt better the moment she got close, but his happiness turned to ash as soon as he felt another pang of pain.

In the end she sat next to him on the floor and put her hands on one of the ice bricks holding his hands, it immediately cracked and fell apart, releasing his hand. "Don't call me that," she whispered, "I am no princess."

Murtagh did not dare move his hand, worried she would think he was trying to attack her. When her hands wrapped around his hand, he moaned again. But this time, not in pain. The emptiness inside him seemed to feed off of her touch and proximity, and the void grew smaller, less prominent, more tolerable. The Red Rider did not even realize that the warmth was returning to his limb, that he could feel it again properly.

Marzanna gave him a confused look.

He wanted to do anything to get more of that feeling. It felt addictive, as if he had been burnt and now had cold water to comfort it. Murtagh quickly snatched her wrist with his free hand and pulled her to him. Within a second, with a yelp, Marzanna found herself pressed against Murtagh's body.

The relief was instant, the emptiness succumbing in her closeness, making him feel so much better and calmer and happier than he had ever remembered having been. There was no pang of pain, as he hadn't had harmful intentions toward her.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds before she pulled herself away from him, back to a safe distance. Her expression was outraged. A block of ice started to form around his hand again, but Murtagh did not feel its coldness. The fed emptiness in him provided him with an inner heat for as long as it stayed sated.

Murtagh ignored her question with no regrets, despite her indignance. "You are a princess, since your mother was a queen."

"Funny, but Islanzadí is certainly not my mother. I do not even look like her," Marzanna huffed. For a moment, she seemed to have forgotten what Murtagh had done in order to get the information she wanted.

Murtagh shook his head. "Not that kingdom."

"Then I am afraid we are running out of kingdoms."

"There was once a kingdom in the North – small, but feared. It eventually became known as the Winter Kingdom, since the lands were almost always covered in snow. I heard it was a rather hostile environment." He paused for a while, picking up again as soon as he noted Marzanna's impatience. "Your mother was known as the Ghost Queen. Her name was Lilith."

"How do you know she was my mother?"

"There was a prophecy, predicting your powers, but some mistakes were made, and we did not understand it completely. Besides, you look like your mother, except for the silver hair. Your sword is another clue."

Marzanna gave him a questioning look. "But I've never been to the North. I only remember running through the woods carrying this sword. I could not have been older than six or seven, and Boreas was just old enough to fly."

"Well, your sword belonged to your grandfather, who left it in the capital of the Winter Kingdom – Norvedrgarde. And it seems that Dragon Riders tend to run in families." Murtagh smirked bitterly. "And since Eragon I. and his partner the Iron Queen were both Dragon Riders, and their dragons were white and grey, it would seem that you are their heir."

There was a silence as Marzanna absorbed the new information. Eventually, she whispered, "Tell me more about my mother."

"The Ghost Queen was possibly the only Queen of the Winter Kingdom, who ever did something good for this world. Some believed your grandmother – Oriona – was good, too. It is not widely known that she was the one who killed her partner Eragon I. His dragon killed her after. Her dragon was bound to protect her, and fought the other one to the death. One of them survived, I do not know which, but they later died of grief. No one knows what truly happened. I suppose it had a lot to do with the madness that is a part of your family as well," Murtagh finished. He expected another pang of pain, but it didn't come, despite Marzanna's clear distress.

The Red Rider decided to tell her more about the Ghost Queen, carefully wording his speech so as to not reveal too much information.

He couldn't afford to lose his worth to them. And his worth was determined by information.

+BREAK+

For the next few days, nothing changed. The snow storm outside showed no signs of weakening. The ice man still hated his guts, the dragon – Boreas – still slept. Murtagh was pretty sure he hadn't seen him awake since the battle, but Marzanna did not look worried.

The aforementioned she-elf was unsuccessfully trying to keep her distance from Murtagh. He sometimes caught her observing him, her eyes gliding over his form. Then, as if stung, her expression hardened and she diverted her eyes.

The constant lying was tiring Murtagh, so he slept throughout most of the days. He had been asleep for a few hours already when something shook him out of his slumber. Confused, he cracked his eyes open and searched for the interruption. It took him a few seconds to realize that only the ice man stood on the other side of the room, and Marzanna was nowhere to be seen.

He fidgeted uncomfortably in place, but that strange feeling that something was off did not go away. Murtagh felt his heart clench slightly, as if his intuition was clawing at it, telling him something was wrong.

Soon enough, the feeling became a pulsing pain in his chest. Then, it became throbbing, and in a few minutes, a terrible stabbing pain wracked his chest. He thrashed about, earning him the attention of the ice man, but no matter how much he moved, he couldn't escape the pain.

Murtagh was hurting terribly, and it was growing worse with each second. He slowly stopped seeing his surroundings, his mind focused only on the pain inside him. Every beat of his heart was pure misery. The Red Rider did not even notice he had managed to break the ice block around one of his hands. He clawed at his chest, scratching at it so roughly he managed to draw blood. It was nothing in comparison to what he felt.

"Make it stop!" he repeated, until his voice went raw. "GET HER HERE!"