Slaves of Darkness
Chapter 10
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Shruikan wheeled gracefully through the sky, dipping and soaring around the citadel and shooting a truly impressive roaring river of flames out of his maw once in a while, sending the castle staff scurrying in terror. With powerful thuds, his mighty wings buffeted the air and sent him higher into the azure sky, where he wheeled and began to spiral downward in a terrific dive toward me where I lay on my back on the grass that had just dried from the rain.
I smirked as the mighty black dragon thrust out his incredible flinty wings and stopped himself in midair, not a hundred feet above me, seeming to blot out the entire sky. The grass flattened around me from the powerful strokes that whipped wind against the ground and carried him back up into the sky.
Surely no such creature exists who his mightier than you, Master Shruikan, I murmured to him in my thoughts.
Surely not.
I could hear pleasure in the voice that rumbled like the deepest thunder through my consciousness. It was an ancient voice and at the same time ageless; it held layers and fathoms forever foreign to me.
Nor more beautiful. You could fly to the sun and it would quail. Why not soar into the horizon without looking back?
I cannot.
The earth trembles before you.
I tremble before the king.
And before what does he tremble?
I know not.
I am sure he trembled for many things before he brought you to his side.
Perhaps. Shruikan wheeled onto his back, roaring fire, and that fire grew and soared of its own accord, snaking and curling in the sky and around its master like an ethereal ballet. I stared, my eyes widening as the fire continued to do in the empty air what I knew to be impossible. The flames flared a rainbow of colors as the streams licked and twisted like separate creatures, then smoked out quite suddenly as the giant black dragon coasted downward on a draft, making the ground shake when he landed.
I do not understand dragons, I thought, staring at him, amazed.
Nor will you ever, fair one.
I smiled gently at the endearment. Hardly, Shruikan.
He tossed his head, his back muscles rippling regally as he came toward me. I do not lie to flatter you, nor do I exaggerate. You forget I can see through the minds of men, and I have seen how beauty unravels them.
Beauty is relative, mighty one. I rose and wrapped my arms around his tree trunk of a foreleg—though my arms could barely stretch around half its width—and pressed a cheek against the flawlessly smooth scales.
The minds of men do not vary enough in regards to women to make that true, he replied.
I laughed lightly. I suppose that's true enough.
Shruikan rumbled. You've spelled young Murtagh, and, like his father before him, he was never one to be ensnared by any woman.
The ensnarement, I admit, is mutual.
You ignore my advice.
It was not a decision, Shruikan. Planets have no choice but to orbit their sun. I am not strong enough to defy gravity.
Your metaphors are nothing to me, Reyna. You are blinded by infatuation. I am sorry for you, for you will hurt in time.
Of course I will. Pain is life. I will not turn away from what I want just because I know it will be taken from me. I am neither strong enough nor stupid enough. You misunderstand human nature if you think I could turn away from him before I have no other choice.
I was only hoping you had not already sunk so deeply. I see now that council is pointless.
Are you angry?
He slowly blew a long trail of steam out his nostrils. No. I feel your love for the boy. It is like an ocean inside of you, and you are only beginning to fathom its depths, its reach. While I wish you would've chosen another, I will not scorn such emotion. He shuddered in a strange way and his eyelids clicked as they closed over yellow orbs the size of battle shields. I have not felt such in centuries. Who are we to go against such an ancient force? Magic of the oldest kind burns in your heart and Morzan's son's, though you are naught but children to our eyes. Love should be what Galbatorix trembles before, though he so easily can destroy it on a mere whim. I cannot grasp this. The dragon pulled away from my touch, tossing his massive head again. You may not understand me, but neither can I understand you.
And yet in love I am utterly powerless. Perhaps, then, true power lies with the powerless.
The king shall play your love like the strings to a marionette. Shruikan stomped his feet and blew smoke out his nostrils. You have no power, and if you do, it is unknown to me despite my years and the power and knowledge I have at my command.
Peace, I soothed. I understand no more than you—indeed, certainly less. I am reconciled to my fate, whatever it may be, and I'm honored that you worry for me, but the fault shall be only my own.
Shruikan breathed for a few moments, his large eyes on mine. He lowered his head so that his snout was close enough to touch. You do not deserve what fate has placed upon your shoulders, he replied, his ancient thoughts softer.
Nor do you. Nor does Murtagh. But the world has seen fit to give us these burdens and so they may yet have purpose.
I know not whether you are wise or foolish.
I laughed, abruptly lightening the forlorn mood, and tapped him playfully on his scaly snout. "Foolish, of course! You should know me better than to think me wise."
Ah, young one, he rumbled affectionately, you have much to learn and many ways to grow, but your thoughts do not lack shades of wisdom. He shook his back and spread his wings, tail swinging like a gigantic mace. I must leave you now. The king wishes to train the boy.
Until later, Master Shruikan.
Atra mor'ranr lífa unin hjarta onr, he replied. We were connected enough that the meaning of this phrase in the ancient language came through before he let our mind connection drop as he spread his massive wings with a loud snapping of joints and unfurling of leathery membrane and took a mighty leap over me. He landed with a thunderous pound that almost jarred me off my feet, but then, with a final pump of his wings, he lifted off the ground and soared away to another part of the castle.
May peace live in your heart, Reyna.
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There was a knock on my door and I looked up from the scroll I was browsing, though I didn't bother to get up from lying on my stomach in bed.
"Yes?"
The door opened and a servant I didn't recognize bowed low. "Rider Murtagh has requested you, Lady Reyna," he said. I blinked. Murtagh can request my presence now, can he? That's new.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"I'm to take you to him, my lady," he murmured, bowing again and gesturing with his arm.
"I see." I got up from the bed and followed the man out and down the hall. He was leading me to the eggs chambers, and I thought it superfluous that he was leading me because I could find the way myself. We took a corridor, however, that skirted the main entrance, following a hall that wrapped around to the back of it—a different entrance to Murtagh's accommodations. We stopped before a wooden door before which stood two guards. The bigger one peered sternly at us as the other got a metal key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He opened it for me and closed it as I walked through.
I found myself in a short, dark, narrow hall, and I grinned as I turned in the doorway and spied two familiar feet sticking out on what little I could see of the bed. As I walked into his bedroom, Murtagh sat up, a wide grin stretching across his face. He immediately stood and wrapped his arms around me, and I melted into his embrace, pressing my cheek to his neck and kissing the skin there.
Movement caught my eye and I saw Murtagh's ruby dragon at the head of the bed. His eyes were fixed on me in his unnerving way. Murtagh turned to look at the hatchling, though he still kept an arm around my waist. The little dragon made a noise in his throat and cocked his head as he came forward. I kept still as he butted his head gently against my thigh.
"Hello, little one," I murmured. I was still a bit unsettled from this morning when he had raked his razor-sharp claws down my back, and the scrapes under my bandages still twinged when I moved, but I knew I had to accept the creature. I reached out a hand and he allowed me to rub the top of his little head. He made an odd trilling noise in his throat, and then promptly diverted his attention to stalking a pillow.
Murtagh chuckled, watching as he pounced, and then he looked back at me, pulling my torso gently against his own. His face softened, melting away any lines that creased it, and his intense gray eyes smoldered as he slid a warm, callused palm to cup a side of my face. I gazed back at him, lost in his expression. He held my face there for a few moments, drinking me in with his eyes, before he leaned in to kiss my forehead. A tingle started from the very tips of my toes and traveled up by body as heat bloomed in the pit of my stomach. He kissed his way down the side of my face and traced my jaw line with his chin before finally taking my lips with his.
I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him tightly against me as I pressed as close as I could. I ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, and raked the other up his back. My breath quickened as my heartbeat hammered and I drowned in him. As we fell back onto the bed, I had a glance of the dragon baby on the floor at the end of the bed gnawing ferociously on the conquered pillow—apparently his way to deal with the passion emanating from Murtagh.
I gasped, breathless, when Murtagh lifted his mouth off of mine for a moment to get his breath back. His weight on me was wonderful. I panted beneath him and he smiled beautifully at my expression. I found a hand and snaked it around so that I could caress his face, pushing back the hair that fell in dark locks in front of his eyes. Murtagh smiled again, then groaned and rolled off and next to me on his back. I watched him with a frown; I was not done kissing him.
I moved on top of him and his grin widened. "Ah, that's better. Galbatorix had me sword fighting today, and I could barely hold my weight up."
"Oh," I murmured kissing him. "Well then." Kiss. "Are you" —kiss— "too tired" —kiss— "for this?"
"Hell no," he groaned, holding me against him with strong arms. I molded my mouth to his and raked my hands over his broad chest, his wiry shoulders, through his hair. He was too much, as always. He was everything.
I got his shirt off somewhere in there, because I was kissing his chest, his pale, sculpted chest, and then up his neck and to his mouth again. I loved the noises he made. When I kissed his mouth, depending on how deeply, he would make a soft groan low in his throat that sounded almost pained like he was suffering from a flood of emotion like I was. When I kissed his neck, he would rake his arms up and down my back and breathe my name. When I kissed his chest, he squirmed the tiniest bit and moaned. When he kissed or sucked my neck or shoulder, he would make a soft, hungry growl low in his throat.
Our kissing slowly wound down and I finally lifted my mouth off of him to move down against his side and lay my head on his chest. Murtagh kept his arms strongly around me, and we breathed deeply together.
"I thought it was the end of my life, coming back here," Murtagh murmured after a few moments. "But it's a beginning. To be with you like this…gods, after all this time… Reyna…"
I kissed his chest long and hard, trying to put the love I felt for him into it. He sighed deeply.
"You don't know how I am without you, so you can't understand…" He took a deep breath and said in a low rush, "I've been so alone, Reyna. I…I've always had a hard time trusting people. I've been on my own, I've fought alone, and I had accepted that hollowness as my life, as the way I was. But you…but having you…" He sighed again, and gritted his teeth, searching for words. "You make me—my life—different. You give me reasons, you fill that—that hollow… Argh, it's so hard to explain. I'm no good at this," he growled. "I can't find the words. I don't think there even are any."
I closed my eyes, full of the raw passion that rose within me hearing his half-formed explanations. I, luckily, was a touch more eloquent. In a soft murmur I told him, "I have the hollow, too, Murtagh, and I didn't think it could get better, either. But when I first saw you, unconscious, dragged inside by the Twins, something burst back to life inside of me. Every time I see you, my heart expands to the point where I all but choke on it. When you smile, there is nothing more beautiful to me in all the world. I want to breathe you in, to be always in your arms, to be your support, your lover, your heart's companion. I am yours, and you must believe me to the deepest pit of your soul when I tell you nothing can change what I feel for you—not the king, not you, not my own will, nor any other force on this earth or above or below. Do you believe that?"
Murtagh's eyes were glassy as he gazed at me. His face was full of such a combination of deep emotions that I could not make it out. His nostrils flared as tears welled in the corners of his eyes and his lips twitched to make a gentle smile. In the softest voice I had ever heard, he whispered, "And you must believe that it's only you who has ever or will ever reach the heart that I hadn't known I possessed… Only you, Reyna. However we're separated, whatever happens, know that."
I nodded, warm tears spilling out of my own eyes. Murtagh made a face and wiped them away with his thumb.
I swallowed with effort and replied, "No…no matter what I might say, Murtagh, or what Galbatorix might ma—" I choked on the words, the oath I had given stopping me from preparing him for what the king would have me do to him. I squeezed my eyes shut. "Don't belie—" I took a deep breath. "No matter what I might say otherwise," I whispered.
His eyebrows pulled together slightly in question, but didn't pursue the subject. He nodded and kissed my forehead, keeping his mouth pressed against the skin there. I sniffed, and nuzzled down into his chest.
"I hadn't meant to make you cry," he murmured. "I'm sorry."
I laughed weakly. "I'm overdue for some tears. It's surprising that I don't start to bawl every time I'm alone with you." I glanced up to see Murtagh's grimace, and laughed under my breath again. "You're the only one who gets to see them, you know."
He pressed his cheek to my hair and sighed. "Don't let me ever be the cause of them."
"If it's a good cause, then you can. Like a minute ago."
"I suppose. But if my pitiful attempts to declare myself make you cry, I've been far too unclear about how much you mean to me."
"I agree. You should try every time we're alone to explain. Maybe sometime this month you may alight upon a description you feel proud of," I sniggered.
Murtagh sighed, rolling his eyes. "I was actually trying to be serious."
I kissed his chest. "Show, don't just tell."
He made a growl-like noise in his throat that told of gritty determination. "To the very best of my abilities. I don't know what Galbatorix has in store for either of us, but he could never make me hurt you."
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I wanted to scream. The king would soon be able to do whatever he pleased with his new Rider. Murtagh would have no choice but to surrender his will, and then Galbatorix could have him do anything he wished. In habitual response to the stress, my body became very still and Murtagh noticed. He shifted and exhaled in a gust.
"You think he can, don't you?" he asked quietly, his face turned away. I sighed as I moved up to look at his face.
"I've been here for so long, I don't dare hope for anything," I whispered. "But you…you're strong and brave and have a good heart. If I can hope, it is for you, Murtagh." I kissed his neck tenderly and felt his tensioned muscles relax under my hand across his waist and the leg that was draped over his. He brought up his other arm to push back my hair as he stroked the side of my face. I turned my head slightly to kiss his palm and a little smile eased up the corners of his mouth.
"Well, good," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Because hope's the only thing I have going for me right now."
"Your dragon," I reminded him.
"True," he replied, his gaze on a corner of the bed behind which out of his sight was presumably the dragon baby still destroying a pillow. He blinked and suddenly the red dragon pounced up onto the bed and walked stoutly onto Murtagh's chest. I winced as I watched the sharp little claws pierce through his shirt, but Murtagh didn't flinch.
He lifted a hand and the dragon began to gnaw gently on his fingers, his eyes locked with Murtagh's. A smile flickered across Murtagh's face, and his eyes flashed and subtle changes in his expression showed he was communicating with the hatchling. He glanced at me and then glanced back guiltily at the dragon that stopped gnawing his fingers abruptly and snorted a huff of warm air out its nostrils. He made a little growl noise and then moved his eyes to me. His head cocked and the eyes probed my features.
The dragon's face was expressionless, but there was something challenging and disapproving in its eyes. It watched me calculatingly and I felt like it saw me not as a person but as a tiresome object which it was trying to understand the appeal of. I kept my face expressionless, but resentment and an equally-challenging urge rose inside of me. The dragon could not have Murtagh all to himself—at least not right now.
I moved my head to kiss Murtagh's neck affectionately. That effectively took his attention from the dragon and back to me. I felt his warm breath on my forehead when he turned his head toward me. I glanced at the dragon and saw him watching me with unfathomable eyes.
"Is that all the king's doing with you?" I asked in a soft voice, my head snuggled against his neck. "Honing your swordplay?"
Murtagh nodded. "For now. I think he's going to wait until the dragon can use language, and then he's going to do more with us. What more, I know not."
"He's going to teach you to be a Rider and all that it entails, I would presume," I replied. "Magic, mostly."
"Magic…" he murmured. "I never imagined it to be within my abilities. I never even wanted it to be. It's part of me now, I suppose."
"I don't like magic," I said, quieter still. "It frightens me."
"You have only seen it work for evil," Murtagh replied, drawing his arms up tighter around me as if his embrace could ward off the evils he spoke of.
"Yes. And magic is not a part of me, Murtagh. I will never be able to understand it." I smiled humorlessly. "Shruikan rubbed that in this afternoon."
Murtagh shifted his body as took a breath. "Are you often in audience with Galbatorix's dragon?" he asked, sounding puzzled.
I moved my head back so I could see his eyes. "We talk sometimes, yes."
"You talk?" he repeated, looking down at me with an astonished expression.
I shrugged, confused by his shock. "Yes, sometimes. Why is that strange?"
Murtagh stared at me. "He's… I don't know. Frightening. Don't you think so? He gives off this really angry, volatile, dangerous feel. He doesn't seem like the type to just…talk."
My lips pursed. I didn't think so, but it was probably better if Murtagh respected the dinosaur of a dragon. "Well…yes, I know what you mean. It's just that I've grown very used to that kind of feel. I've lived under the king for years, remember."
Murtagh gazed down at me, his eyes tight. "That's…normal for you, then. That threatening atmosphere?"
I shrugged, looking away from him. "It got better after a while."
"Did it get worse when I came back?"
I shrugged, and he grimaced at my unsatisfactory answer. The dragon was sitting on Murtagh's stomach, watching both of us, his eyes flicking alertly from face to face as we talked. I wondered how much of our conversation he understood.
"How has it… What have you been doing here?" Murtagh asked. "I mean, what kinds of things do you…"
"Well," I said softly, wanting to be honest with him, "At first I was a concubine, as you know, then about three years ago, the king tucked me under his arm, if you will. He gave me a room adjacent to his and used me for some miscellaneous things. Tests, I think. I was terrified of the man and I did whatever he asked without question, like we all did. He at first was very cold with me, ordering me to be a spy, a tool, whatever he needed.
"When I did well at the tasks he assigned, he gave me more and more…subtle assignments. For example, I was too persuade a certain diplomat over a week to agree to the king's proposals by getting him to fall in—in lust with me."
"What, you'd fuck his brains out and he'd eat up your ever word?" Murtagh asked, his words hard.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. "More or less."
"I bet Galbatorix was delighted in your success," he said through his teeth. He did not speak coldly, but in a hard way that made it obvious he was furious at the things the king had made me do.
"Peace, Murtagh. Such things are in my past," I murmured. Murtagh's clenched jaw loosened somewhat.
"Still," he growled. "God, Reyna, I'll kill him for making you—"
"Don't be stupid," I sighed. "You can no better punish the king that I can fly to the moon. If I can let these things go, so can you. Do you think me worse for the things I have done?"
Murtagh sighed. "I wish you had not had to go through them, but I don't see you less because of it. You're very strong to be as—as good as you are now after having to do such things. Stronger than I thought you were."
Though his praised warmed me, it was not entirely true. "Do not think me to be untouched or unchanged by those experiences, though, Murtagh. The scars just ease when I'm…when I'm with you."
Murtagh kissed the top of my head soundly. "We'll all scarred. We've all had to do awful things, and I'm sure our misdeeds…especially mine…are not through with."
I nodded. "The king has much evil in store for the both of us. We won't survive if we dwell on the things we have done and will have to do."
Murtagh growled softly as he let his breath out. "But neither can we loose our hold of shame or our consciences, or he'll corrupt us."
"We'll have to draw a line for what we will or will not let go."
"Aye."
The dragon snapped his jaws in seeming agreement, his gaze wandering away from us. I chuckled and caressed Murtagh's chest absently with my hand. "What's your dragon's personality like?" I asked.
Murtagh smiled ruefully. "He's a stubborn little bugger, that's for sure. He has his own opinion on everything, even if he can put words to it yet. He's very… I don't know the right word for it. Resilient? Tough? He's determined. And brave. But he knows there is much he doesn't understand right now. It's strange…he has an inherent awareness and intelligence, but can't really put it into context right now. He has amazing intuition about some things, and in others he's totally ignorant. Like some of an old man's memories got put in a toddler's brain. It's really hard to describe."
His mouth twisted upward and his eyes lit as he talked about the dragon. He watched it fondly as it looked lazily around the room. Its eyes came to Murtagh's and there was the same softness in them when their gazes met. He moved off of Murtagh's chest to nuzzle into his armpit. Murtagh smiled and rubbed the scaly creature as if it were a pet cat.
We jumped a little when there came a pounding on the door. It opened, and both Twins entered the room, their sharp, beady eyes taking in my position curled into Murtagh's side and the dragon hatchling at his other side.
They both fixed their eyes on me and said in unison, "Leave."
"The king said I was allowed her company," Murtagh protested, tightening his arm around me.
They glared mercilessly at him. "At the discretion of your superiors, filthy boy," one spat. The other's lips twisted and he added, "You do not deserve the name of your father's son."
"Thank you," Murtagh replied tonelessly. The Twins hissed and Murtagh cried out and jerked in pain, his eyes squeezing shut. I watched helplessly as the Twins punished him as they saw fit.
"Stop it!" I shouted, but was ignored. The hatchling yowled and threw itself at the Twins but one knocked him away with a flick of his hand and a flash of his eyes. The dragon baby twisted in pain on the floor, screaming in a horrible way.
As soon as the punishment had come, the Twins let up their magic and Murtagh panted, lying limply on his back, his eyes open again. The hatchling growled weakly from the floor.
"You lack your father's power, his tenacity, his brilliance—you are weak and disgusting," a twin growled. Murtagh shook, glaring at them with hatred burning in his eyes. In defiance of the Twins, I turned his head toward me with gentle fingers under his chin, and kissed him tenderly on his forehead.
"You also lack his selfishness, his cruelty, his rage, and his evil," I murmured gently to him, smiling, and said in an even softer voice, "You are strong and beautiful."
The Twins laughed harshly, but we both ignored their nasty comments as I moved off of the bed and walked around. I picked up the dragon hatchling still lying on the floor and placed him gently on the bed before allowing the Twins to shove me out into the narrow hall and then out into the wide corridor.