Hi everyone! Sorry for the wait, been super busy lately. The last chapter was kinda short, but I'm afraid this one isn't too much longer. Kind of at a writer's block stage right now, but if I'm not updating this story, I may be updating my Batman fanfic, The Raven. Check it out!

Chapter 26: Ambidextrous

Ardice felt butterflies fill up her stomach as she felt strong arms weave themselves around her as she sat at the desk in her quarters. She grinned and whispered, "Not now."

She knew Murtagh smiled at that. "Why not?"

"You shouldn't be in here; guards are still lurking in the passageways, aren't they?"

"Nope."

Ardice turned in her wooden chair to face him. "No? Why not?"

"'Cause I killed them all."

"Oh really?" said Ardice sarcastically.

"Oh yes. I needed to see you that badly."

"How heroic."

"I'd fight my way through thousands of men, Urgals and Raz'zac for you." Colour rose into her cheeks.

"And I you." She stood and Murtagh pulled down her black veil to kiss her deeply.

"What is that?" he asked. Ardice looked at the desk to see the parchment she had been so focused on writing before distraction came. "That? Poem, in the Ancient Language. I'm intent on sending it to-"

"No, no, that."

Ardice followed Murtagh's point with her keen eyes, leading them to a dark gray box perched on top of the door sill. "Oh, I...I don't know. Fleddmente!"

The small box lifted itself up slowly and floated down into her awaiting hands. She looked at Murtagh questioningly. He nodded and she slid the top off, anticipating something terrible to happen.

Deep inside the room,

Awaits our final doom.

Aid shall not come soon,

For we are too far off the loom.

We are not able to journey far,

You must not stay where you are.

The hopeless door is left ajar,

When the battle rages near and far.

Hope is gone with those who lack,

Though loyalty is not held intact.

Pressures to live, quickly they stack,

Escape the troubles that have been brought back.

Ride on forever through clouded trees,

They stop singing now, they cannot see.

Life has been thwarted, they will not be,

Forever protected and always be free.

Caged and locked within this cell,

Here lay you and all is well.

And tragedy hits, my heart is hell,

Summer is as summer does, til you I tell.

When I lay is when I end,

But the same may not be said for my friend.

For she knows not of the lonely bends,

Within the branches are on the mend.

Not for long they will not go,

Wait enough for winter's snow.

You must be here by then and so,

For if you are late, I fear you'll know.

Fear of never a brightened sun,

For never seeing it be long gone.

The struggle of endlessness may be yet done,

But may it not, if the battle is won.

"Pedr." Ardice sank to the floor, sighing.

"Who, love?"

She looked up at him, surprised. "You know Pedr."

Murtagh shook his head. "Yes, yes, I told you of him. He was here, the night I was captured. He's my first captain, my best friend. And..."

Not only was a poem in the gray box, but a pendant. A copper pendant with inscriptions in the Ancient Language. Leelan's pendant.

"Leelan," she breathed. Murtagh sat next to her and gently took the poem from her quivering hand. After a minute, Murtagh looked at her.

"I don't understand, what does it mean?"

He looked at her, shocked to see how white she had become. "Love?"

Ardice lay her head on his shoulder. "Are you sure this...Pedr fellow wrote this?"

She nodded her head. "He always wrote letters to me in rhyming riddles when we were young." She looked up to see more colour coming into Murtagh.

"It means that Galbatorix isn't keeping us here. He's planning on getting rid of us, most likely at different times. He's going to start a war, the big war that ends everything."

"Hasn't he been doing that already?"

She scowled. "He's planning on attacking the Elves and the Varden. He's going to take over – everything." Murtagh looked nervous now. He had Ardice hold the poem up so both of them could see. "Alright," he started.

"What does the first paragraph mean?"

"He means for us to get out now, because no one can help us escape now. And they need our help. My soldiers aren't back at Willow Wood, or even in Du Weldenvarden. They've been put off course."

"Alright then. The second?"

Ardice examined the rain/tear stained parchment. "The battle's coming and we're in danger just being here."

"The third?"

"People are starting to turn on each other. Galbatorix has a greater following now and will strike soon, and hard."

"Okay, so we know that the outside world is bad. What about the fourth one?"

Ardice winced. "The enemy has entered Willow Wood."

Murtagh felt bad about pushing her on and it took all his power to say, "The fifth?"

Ardice read. She read again. And again. And again. 'My God,' she thought. 'Pedr.'

She read the sixth paragraph and placed the pieces together. 'Pedr. He, he's taken with me. No, he's in love. Oh, Pedr.'

Murtagh waited patiently for her to say something, unaware that she was dying inside. Pedr? Her best friend? She loved him, yes, but like this? This was his way of telling her that he loved her. That he's always loved her. What can she say to this? How?

"Ardice?"

Her eyes flickered from the page to Murtagh, holding her close against him. She said nothing. Why would he put it this way. Why would...

Then it hit her. It hit her so hard that she felt the physical pain in her heart. She felt stabbed, beaten, struck, worse than ever. Tears streamed down her face at her sudden realization.

"Ardice? Love, what is it?" Murtagh asked frantically, brushing the tears from her face. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak.

"He's dying."

Ardice was sprinting around the room, cramming anything worth value into her knit pack. It had been six minutes since she figured out that Pedr was wounded. He warned her that she had to leave, and he told her, finally, of the secret that had been with him for so long.

"The seventh paragraph," gasped Ardice, "Means that the battle is in spring. And that we must leave, quickly, for if we do not-." She stopped and looked at Murtagh, still clutching the poem. "We may soon face consequences."

Murtagh shook his head, unable to take it all in. "And the last?"

"The last just means that we have to win this thing," she said, bustling around the room, stripping it of everything except two thin parchments, two quills and two ink chambers on her desk.

Ardice scrambled to the desk, Murtagh watching over her shoulder, as she picked up a quill in her left hand and a quill in her right hand, dipped them in ink, and scribbled on both parchments at the same time.

"Oh my! Is there a magic word for that?"

"No," muttered Ardice.

"Then, how can you-"

"I'm ambidextrous," she said frankly.

The left hand on the left parchment scribbled frantically in black, the right writing blue. Each letter said nearly the same thing, so it was easier for her to do it quickly. After nearly a minute, she slammed down the quills hard on the wood, bolted to the window, and began to hum and mutter words that Murtagh could not understand. Soon after, two hawks, one gold and one silver, appeared silently at the opened window.

Ardice tied the black-inked letter to the gold falcon and the blue-inked one to the silver falcon's leg and sent them off flying. She regained her breath and walked to Murtagh.

"The silver one flies to Du Weldenvarden, to the Queen and Eragon. The gold one flies to my soldiers."

"How do you know where they are?"

"I don't, but Becc will find them."

"Becc?"

"Yes; that gold falcon you saw there, that's my falcon."

"You don't say."

Ardice turned her gaze to the floor and she picked up Leelan's pendant and strung it around her neck. Her eyes filled with desire as she wrapped her arms around Murtagh's neck.

"We leave at dawn."