Súndavar watched Rune's face, his chin resting on her chest. She didn't look at him, and her face was blank.

"You'll be late, Súndavar," she admonished, still not meeting his eyes.

He kissed her collarbone lightly and felt her stiffen beneath him. She met his eyes hesitantly, then darted away.

What was wrong with her?

Had she really changed so much in a few months of slumber as to feel uncomfortable with him? He used to be able to read her emotions on her face, but now it was a closed door to him. It was as if she had to remember to smile when she caught his eye. And the smile was always forced.

"A kiss for your thoughts," he murmured to her, voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm thinking about Eragon," she told him flatly. After a pause she added: "And save your kiss."

Súndavar drew away, frowning. "Eragon?" he asked. "Why do you think of him?"

Rune blinked. "You have much to learn if you presume to tell me who I can and cannot think of, Súndavar."

Súndavar felt as if he had been slapped. "I—I know. I just wanted to know why Eragon, that's all."

"Because I like him," Rune answered his question in a blunt tone.

"Oh. Like him?"

"I don't know," she said, sounding a bit annoyed. Súndavar had no right to be so protective of her. She wasn't his possession.

Súndavar didn't catch her tone. "You just don't want to tell me," he teased, "Do you like him or not?"

"He's a wonderful friend and doesn't hit me or cut himself," Rune replied snippily. "I don't know if I like him that way, but if you continue I probably will, if only to spite you. Eragon knows when to just shut his mouth."

Súndavar frowned, raising his hands in a 'don't shoot me' motion. Rune groaned and shifted position, rolling her eyes.

Súndavar got up, stung. Why was she being so mean? How could he have angered her so much just by asking?

It was just a question.

Rune got off the bed too, moving towards the door with a flick of her hair.

Before she could open the door, a knock sounded on it. Shay's face peeked through a few moments later.

In all truth, Shay wasn't surprised to find Rune in Súndavar's room. Her tunic looked like it had been slept in, so most likely she had spent the night. That didn't surprise Shay either. Nor did the fact that Súndavar was shirtless. But from Rune's fiery eyes, all had not gone well between them.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to steal Rune from you, Rider," Shay told him with a tiny smile.

Rune looked back at him. "No Shay. He doesn't own me, so I cannot be stolen. We're fencing today, aren't we?"

Súndavar looked bewildered, lost, and hurt. "Rune…"

Rune's eyes flashed.

"Um…yes. Come on, then," Shay murmured uncomfortably.

Rune left Súndavar in her wake, not even looking back.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rune parried, her blade flashing. Vanir leaned against a tree nearby, watching with his hawk-like eyes, hands crossed over his chest. Shay tried another attack, but Rune defended, her sword working in tight, tense little circles.

"Loosen up," Shay admonished. "You have to flow."

Rune didn't seem to hear her. Her brow was creased in concentration, her hair covered in sweat. Shay knocked her sword from her hand and pressed her blade against her throat.

"You're improving, little princess," Vanir told her with obvious disdain, speaking for the first time since he had begun watching. Rune batted Shay's sword away and looked at him.

"Don't call me little. I'll be fifteen…" her face crossed in doubt for a moment, then cleared. "Next week."

Vanir snorted. "Like that is anything to boast about. You aren't even old enough to be considered a woman among your own people, much less mine."

Rune drew back against Shay for protection. "The elves are my people too," she bleated.

"It is disgusting enough to have Mistress Lycona's name blemished with a forced child," he told her cruelly, "It is worse to have that child be sired by the lowest swine ever to crawl the earth. You claim the elves as your people?" Vanir's eyes flashed. "That is a disgrace to us."

Rune's eyes widened. Shay wrapped her arms around her shoulders, drawing her close.

Vanir wasn't finished. "You're half-blooded," he hissed. "You'll never fit in anywhere. Not human, not elf, not rider. A humiliation."

Shay could feel Rune go rigid against her. She felt the younger girl trying to restrain herself from going to tears. Her jaw was set defiantly, and her knuckles were white from grasping her sword.

"Not only that, but you taint your already vile blood with the beds of Riders. You may call yourself a princess, but you are nothing but a whore."

Insults to her name, she could take. But he had accused her virtue! Not only hers, but Eragon's and Súndavar's as well.

"If I am such a disgrace, Vanir-vodhr, I pray we shan't cross paths again. May you never be forced to lay eyes on me once more; for fear I bring such an indignity to your great and mighty name." Her words were eloquent, without a trace of rage or emotion at all. Her voice was different…a level, political voice.

She walked away, head held high. She didn't stalk off, or break into a run. Shay admired her reserve. A true princess's reserve. There was nothing to give Vanir the hint that he had gotten to her.

Rune was soon out of sight.

Shay turned on Vanir, rage in her eyes. "How could you do that?"

"I spoke nothing but the truth," Vanir stated flippantly. "It is bad enough to be a half-blood. If it worse to be the mongrel child of a distinguished elf lady. On top of that, her father is Galbatorix. It's disgusting."

Shay took a dangerous step towards him. "Rune is as much a person as you and I are."

"Define 'person'."

Shay shook with ire, bile rising in her throat. "I stand corrected. She's more of a person than you."

Vanir shrugged, as though her opinion meant nothing to him. "You may think as you wish."

"Oh, thank you for permission," Shay bit. "You don't own me. I'll think what I want, whether you say I can or not."

"I don't dispute that you will."

Shay wanted to slap him, but held herself back. It would only amuse him more. Digging her fingernails into her palms so hard as to draw blood, she stalked off – not possessing the formality to mask her loathing. Even if she had, she wanted him to know how she felt.

Her heart felt like it was being ripped in two. She had been so sure; there was something tender under his difficult exterior. But what he had said…

She slammed the door to her room, like she used to when she was still little and living in Dras-Leona. After a fight with Lily she would have slammed the door just like that, then bawled into her pillow for hours. Her fight with Vanir just made her want to break something. Nothing besides the desk presented itself, and Shay was sure the elves wouldn't appreciate her smashing the piece of furniture. Instead she began to pace, chewing on a fingernail like she did when thinking of a battle plan.

Ugh.

This was why she had never had a lover.

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rune felt the tears slide down her cheeks, but she seemed far away. Islanzadí was saying something, something to comfort her, but she couldn't focus on the words. The world was a blur.

What was it Vanir had said?

You'll never fit in anywhere.

What if he was right? What if she really didn't belong? What if she was set apart from everyone else by her blood? She didn't belong in Ellesméra – her human blood made her different. And elves hadn't been seen in human cities for decades. She…she was alone. There was no one like her.

There is Súndavar, said the little voice in her head. He is half-blood.

But he wasn't. Súndavar was a Rider. It was different for him.

Islanzadí was stroking her hair, like Murtagh used to, and humming a low song that had no words and yet somehow spoke.

Rune hadn't snitched on Vanir. She would never dream of that. But somehow Islanzadí had known who it was who sent the girl to her in tears.

"I'll have his head," she had grumbled to herself. She had then turned to Rune and smiled. "You mustn't take Vanir personally, Rune-vira."

But she had. It was she he had insulted, for having dark blood in her veins – a fact she took no pride in. It was she he had called lesser, as if a disfigured animal fit only for the slaughter.

She sighed and pushed Islanzadí away. The queen backed off, not offended in the least. She understood Rune's pain, understood the need for solitary healing. "Come, child," she whispered to her, guiding her gently in the way one would a frightened animal. "There is something you need to see."

Rune allowed herself to be lead without complaint. Her eyes were closed, and she was lost in her thoughts.

Islanzadí led the girl to a room. She opened the door, hesitating a moment before resting her hand on the magic-crafted wood. She propelled Rune in. The instant Rune's skin lost contact with hers, the elf queen shivered and retreated, as if hit by a blast of cold wind.

The memories in this room…

The magic was thick here. There was a presence, as if someone was watching, staying out of sight but never straying far. Her presence. It was too much for the queen. She closed the door quietly, drawing away in fear.

This room enchanted and scared her. What terrors laid within it, she knew not. When wonderful spells of joy and bliss, she was none to wiser. She liked it that way.

She walked solemnly down the hall, leaving Rune alone.

The girl opened her eyes. The room she found herself in was not unlike her own, small and modest, with a simple bed and desk. But somehow, beyond appearances, the room didn't feel real.

The bed was made too well, the sheets pulled tightly and not a crease in the blanket. The desk was free of any clutter. This room didn't feel right.

She sensed the sleeping magic here, sensed it in her soul. But she didn't fear it. No, it couldn't hurt her. It was her friend. She called out to it with her heart, called to the magic than ran within her blood and within the room.

In her mind's eye, a face appeared. Her own face. Her own sorrel-leaf green eyes and determined jaw. Her own pale, peaches-and-cream skin and pointed ears.

The reflection startled her.

Because the girl in her mind was not herself.

The girl in her mind had pale hair, the color of sunshine and gold and the grasses of the fields. It fell in a plait, and Rune realized that it had been braided into hundreds of thousands of tiny braids, each no more than three strands. In turn, these had been braided, and so forth, creating a thick rope of braids that wrapped around and was waist length.

The girl in Rune's mind was older, too. Or perhaps younger…Rune couldn't tell. She had an ageless quality about her, a wisdom in her eyes that exceeded the years of her body.

The magic weaved into the walls called to Rune, and Rune knew her.

Lycona.

As soon as the vision was there, it was gone. But Rune could feel it there, on the edges of her consciousness.

This had been Lycona's room. This had been the room where she had weaved the most powerful of her magic, to watch over this place she called home, even after she was gone. It was a strange and wonderful, calling magic, and Rune felt at peace.

She wanted to touch everything, shout her mother's name in both joy and fear, but she held back. The magic here would not permit her to violate this place. It would hurt her to try, kill her to insist. Instead, she let out a silent prayer.

Wherever you are, she whispered, I honor you.

The magic seemed to have a life of its own. It reacted to her silent supplication, swirling around her with Lycona's own being.

Rune.

Her name was a voice in the wind, and for a moment, Rune lost herself in the magic. She could stay here…surrounded by her mother and her fay will. She became part of it, part of her, losing her identity in the process. She could just sink down into it's comforting depths…

Fay will bind you, if you let it. Leave now, daughter of the earth and of the sky and of the very magic that brought the world forth. Go with my blessings.

Her own voice.

Lycona's voice.

Rune felt herself being pulled out of the magic embrace, remembering who she was and the will to be a person. She moved to the door. It opened on its own, as if willing her away, willing her to leave before she got ensnared in its web too deeply to remove herself.

The half-blooded girl strode confidently through Tialdarí, feeling both energetic and very tired at the same time. She wanted to sleep forever, and yet she knew that she would never be able to now.

She didn't get lost on her way back to her room. If someone had asked her the way, she would have looked at them in confusion, unable to explain.

But her heart knew it, and that was enough.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rune sat between Eragon and Súndavar at dinner, but she didn't feel the need to eat. The magic of Lycona's room had left her feeling invincible, immortal.

Súndavar played with his food absently. Rune saw the new slash on his wrist, but she said nothing. What could she say?

Eragon seemed to notice something was amiss. Rune, you are a hundred leagues away.

Rune blinked, startled by his words. It was true, she had been far away, her mind drifting pointlessly. I'm sorry. I must be tired.

You should get some sleep. Are not your chambers suitable?

There was a hint in his voice, and Rune fought the urge to laugh. Yours are better, she answered with mock seduction. But tonight I sleep alone, Silver Hand.

Eragon tried to send colors into her mind, but failed miserably, sending only a blurry grayish blob. Rune laughed.

Súndavar turned to her sharply. "Pray tell," he asked, voice like a whip, "What humors you so?"

Rune blinked at him. "Nothing."

"No, really. I'm sure we'd all like to hear the joke."

Saphira rumbled in warning, but Súndavar ignored her. Slate shifted uncomfortably at her side.

Do not be stupid, Shadow.

"Sticks and stones,

buzzard bones,

darkest blood,

and heart unknown!"

Blagden ruffled his feathers, staring grumpily at Slate, as if daring the dragon to challenge him. Slate smoked, snorting a puff of the black fog at the raven, before returning to his food.

Súndavar thought the rhyme sounded like something that would go in a witch's brew. He shivered. Not a good witch, like Angela. A bad witch.

Rune picked up on his discomfort, but remained aloofly disconnected.

What was up with her, anyways?

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Shruikan, I'm tired, Thorn told the older dragon.

Shruikan didn't look at him. Feel your wings beat at the air. Become aware of what is around you. Forget your own tiredness, and find life in everything else.

Thorn tried to do as he said, but soon lost interest and returned to grumpy silence. Shruikan made a terrible traveling partner. He didn't talk, didn't slow, and didn't seem to tire. His wings kept moving, over and over and over.

An hour passed with no words between the two dragons.

Shruikan, I'm tired.

Author's Note: Hey guys. I just wanted to say, a lot of you may be confused by the part about Rune in Lycona's chambers. It's okay if you are, because it's not supposed to make sense. Well, it is…but it's like the dragon that healed Eragon at the Blood Oath Celebration. Some things cannot be explained, they just are. I tried to portray that depth, but if you're still stumped, don't worry, it's not a huge part of the story and most likely won't come up again.

Also, I assume MOST of the people reading this are girls. (I'm not being sexist, I'm just saying from your reviews and stuff…I just get the feeling). Anyways, the next chapter might make any of you guys out there slightly uncomfortable. (hint: it has to do with her unexplainable annoyance, and mood shifts. Girls probably know what I mean.) Just thought I'd give you a heads up. Hearts, Kittie