The Girl with the Broken Crown

Disclaimer: Meh. I'm too lazy to type it again. Take a look in the first chapter.

Summary: Rya's back and she has her father's mess to clean up. Even worse, she has to find a husband of some royal bloodline, train with the elves, and hunt down all the Ra'zac... all before the end of the year. Not to mention old friends, mysterious, handsome young men, and an awry spirit... along with all of Alagaësia to rule...

Author's Note: I apologize for not updating for so long. Seriously, I thought I had a chapter in my documents, but I guess I already uploaded it! Thank you so much to the people who reviewed my last chapter!

Chapter Four: Furnost

Rya closed her hand and quickly dumped the rocks bag into the small, leather bag from whence they had come. Tristan's trance was broken almost immediately and he transferred his gaze to Rya.

"What were those?" he asked, a puzzled look crossing his face.

"Rocks," Rya answered plainly. She hoped he wouldn't ask any more questions.

"What kind of rocks?"

She gave him a look that said, it's-not-really-any-of-your-business-so-shut-up. "Emidite," she stated.

"Oh,"

"Go to sleep. We're going into the city tomorrow, and you know how tiring that can be." Rya said, changing the subject.

Tristan nodded, yawning. Rya watched as he slowly made his way over to where the knights were and laid down. She waited a couple minutes before quietly picking up the leather bag and taking out one Emidite stone. It rolled smoothly into her hand. It reminded her of the marbles one of her father's sorcerers had enchanted for her when she was little, except it wasn't perfectly round. The silvery surface seemed to draw her mind in through her eyes. An enveloping feeling suddenly overwhelmed her and she felt like she was inside the rock, looking out at her body. One thing stood out as she unconsciously let herself slip into whatever state she was in: her own eyes were without pupils... without irises even. Just glazed over so much that they were blank, white orbs inside her head.

It was then she realized what was happening. A sudden concentration of thoughts brought her jolting back into her body with a startling shout. She was surprised that nobody had woken up. Without looking at the little black stone, she shoved it back into the bag as quick as she could, laid down, and fell into a nightmarish sleep.

::alagaësia::

Rya scowled as Tristan waved cheerily at the people who stared at them. She was unhappy. There had been a mad scuffle as they had approached the city. The remaining soldiers guarding the windblown city had arranged themselves around the entrance as the small entourage passed through the gates. A lieutenant had scurried up with a list of deserters as Rya had ordered for immediately after the group had split to do variously assigned tasks. It had at least twenty or thirty names on it.

And this is only one city! she told Allaster after reviewing the whole situation with him. One measily city! Just think how many have deserted in Teirm or Dras-Leona? We might be looking at more than half the army, here!

Rya, let the council handle that problem while we're gone. Allaster replied. There is no way you alone could find and punish all those men.

As she made her way to the eastern gate of Furnost, people stopped and stared. Every few minutes, another knight would ride up from an alley or street. By the time they arrived at the gate, they were just waiting for Deaux, who had disappeared into the city's library.

"I think we should sent somebody to get him," prompted Rymn after they had sat for at least ten minutes.

"I think we should just leave without him." Murtagh scoffed.

"You know what I think?" Rya offered. "I think all of you should shut up. This is one of the last mapped cities we're going to see on this trip."

There was a moment of silence before Eragon spoke up. "Rya, we're getting funny looks. I agree with Murtagh."

"We are not going to just leave him. You two--" she pointed to the two knights nearest to her "--go down to the library and tell him that if he's not up here in five minutes, we're leaving without him." They nodded and prodded their horses forward down the slight slope of the road toward the building that was the library.

A few minutes later, they reappeared with Deaux, a bag of books on his hip and a drawn look on his face. He looked up the gentle slope at the half-sphere library as he swung himself up onto his horse.

"What took you so long?" Eragon frowned at the wiry librarian.

"They... they had some books that I wanted," Deaux muttered absently, looking off into the distance.

Eragon nodded slowly and prodded his horse forward as they small party left the city. A knight from Furnost had volunteered to accompany them on the trip around the Tüdosten Lake south of the city. Rya had graciously accepted, seeing that any help they could get from loyal soldiers would be great.

The knight led the way down the shore of the lake, also eventually skirting the small Tüdosten forest as well. By dusk, they had reached the southern end of the lake where it started the Eryn River to the ocean. Before starting east, they decided to stop and camp for the night.

"Is there anything we should be expecting when we cross the border, milady?" Rymn asked as they sat around the fire with meat bought from Furnost.

Rya looked across the fire at the knight. "Please call me Rya. And, I wouldn't know. I've only heard stories about the East. The person to ask would be Deaux," she replied, looking around the circle of people. "Where is he, anyway?"

There was an awkward silence as nobody answered. Several people looked around, but nobody saw the librarian.

"I'll go find him!" Kiddel quipped loudly, scrambling to his feet and disappearing outside the circle of light from the fire.

We all looked at Maddai.

"What?" he complained.

"Aren't you going to... you know, fight over who goes?" Murtagh said, swallowing the food that was in his mouth.

"Why would I do that?" Maddai frowned.

Everyone exchanged looks as Kiddel ran back into the firelight and sat abruptly. He picked up his plate and started to eat again as if nothing had happened. The only sound was the crackling of the fire.

Less than a minute later, Deaux appeared beside his horse. He slipped a book into the saddlebag and walked over to the group, sitting in a gap. One of the knights passed him a bowl of stew. Everybody looked at the brown-haired man as he started in on his food.

"Deaux," Rya said, getting the librarian's attention. He looked up, spooning a chunk of meat into his mouth. "Do you know what we're to expect when we cross the Az Ragni?"

He nodded a little, chewing and swallowing the chunk. "I don't know much, but there are some records. What do you want to know?"

"Anything you have," Murtagh cut in.

Deaux grunted, putting his bowl down. "I'm hoping that maybe they're be a village or something before we hit the Az Ragni, because I don't have a map, and we could use a guide. And, if there isn't some kind of source, then I guess we might want to stop at Hedarth, which is about a day north of the Beor Mountains. I'm thinking that there should be somebody in Hedarth who has been at least a little further east than our maps stretch."

"Is that as far as my father's maps go? To Hedarth?" Rya asked.

"Yes, that's why I stopped at the library in Furnost. You never know what these small cities hid from your father." The young librarian sighed. "They still might not be totally trusting of their new government, and I was a little nervous that they wouldn't let me access the records that I did."

He reached into the messenger's bag that sat on the ground next to him. "This," he explained, "is an old eastern Dwarvish storybook. It's written in the old language, so the librarian at Furnost had no use for it."

"How is of use to us?" Eragon objected. "None of us can read ancient Dwarvish!"

"Ah-ha!" Deaux grinned. "This is the reason why I'm here. I am one of the few people in Alagaësia who can, so I came just in case you ran into something like this. I have actually visited the Varden once before, when they were located under Farthen Dûr. I was taught both modern and ancient Dwarvish during my stay."

Everyone exchanged impressed looks.

"So you can tell us what's in this book?" Rymn said, nodding at the leather-bound volume in Deaux's lap.

"Yes,"

"For starters, where is it from, exactly?" Maddai asked. "Then go from there,"

Deaux frowned. "I don't know," he muttered, looking over the outside of the book, then opening both worn covers and glancing over the text on the inside. "It says here... this doesn't make any sense. Hmm..."

"So?" Murtagh said, impatient.

"It comes from a city called Mithrôs. From my studies, the city died out before Galbatorix came to rule, and the dwarves abandoned it because it was so far away from their capital."

Rya looked around at everyone as Deaux rattled on about the dwarves and the city of Mithrôs. Several of the knights had bored looks on their faces, and Tristan had taken to playing with the dirt. The only ones who were even slightly interested in this conversation were Maddai, Eragon, and herself. Murtagh and Kiddel were throwing small rocks at each other, and Rymn was busy stealing chunks of meat from his neighbor's bowl.

"Deaux," she interrupted as soon as she heard the librarian pause. "I think we should save the rest of this conversation for tomorrow. We need to get our rest."

Several members of the group nodded, and Deaux smiled, snapping the book shut. "Very well," he quipped.

Soon after, many of the knights were sleeping, and everyone else was preparing to follow their lead. Deaux sat by the dying fire, reading from a scroll. Both sorcerers were sitting a ways away, practicing simple magic with each other. Eragon, Murtagh, and Rya were down the shoreline with their dragons.

The knight from Furnost had bid farewell and started back north the way they had come, leaving the party to travel the Beors the next day.