A/N: Hello, everybody. Well here's chapter 9, I guess. Anyway, I'm proud of myself! I made up a nickname that Thorn uses for Murtagh! Read and find (and REVIEW). Also, there's one other thing I'd like to say: I will never, ever do any Thorn/Saphira stuff. I find that quite sickening. So, yeah. I'm sorry about Eragon and Nasuada clashing so much :(. They just can't seem to see eye-to-lately, can they? And Murtagh and Eragon? That blue rider has some baggage. But no matter.

Chapter 9

This must be how Arya feels recounting her trauma in Gil'ead, Nasuada thought. Still, she pressed Murtagh on.

"I… I can't imagine. What did he do to you, might I ask?" she faltered nervously at the words.

Murtagh drew in a slow breath. "A lot," he hedged.

"A lot…" she repeated.

"A lot of pain and suffering."

"How did it feel to be manipulated by Galbatorix?" Nasuada asked after a long pause.

"Bad… terrible." Murtagh's use of few words was trying her patience

"What was expected of you each day?"

Murtagh seemed to be in a trance-like reverie when he answered. "We were barely allowed rest; there's no real marker of each day… But when the dawn came, each morning, we were allowed to dine with the king. We ate like the elves – perhaps better, and we weren't permitted – I wasn't – any meat. I don't know why. When I asked, he just said that it was "a tradition of the Riders of Old."" The red rider's speech was still slurred with sleep and his words came in sluggish bursts, as if her were just recalling certain details. For Nasuada, it was like squeezing the pus out of a wound, slow and painful.

"And after that?"

"After that, he would prod us outside with his sword and curse at us until we –"

"I don't care about that!" Nasuada snapped impatiently with inadvertent cruelty. "Just give me the gist, alright?"

Murtagh went on as if he had not heard her. Perhaps he hadn't. "—and then he would say something like 'this is how the Riders of Old did it,' and really harshly, too. Mostly we would practice flying with the constant stream of new wards and spell he cast upon us."

"Tell me about those, will you?"

"I dunno…" Murtagh yawned. "I can't remember right now."

The servant reappeared, pulling a cart with great strain from all the meat products atop it. "Meat," Lady Nightstalker heard Murtagh mumble blearily. He pounced upon the dishes.

From what she had inferred from Murtagh's informative if short speech, she could guess at what Galbatorix had been trying to do by capturing Murtagh for his own: What he hadn't been able to do. Galbatorix hadn't had his own dragon for long enough to reap all the evil he planned.

But if he hadn't lost his dragon in the first place, he wouldn't have gone mad, he would've lived a normal life – as normal as any rider – and he would probably be under a grave right now, and Alagäesia wouldn't be in this mess, Nasuada thought bitterly.

Galbatorix was, undeniably, mad. What could his reasoning be? The Varden need to know more about his motives to better understand what it would take to defeat him. And Murtagh was just the tool that they need to accomplish this task.

Nasuada had been immersed in her own thoughts for so long that she hadn't noticed Murtagh had finished his frenzied meal and had dropped back off to sleep. She supposed she ought to do the same. It was late now and the upcoming morn was certain to bring even more strident tasks than the one before it.

Nasuada had not even the slightest inkling of how long she slept. She kept cycling in and out of her waking dreams, unable to rest in peace because of her predicament and because of Murtagh's close proximity.

She eagerly roused herself at dawn and dressed. Murtagh was still asleep.

So much had happened since the previous night, when she had run out on Orrin. She knew that there was amends to be made there, but deserting Murtagh seemed a questionable thing at the moment. She longed to leave her tent, but instead she sent for her vassal, Eragon.

"What is it you require, my lady?" the Shadeslayer asked when the guards allowed him in the tent. He glared at the innocent-looking, sleeping Murtagh.

"I need to… converse with you, Eragon. About Murtagh."

"What is there to be said about him?" Eragon growled.

"I'd just like you to know, he will not be punished for his misdeeds. He will live normally and like one of the Varden."

Eragon snorted. "He'll just turn against us, once we rub him the wrong way."

"Why do you think that? Did Murtagh ever voluntarily join Galbatorix?"

"I didn't." Evidently, Murtagh had awoken.

"No," Eragon admitted grudgingly.

"I'll tell you what I told you on the Burning Plains, brother; Galbatorix is not as bad as he seems." Murtagh's voice had grown worse over the night, and he had disheveled appearance.

"Of course he is!" Eragon snapped. "I'm ashamed to share a mother with a traitor!"

That remark stung Nasuada as if the blue rider had been insulting her personally. "Murtagh is not a traitor! What would you have done, had you been in his shoes, Eragon?" Lady Nightstalker sneered.

Eragon floundered for a moment before opening his mouth. "I would've sacrificed myself, for the good of the people of the Varden and Empire," he said with finality.

"Maybe so," Nasuada said quietly, "but what about Saphira? What would have become of her, hypothetically?"

"She would have agreed and sacrificed herself a well," said the Shadeslayer smugly.

Eragon's tunnel vision was highly infuriating to Nasuada. "No every person has the same honor as you, Eragon. Murtagh did just what any normal person would have done."

"What's his reasoning, then?"

Murtagh, whose eyes had been flicking from Eragon to Nasuada and back now rested his eyes on his half-brother. "Galbatorix," he rasped slowly, "is very charismatic when he wishes to be." Eragon rolled his eyes as if to "get to the point"

"He made me believe, if only for a time, that he was trying to help the empire, by reuniting the dragon riders."

"He does not want to reunite the riders!" Eragon burst out. "He wants Saphira so he can spawn killers, like Morzan and his cursed dragon, whatever his name might have been! He shows no interest in me, her bonded partner!"

This information confused Nasuada. Just when she had begun to realize why Galbatorix did the horrible things he did, she was told that he wanted to reunite the riders, something that Murtagh implied he had already informed Eragon of earlier!

"Why did you keep this knowledge from me, Argetlam?" she whispered in his ear.

"What knowledge?"

"The knowledge that King Galbatorix wishes to reunite the riders."

"I didn't think it important, my lady."

Nasuada rubbed her temples as Murtagh continued. This was going to be a long day.

Ladies and gentlemen: Chapter 9. Hope you like. Now just click that little button that says review and, you'll be on your way to greatness! Not really, but I think the next chapter might be Arya or Orrin or Eragon or someone. Maybe.

-Seastar