The headaches were almost constant now. Even during the few hours of sleep that she managed a night, she could still feel the dull pounding against the inside of her skull. It perfectly echoed the beat of Emrbald's wings against the air as they returned from a full day of lessons.
The dragon touched down in their room. Mellary immediately stumbled off, unceremoniously dropped an armload of scrolls on the desk, and collapsed into the nest.
Ow!
Your head? Embrald inquired courteously. Oromis did give you some of that tea…
No, my back! Mellary sat up and twisted, running her hands through the piles of blankets that Embrald had turned into a nest. The bed had long since been stripped bare, the sheets and comforter lost somewhere in the tangled knot.
Her fingers closed around something edged and hard and she held the culprit up to the light. It was a green scale, larger than her hand span, twice as long, and wickedly edged. What the…. Are you molting or something?
Embrald gave her a disdainful glare, his snout turned up and his wings flared out slightly to increase his presence. It made a majestic picture….that was utterly ruined as he raised one hind foot and began to scratch like a dog.
Mellary giggled. The sound seemed to fracture the tension that wrapped up her muscles, unblocking the dam. She laughed so hard she cried.
Are you finished? Embrald asked as she wiped the tears from her face.
I'm sorry, she said as she hiccupped. I've just been so…
Tense. Embrald finished for her. You have said. Now come over here and help me.
Mellary rose, ignoring the stiff muscles in her back and shoulders as they pulled. She walked over and dropped to the floor next to her dragon. Embrald collapsed onto the floor in front of her, wing helpfully raised so she could itch the offending scales on his side.
Mellary smothered a yawn as she finished and leaned back against Embrald's warm side. Her lack of sleep was beginning to show in her attitude, her temper as frayed and ragged as a threadbare coat. Eventually her attention and speed would begin to suffer as well, but that would take another few weeks.
Sleep, Embrald told her. Mellary stuck her tongue out at him. There was no point in saying that nightmares continually woke her up, not when the vivid dreams leaked into his mind as well. Mellary had built shield after shield, but nothing seemed to keep them in.
I can't. Arya will be here soon. The elf had started taking her and Eragon around the city, introducing them to different people, seeing the sights. The outings were a constant itch between her shoulder blades. Every elf they met stared at her. Mellary could almost feel them thinking, putting together the inconsistencies, figuring out her secrets. The stares had weight; she felt measured, judged, and found wanting.
Embrald nosed her in the side, his wordless message that she was thinking too much.
Rest until they arrive. His voice was lyrical and lulling, hypnotic. Mellary felt her eyelids drifting shut.
I should read…
Rest, Embrald said again, curling up around her. Warmth was seeping into her muscles, relaxing them. Mellary's eyes drooped, falling in slow motion. She jerked them up and started to struggle to her feet.
Embrald's tail swept her off balance and she crashed back against his side and slid down. Before she could get back up, she was asleep.
"Mellary?" Arya's voice called. Mellary grumbled under her breath. Why couldn't the elf just let her sleep?
There was a calm moment as she tried to claw her way back to consciousness.
"I would, had I not already promised the Queen that both Riders would attend."
Embrald must have said something to the elf.
"I'm awake," she grumbled, cracking her eyes open. "Give me a moment."
Arya gave Embrald a loaded glance, nodded once, and vanished from the doorway.
Mellary sat up, stretching her arms over her head.
What did you say to her? she asked.
Simply that you were tired, and to allow you to rest.
Mellary gave him a bleary glare as she got to her feet. Pausing to rub sand out of her eyes, she smoothed back her braids and walked out the door.
On the threshold, she paused.
Are you coming?
Embrald gave her an amused look. You and I are too much alike for our own good, he told her enigmatically.
A sinking suspicious that she should have simply stayed asleep settled over her. Mellary snagged her dagger from her sword belt hanging next to the door and tucked it into her waistband, smoothing her tunic down over it. Embrald had long since stopped trying to convince her to go unarmed, but that didn't keep him from giving her a baleful look.
She made a face and walked out the door, racing down the steep steps. Arya and Eragon were waiting for her at the bottom. Both had pleasant, bland looks on their faces, but the air thrummed with subtle tension.
"Where are we going?" she asked as Arya began to lead the way.
"Your presence has been requested at Court this night," Arya told her.
Mellary almost stumbled. They hadn't been back to the grand hall since they arrived. Islanzadí held a full Court, an open meeting with any elf that wished to appear, only once every two weeks.
All those elves in one location, a location she shouldn't be familiar with, watching. Goosebumps raced over her arms and she almost shivered. No wonder Embrald didn't want to come.
They walked through the city in silence. The oncoming night was comfortable, a slight breeze winding through the trees and creating a soft chorus of rustles. Gentle conversation was an easy counterpoint to the lulling sound. Someone in the distance was singing a haunting song.
They came up to the massive hall, made of towering trees with the branches laced together overhead. Elves were milling around, laughing and talking.
Mellary fought not to shrink against that many stares.
They passed through the throng. Islanzadí was perched delicately on her throne, somehow managing to look both fragile and powerful at the same time.
They gave their greetings and moved off to the side, to watch and listen.
Mellary leaned against one of the pillars, half hidden by the shadows, and looked around.
Court was almost more of a social occasion than anything else. Elves were milling around, talking and laughing, dancing and singing. The atmosphere seemed bright against the drawing dusk.
Mellary rubbed at her tense shoulders, half-listening to the buzz of conversation around her.
An odd awareness, a shifting in the tides of people, pulled her attention to the center of the room. Mellary turned her head and her hand dropped down to her side, ready to reach for her knife.
Vanir was cutting through the crowd towards their small group. His eyes, when they lit on her, burned with an unhidden animosity. The depth of anger in those black orbs made all her hair stand on end. Without thinking she straightened, stepping away from the pillar to give herself room to fight.
Vanir stopped almost next to her and turned towards the throne, the overflowing emotion vanishing as if it had never been.
"Majesty," he began loudly, his voice silencing all other conversations. "We have all been deceived."
No no no no no….
Mellary? Embrald asked.
"One of the Riders is here under false pretenses." His hand flicked out, one finger pointing at her.
He never said a word, but magic surged. Mellary had never though that he would dare to use magic against her in the presence of the Queen. She reacted too slowly. Before she could stop the attack, Vanir's strike found its target.
Her hair tie snapped in half, springing free. Her braids unraveled immediately, red-gold curls tumbling down around her face. Cool air curled against her long, tipped ears.
Silence reigned. Shock was scrawled across Arya's face when Mellary glanced at her and away, unable to meet her childhood friend's eyes. Islanzadí looked stunned, the first time she had ever seen that expression on the calm Queen's face. She could almost visibly see Islanzadí withdrawing, her face closing in as the shock was replaced with a blank expression.
Every elf nearby was drawing back a step. Some of them looked aghast, some shocked, some disturbed.
Vanir looked triumphant. "Meladania, half-elf daughter of Emary, who lead us all to believe her dead." At his hand, he didn't add.
Something in her was burning. Mellary had been angry, even furious before. This was something altogether different.
Mellary, what is happening? She could feel Embrald's presence in the back of her mind as he tried to look through her eyes. She shoved him back, throwing up an iron block.
"After fifteen years, she returned as a Rider without informing anyone of her lineage. How can we trust her, allow an abomination to ride on a dragon?"
Abomination?
The burning was seeping through her blood.
Embrald battered at the shield that kept him locked out.
Her muscles were tensed so tightly that lines of pain were radiating through her body.
"Undoubtedly some arcane magic was used," Vanir was saying. "Or the egg suffered some warping damage during the hundred years in Galbatorix's care. Both Rider and dragon are freaks, unworthy to study with the Master."
"That is not your decision to make," Islanzadí snapped at him. Surely she was imagining the reluctance in the Queen's tone.
The words themselves she almost didn't hear over the roaring in her ears. Insults to herself, she could take. But not insults to Embrald. The fire in her blood roared, igniting into an inferno. It compounded, building on the stress and headaches and tension, ratcheting up, until she thought that she would explode.
Something deep in her snapped with a resounding crack.
The inferno vanished in an instant, replaced by a burning, icy cold. Distantly, she realized what it was: rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. It seemed to be a familiar emotion where Vanir was concerned.
But this chill, this bone-numbing soul-freezing chill, transcended anything that she had ever felt before.
Her gaze settled on Vanir. He was still talking, expounding on his arrogant views. In a single instant, he had unraveled weeks of work, fifteen years of solitude. The elf had almost taken her life before. He had driven her from one home before, and he was about to do so again.
She would kill him.
The idiot had blithely chosen to deliver his speech within striking distance. Perhaps he believed, as she had, that he was safe from attack in Islanzadí's presence.
Mellary was far beyond caring who was around. She could kill him so easily, so swiftly that no one had a chance of stopping her.
A kick to the legs to send him off balance. Turn with the motion, draw her knife, blade reversed. Arm flung out wide to give the strike the most force. She could almost feel the soft resistance of the windpipe, the hard scrape blade against bone as it cut into the spinal column, and the final jarring stop of the knife as she pinned him to the column like the insect he was. Half a heartbeat, no more. Vanir would be dead before he knew what hit him.
Embrald's voice echoed through her head, indecipherable.
She shifted her weight on her feet, all her muscles loose as she prepared to strike.
NO! The word cracked across her mind like a whip, leaving lines of green fire in its wake.
She froze, locked into place.
Let go, Embrald. Her voice was calm and controlled, lethally so.
You cannot kill him.
Watch me. Her words burned bright white, eating through the green fire that bound her. Mellary began to pull on her magic, drawing more than she had ever dared before.
Do you truly believe they will overlook the coldblooded killing of one of their own? the dragon demanded.
Do you truly believe I care?
No. He was reolute. I will not let you destroy what you have done.
Do you truly believe that you can stop me? Magic was gathering within her in a storm, pushing back against Embrald's bindings. I may not be a dragon, but I am an elven sorceress. I am not without power. Her words were frostbitten.
She focused back on the scene in front of her. Her conversation with Embrald had been rapid fire and staccato; Vanir had only had time to say a few more words.
Embrald was quiet for a moment, and the silence in her mind was a thousand fold louder than anything Vanir was saying.
Remember your rules.
Rules?
You described them to Oromis only yesterday. What were they?
Mellary remembered that discussion. Tense and out of patience, after an hour of talking in circles, she had finally snapped at the elder Rider, "I do have a moral code."
It was a struggle to think through the roiling thoughts and emotions in her head. Protect the innocent.
And?
Never strike in anger.
And?
Don't kill…. unnecessarily.
She knew what he was insinuating: Vanir would be an unnecessary death, one born of anger. Against her moral code. Normally, she would agree.
But the frost that was coursing through her burned away all reason.
Her eyes hadn't left Vanir. One hand was clenched in a bloodless fist at her side, the other on her weapon. Her fingers had just brushed the hilt of the knife when Embrald had stopped her. The metal was warm and promising beneath the tips of her fingers, and the blade sang of freshly spilled blood.
The crescendoing magic inside her reached its cacophonous peak. It surged through her mind in a bright wave, crashing against the bindings that held her immobile.
The bonds gave with a sharp shriek that echoed through her head, buried beneath the tidal wave. The excess magic rushed out of Mellary before she could stop it.
Vanir stopped in mid word as the shock wave rolled through the hall.
Free again, Mellary's hand closed around the dagger hilt.
But the burst of magic had burned away some of that fog, giving her one precious minute of clear through.
Couldn't kill him. They wouldn't hold just her responsible; she had to consider her dragon as well.
Embrald had nothing to do with this, and she wouldn't drag him down.
Vanir seemed to realize just how much she was teetering on that razor edge, because he moved back. The single step took him out of her blade's reach.
No. Couldn't kill him.
Her hand spasmed open, releasing the knife.
Mellary bowed to the Queen, turned on one heel, and stalked out of the hall.