"What were you thinking?" Murtagh almost yelled at me. I licked my lips and looked at him, unsure could I really explain it to him.

"Elisabeth is right." I said "She can do it. That's why I let her go."

"Did she do something to you?" he glared at me "Just a moment before you were against her idea! Now we won't be able to find Max!"

"Because I realized something." I said "I trust her. I believe she can do it."

"Unbelievable! She'll get him killed or worse, kill him by herself!" he said angrily.

"She would never do that." I said.

"Ah, no? I killed her father. She and Max hated each other from the first moment." he said "She wants revenge and now she might get it."

"Hm, you also changed your mind a bit then." I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, Max is in danger." he said.

"Exactly." I said.

"Stop it you two." Gerald said and we both turned to stare at him. It looked like he was going to step back but he didn't.

"This is a serious situation." Murtagh said.

"If you two paid more attention to your kids, you would realize they don't really hate each other that much." Gerald said "Elisabeth is able to save Max."

"But she…" Murtagh wanted to say, but Gerald stopped him.

"Do you doubt me? Because, after all, I taught Elisabeth how to fight and take care of herself." Gerald said.

"Yeah, whatever." I said "We could fight whole day here, but we need to help Elisabeth."

"Help her how?" Murtagh seemed a little bit less angry.

"Whoever is trying to bring us down, probably watches our every move." I said "And even though they don't know about Elisabeth, someone might do something if we don't look like we're paying attention."

"Sure. We need to give them what they want so they don't notice Eli." Gerald said "So, what are they expecting us to do?"

"I'll go meet them where they wanted me to go." Murtagh said.

"But they said we had a day, right?" I asked.

"Yes. I'll just pretend I'm going to meet with them and bring the army with me." he said.

"Umm, but won't that make them nervous and they might…hurt Max then?" I frowned.

"It shouldn't actually." he smiled "The army will be a little bit behind and hidden."

"Hm." I didn't really get it. It would just put him in danger.

"Especially because they expect me to do such a thing. I think they'll think I'm desperate, but still hoping to get rid of them. I'm sure they'll discover the army if they're so good." he said.

"Then why take them with you?" I was confused, again. But on the other hand, I was never really involved in planning any kind of actions that involved armies, war tactics and similar things.

"Like you said, we have a day." Murtagh smiled at me "If Elisabeth knows where this place is, it shouldn't be that far from here because she never was that far away. I'll just go to meet those freaks, slowly…and the army will be behind so they wouldn't suspect we have a better plan."

Huh, it actually did make sense. Wow.

"So, you think Eli will save Max before you reach them?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yes." he said.

"And how will you know she's done it?" I said.

"I won't. But dragons will." he smiled.

"Ooh. Good." I said.

"I think we should start planning our mission. And of course, soldiers mustn't know this is all supposed to be fake. We might have spies among us and not everyone is able to protect their minds." he said "What do you think, Gerald?"

"Well, you're probably right that the place where they're hiding Max is close. They couldn't have taken him far in such a short time and they think we would never suspect it." he said.

"It wasn't only about us suspecting." Murtagh said "Because even if we did, we still wouldn't know in which direction to look for."

"Umm, do we have a plan b in case this goes totally wrong?" I said.

"It can't go wrong." Murtagh said.

"Great." I said. I just hoped this worked or else…


Murtagh and Gerald went to put our plan in action and left me completely alone. Of course, there was really nothing I could do in this situation except wait at home for news. How sad was that? Actually, not really. I just wanted my daughter and son back so staying in the castle also meant I'd be the first one to know they arrived safe.

As for Murtagh, I was sure he could take care of himself without problems. I just hoped our plan worked because if not…well, that wasn't really an option. I went to the terrace to watch Murtagh leave with the army behind. I sighed, wishing hard for the first time in my life to get a vision. I wanted to know what would happen so bad that it made my head hurt. Maybe it was better I didn't get a vision because it could mean things weren't going well. Yeah, visions didn't tend to be nice.

Three hours had passed by and I had no news at all. I was getting really anxious. What if something had gone wrong? No, I couldn't think that. I tried to concentrate to provoke a vision, but it didn't work. It just made my head hurt.

The door of my room swung open and I had to blink twice to make sure I was really seeing Elisabeth there. I ran to her and hugged her. She really was there. Tears appeared in my eyes as I saw Max behind her back.

"Oh, honey!" I went to hug him. Max smiled at me.

"Mom, where's Murtagh?" Elisabeth asked.

"He's…he went with the army." I said.

"Where?" Max said.

"Umm, to meet with those guys." I said "I mean, not really meet. Just pretend they'll meet…"

"Yeah, whatever." Eli said "We need to get to him so we can kill those people."

"What?" I raised an eyebrow "I don't think that's a good idea."

"It is." Max said.

"Since when do you agree with Eli?" I looked at him.

"Since she saved my life." he said.

"Oh." I said "What happened exactly?"

"Well, since we don't have time for the long version…" he said "I don't remember much until the moment Eli arrived. I guess then the sorcerer's attention faltered so he couldn't keep me sleeping. I woke up. Eli cut his head off and that's about it."

"Umm, wait. Something doesn't fit here." I said "Eli did what? That man had powers. No way she could have…"

"Nice to know you don't believe in me, mom." she smiled "But you're right. I didn't have the power to fight that guy, but my boyfriend did."

"Hm, fine." I said.

"Oh, and the guy spent a lot of his powers to keep me sleeping." Max grinned.

"Yeah, awesome." Eli rolled her eyes "We need to get to Murtagh and fast."

They headed down the hall.

"I'm coming with you." I said.

"No, mom, you're not." Eli said.

"Oh, yes I am." I said.

"That's not a good idea." Max said "We're going to fight some serious freaks. You should stay here."

"No." I said.

"Mom!" Eli seemed a bit annoyed.

"No, Eli." I said "I believed in you that you could save Max. I guess you'll just have to believe me I can come with you. I don't even want to be in the first row, but I want to be there."

"Fine." Eli smiled and we went to get what we needed.

It didn't take me long to find out that Murtagh already knew about Max, thanks to the dragons. Apparently, our own army of sorcerers was blocking the bad guys from knowing the truth. It gave us a huge advantage. And we had a really good plan.


Our army totally attacked the sorcerers when they didn't expect it. How did I know? Well, Murtagh told me after it was all over. When he reached their meeting point, they thought they still had Max. Of course, they told him they knew everything about the army coming. They also said Max would die if anyone started attacking. So everyone attacked. I would just love it if I could have seen the faces of those sorcerers when they had found out Max was with us.

Murtagh said they were so shocked that we discovered and ruined their plan that some of them didn't even fight. I didn't really care about that. I was just happy my family was safe and unharmed.


After all we'd been through, I decided my family was everything to me. Yeah, I should have known that earlier. I shouldn't have tried to make Elisabeth something she wasn't or try to find something wrong about her boyfriend. But hey, there was something wrong about him. He actually could use magic! Ok, I know, that isn't really a bad thing. I just hope he'll keep my daughter safe, even though she can do that just fine on her own. The wedding is in two months.

Max is still with his girlfriend and he and Elisabeth are actually getting on well. It was a nice change. I guess they realized they shouldn't hate each other because of the past. Murtagh trusts Elisabeth more now, but I know she will never be able to forget her real father. I can't really blame her for that.

My visions are on holidays again, which is a good thing since they usually bring trouble. Actually, I don't really think someone will dare to confront us so soon since we brought down such a powerful threat.

Murtagh is working on some spell for me so I could age as slow as he was. I don't want to think about that. I've been thinking about it too much during these years and I don't want anything to ruin this perfect moment. What perfect moment? Well, the one where Murtagh is kissing me on the terrace while the sun goes down. Yeah, I so need to get back to that.

The end.


Author's note: And we got to the end! Thanks everyone for reading! Usually this is the part where I say the story ended up too long. Well, this one breaks the record lol. I know it took me forever to update sometimes and I'm really sorry about that. I hope you enjoyed at least some part of this.

Disclaimer: In case you don't know yet, I don't own any characters you recognize as Christopher Paolini's, but the others are completely mine.