Dinner was uneventful. Kyana almost felt disappointed at the lack of energy in the room as she lazily rolled the meat around on her plate. She watched as her father and Lord Flemming discussed affairs happening throughout the kingdom. Azeilia seemed as bored as she was, both girls sitting in silence. An idea popped into Kyana's mind as she motioned for Azeilia to follow her as she lead her over to where Shruikan slept in the light of the setting sun that came in through the nearby window. "Greetings, Shruikan-elda. This is Azeilia Flemming, Daughter of Lord Flemming. She is here to learn swordsmanship and the King appointed me her mentor." Kyana introduced the smaller girl to the massive black dragon.
Shruikan seemed to notice her words, and as usual he didn't respond just turned and fixed his glacier white eye onto the slightly shaking form that hid behind Kyana. Kyana sidestepped as she made sure that Shruikan could fully see Zeil. Much to her surprise Shruikan leaned his head out, stretching his long neck so that his head was directly in front of Azeilia. He sniffed at her, letting out a burst of black smoke as he opened his mouth. At this, Azeilia was shaking in her shoes as she struggled not to scream and run away at the sight of the dragon's large white teeth and powerful jaws that could snap her in half with ease.
For the thousandth time that night, Kyana had to cover her mouth to stop from laughing at Zeil's expression of utter terror. She watched as Azeilia closed her eyes when Shruikan let out a breath of smoke in her face, causing her to cough out the smog. After a moment, Azeilia opened her eyes and saw the dragon had gone back to its original position and that Kyana was now leaning against the wall for support. A glance behind her told her that her father and the king both supported amused looks as the King addressed her, "Forgive my dragon, Azeilia. He has a rather odd way of greeting new people. Be thankful however. He only likes few people, by now you would have been burnt to a crisp."
Azeilia blushed slightly at being addressed directly by the king until it dawned on her that she could have just died. As soon as she realized that she turned to Kyana with a deathly expression on her face. "You didn't know if he was going to like me or not! What would have happened if he didn't like me?! I could have died!" she whisper-shouted. Kyana was close enough to hear her words while Lord Flemming and the King had been too far away.
Kyana bit her lip to stop smiling, "Don't worry Zeil! I knew he would like you! There was only like a 99% chance that he would have eaten you, it's not that big of a deal," she said as she waved her hand in a manner that suggested that things like this happened on a regular basis.
Azeilia on the other hand still stood there with her mouth open as she couldn't believe what was going on with[MB1] the older girl. "Not that big of a deal?! I'll tell you what's not that big of a deal-" she was cut off by Kyana jumping over to her side and putting a hand over her mouth.
"Remember who you are in company with," Kyana whispered into her apprentice's ear. She gave Azeilia a look before removing her hand and turning towards the two men who were watching them with much amusement in their eyes. "If you will excuse us, my king, Lord Flemming, I think it is time for Azeilia and I to head back to bed. Thank you for the invitation to dinner, it was excellent." She said before placing her fist over her heart and giving them a bow.
When Galbatorix nodded she gave him a slight smile before grabbing onto Azeilia's arm and walking back into the corridors. The two girls made it back to their respective rooms just as the sun was setting and night was taking over. After being told she had another lesson in the forest at sunrise, Azeilia thanked Kyana and said goodnight. Both girls let out a sigh of relief they didn't know they had been holding after they closed their doors and were finally alone in the comfort of their rooms.
~*..*~
It had been three weeks since Azeilia and Lord Flemming came to stay at the castle and the lessons Kyana was giving Azeilia were going very well. The smaller girl had managed to exceed any expectations Kyana had quickly and was not only turning into a fine swordsman, but also a great friend. Much to the displeasure of their fathers, they were often caught outside of their chambers at night, running around the castle causing a disturbance.
Kyana found herself slightly worried about not seeing hide nor hair of Murtagh and his ruby dragon since her dream, well more of a nightmare really. She tried her best to hide her worry with spending more and more time with Azeilia in the forest.
This time, Azeilia and Kyana were working on fighting when injured so Kyana had Azeilia tie one hand behind her back before raising her own sword at her apprentice. Right as Kyana was about to swing at Zeil, she faintly heard the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer. Kyana knew that no one knew about their training area and her guard instantly went up. Someone was following them.
She motioned with her hand for Azeilia to stand down before she silently moved towards the sounds. Kyana peaked through a bush and was able to see the figure of a man wearing a strange seal. Kyana knew that if she couldn't recognize it, where ever this man was from, he wasn't from her kingdom. The man looked strangely familiar to Kyana and she found herself wondering why.
A slight rustle came from behind her and Kyana snarled when she turned around to see another large man holding Azeilia up by her throat. She noticed that the man had thrown Azeilia's sword to the side and was grinning at her.
"Look what we have here, Rys. Two little girls, and look! That one bears the Royal Family's crest, oh she must be very important to Galbatorix," the man holding Azeilia sneered. He pulled out a small dagger and pressed it to the younger girls neck. "What a prize, the Varden will surely pay handsomely for these two!"
Kyana's hand moved to her sword's hilt as she noticed the man she saw following them come out and stand by his partner. "Nice work Oaklys!" he said, patting Oaklys on the back. "Now what would two little girls be doing out here all by themselves? And with swords no less? Trying to play would be my guess. We could probably get even more if we throw in their swords too! I'm sure the Varden could always use more weapons?" His partner nodded with a wicked smile plastered onto his face.
I toke a step forward, fully confident that I could take the two of them but Oaklys, the man holding Azeilia saw my subtle movement. "Ahh, now we wouldn't want anything to happen to this little one now would we?" he laughed as he pushed the blade closer to Azeilia's neck. Kyana growled when she saw a slight trickle of scarlet blood trail down Zeil's throat.
She gave the men a glare as she responded, "Don't you dare touch her! Every drop of her blood you shed, I will take out of you and your friend. I know methods of torture you couldn't dream of and when I am done, you will be begging for me to end your pathetic lives." She said in a deadly tone.
"You can't do anything out here, little girl. We are miles from the castle, no one would even hear you scream." Oaklys sneered.
Kyana was about to reply but she was cut off by a roar that sounded in the distance. "Oops, guess they noticed we weren't back yet. They will be coming for us." She laughed falsely at the look that appeared on Rys's face.
Rys looked at Oaklys with slight panic when Oaklys replied, "Oh what, like they are going to send a dragon out after you? Never going to happen. I'm so scared," he taunted, grinning like a fool as he pushed the blade deeper into Azeilia's neck. "Now come with us or maybe something might happen to this little lady, wouldn't want that to happen?"
"Drop the girl. And you should be scared, very scared." A dark voice said.
Kyana held from speaking or even moving as she saw Murtagh walk out of the trees, sword in hand and a murderous look on his face. She heard something that resembled thunder and she looked up to see a humongous Thorn land beside his Rider, a snarl creeping up his lips. Kyana was too relieved to see them, she didn't even noticed the difference in the once puppy sized Thorn to a dragon that could compete with Shruikan in size.
Oaklys was so shocked at seeing the dragon he forgot to hold onto Azeilia as she dropped to the ground. In complete shock, she ran and hid behind a nearby tree.
When Kyana could tell Zeil was safe she moved to Murtagh's side and took out her sword, watching as the sun started to fade and the shadows of the night danced across the gleaming blade.
"You are going to regret ever coming here." She growled before lunging at Oaklys, the man who dared to kidnap her.
She didn't notice that Murtagh had jumped at Rys, all she cared about was making the man that harmed her apprentice pay. She wanted his blood.
Hey guys, so the lack of reviews back really made me sad L. I also wanted to say, like a few people have pointed out, Christopher Paoloni wrote an amazing series but didn't really say much into Galbatorix so I wanted to point out that because of that, we only know a few things about what happened to Murtagh from Eldest to Inheritance, which is what he tells Eragon. Because of this, I am pretty much working with nothing so it is a lot harder to write these chapters when most of what happens are things that I have to come up with. So because of that, I might put in a few things just to keep this story interesting that were not included in Eldest. It would be soo awesome if you guys had any ideas on what might happen to Kyana, Murtagh, Azeilia, etc throughout this book because I have been having a hard time keeping things interesting (as you have seen these last few chapters). So I am going to apologize on these horribly boring chapters on pure lack of not being able to think of fun things for them to do that still follows the storyline. But here we have something that I have been planning for a while so I hope you guys like it.