Chapter XIV of Shadow, a work of fan fiction based on Christopher Paolini's InheritanceCycle.

Every Friday, a new chapter will be published, so keep checking!

I feel like I should edit a couple of chapters, my earlier, painfully short ones especially. Any suggestions (foreshadowing, fixing plotholes, fixing discontinuities, or even typos)? Make sure you tell me which chapter.

Orœthmis led the way through the forest, trying to keep his patience as Gïrnięn stumbled in another patch of brambles.

"Can't you walk properly?"

Gïrnięn tried to pull thorns from his clothes, only to end up even more tangled in the brambles and briars. "How do you do it?" he asked, tripping in the undergrowth. "How do you get through all this… shrubbery?"

Orœthmis glanced at him. "I've been living in these woods for the past few months, after you abandoned me in the caves."

Gïrnięn cursed, struggling out of another bush. "I didn't abandon you. Letæst separated us."

Orœthmis sighed. "Forget it. I've not believing your story."

"But you've experienced Shadow!"

"Yes, but that could be any random magician."

"One that can summon in Volans Scolopendra, a race never heard of before?"

An awkward silence fell. Gïrnięn muttered a spell, and the undergrowth withered, only to grow back quickly as soon as he passed.

"To cover our tracks," explained Gïrnięn.

Orœthmis grumbled something about ignorance and started casting the same spell as he walked.

After a few days of hiking in the woods, Gïrnięn and Orœthmis reached the capital city of Illirea.

"… So, what now?" asked Gïrnięn.

"Whatever you want," Orœthmis replied, "long as I'm not affiliated."

Gïrnięn turned to face him, shocked. "Why?"

Orœthmis glared at him resentfully. "Because of you. Why should I help the one who abandoned me in the caves, the one who left me to fend for myself against Shadow… For all I know you sent the Volans Scolopendra!"

Gïrnięn's jaw dropped. "You can't blame me for that!"

Orœthmis growled, but trudged on to Illirea.

"I seek audience with Queen Nasuada," Gïrnięn growled at the pudgy little man sitting at the oak desk.

"And I have informed her," he replied, sweating, "If she deems your reason important enough," he leaned forward, trying to look imposing, but instead fell off his chair. "And if she believes it, she may give you audience—sometime in the next few weeks."

"We don't have weeks," Gïrnięn growled, irritated, "We have mere days."

The pudgy man tried to hide his obvious nervousness. "Lad, if every random stranger in the Broddring Kingdom came up and sought audience with the Queen, she'd never have a spare moment to eat or even sleep."

Gïrnięn opened his mouth, about to argue more when an attendant stepped into the Reception Hall and whispered in the pudgy man's ears. The little man's eyebrows shot up like arrows loosed from a bow.

"Well, this is… er… most unexpected, but the Queen has agreed to see you, on the terms that you leave all weapons here."

Gïrnięn glared at him, but drew Solus-harmr and laid it on the desk. The pudgy little man tried to touch it, but the blade was blocked. Gïrnięn and Orœthmis left the little man—Gïrnięn had begun to think of him as Pudgy—and were led down a series of intricate, complex hallways. Men and women hustled along the corridors, pushing carts laden with food.

"Queen Nasuada has political visitors tonight," the attendant explained, "So she has ordered a feast to be prepared."

Orœthmis and Gïrnięn entered a giant hall, two monolithic oak doors swinging open as the two Riders and the attendant stepped through. A tall, dark woman sat on the throne, her ebony skin perfect and beautiful, her form draped in crimson and gold, a simple silver crown with a single emerald resting upon her head. Her dark hair was piled perfectly on her head, flecks of silver showing beneath a golden veil that covered her face.

The attendant bowed and left. Gïrnięn kneeled, signaling for Orœthmis to do the same. Orœthmis did not comply, instead standing there, gazing at the beautiful queen.

"Why do you not kneel?" Nasuada's voice had a soft lilting quality to it, the sound tender yet filled with hard edges. It was majestic and resonant, echoing around the room in a quality not unlike Letæst's.

"My only allegiance is to my Grimstborith and to my king."

Nasuada laughed. "You will not show respect to me as a foreign ruler?"

Orœthmis simply nodded his head.

Nasuada's voice became serious. "I hear you're here to report a—rebellion?"

Gïrnięn spoke. "Not a rebellion, my queen, but an invasion."

Nasuada looked straight at Gïrnięn from under her veil. Gïrnięn could feel her gaze piercing the veil, staring directly at him.

"An invasion of the undead?"

"Yes."

Nasuada laughed. "I do not believe a dead man can rise again."

"Then why did you agree to see us?" asked Gïrnięn, softly.

Nasuada tensed slightly. "Because though it may not be undead, it may be something very similar—an illusion that has fooled you. Perhaps all the "undead" are, are rocks or trees or twigs, or…" Her voice hardened. "Soldiers."

Orœthmis spoke up. "If they were soldiers, then they must have some spell that allows them to survive Rider's swords."

Nasuada replied. "That is exactly what I am worried of. If a magician is powerful enough to do that…"

Her voice faded, the implied meaning behind that descending on the room like a lead weight.

Gïrnięn started to speak when

Everything

Winked

Out.

The man muttered another spell, and the pile of bones rose and stalked towards Gïrnięn.

"Don't forget. If you ever give away my secret—your little friend will come looking for you…"

Gïrnięn touched the skeletal dragon, the dracolich, as the man termed it.

"Fascinated?"

Gïrnięn jolted back as the cold spread through his fingers to the rest of his body. The man laughed.

"That's what will happen to you if you ever tell anyone my… dirty little secret."

The man smiled, and Gïrnięn seemed to recognize him. He looked an awful lot like Gïrnięn's father…