Murtagh

The wolves fell apart. One dragged itself away, hind legs limp and useless, fur matted with spit and foam and blood. The other rolled onto its side and kicked helplessly, its belly ripped open and a pile of grey intestines spilling out. The kicking slowed.

Between the wolves stood Thorn. The small dragon was battered and torn—his wings shredded in several places—but fire burned in his sparkling eyes, and blood dripped from his razor-sharp fangs and from the large claws on his hind feet.

With a small roar, he sprang after the wolf with the paralyzed hindquarters. He bit and held the back of the wolf’s neck, and the animal shuddered and went limp, dead.

Then Thorn crouched low over his kill and began to tear at the corpse, ravenous in his hunger.

“Do you see?” said the king. “He is a dragon, and dragons are meant to kill. It is what they are. It is who you are. If you learn this now, the coming days will be that much easier for you, O son of Morzan. Now go to your dragon and heal him as you will.”

“I’ll kill you for this.”

A deep chuckle behind him. “No, you shall not. You will dream of killing me, you will plan for it, you will desire my demise with all your heart, but in the end you will see the rightness of my ways and realize that there is no opposing my power. You are mine, Murtagh, as is Thorn, and you shall serve me as your father did before you.”

To that, Murtagh had no answer. He went to attend Thorn’s wounds.

Nor was that the only time they visited the arena. Every time Thorn grew hungry, Galbatorix forced him to fight for his food, and Murtagh had no choice but to watch, helpless, as the young dragon killed and killed again. Even when Thorn grew larger than the largest bear, the king still insisted on making him face his prey in mortal conflict.

Murtagh saw the sands of the pit soak through with blood, and outside the citadel, he seemed to see the sky turn red. All around he heard the sounds of prisoners shrieking and yammering their torment, and he turned and ran and ran and ran through a warren of rocky tunnels, but they kept leading him back to the charnel grounds of the arena, and each time, he saw Thorn sitting hunched over his kills, alone, frightened, covered in blood, and desperately eating.

As Thorn had his trials, so too did Murtagh have his own. And they were just as long, bloody, and inescapable.