Murtagh

No! He dug in his heels and twisted in his captors’ hands in a futile attempt to break free. Desperate, he bent and bit the hand of one man. The cultist yelled as hot blood pulsed into Murtagh’s mouth.

The men slammed him against the table, and stars flashed across his vision as his head hit the wood. He continued to struggle even as they forced the manacles about his wrists and ankles.

“No,” he growled, barely audible.

The cultists ignored him. They withdrew to the corners of the room and stood at attention, the one man cradling his hand as blood dripped from the teeth marks Murtagh had left in his flesh.

Again, Murtagh tried to use magic. Again, he failed.

The door swung open, and—with a rush of air as from a beat of giant wings—Bachel strode in. The witch wore a long, black, high-collared robe with gold stitching along the cuffs. From her brow rose a matching headdress, stiff and splayed, made of netted threads adorned with pearls and the polished skulls of crows. The dark backdrop of the headdress framed her angular face, as in a carefully painted portrait. But unlike in most portraits, a mask covered the upper half of her face, and it seemed to blend into her skin and grant the witch a strange, draconic aspect, as if the shape of a dragon were somehow imposed over her body, as a glamour or an illusion.

It was more than a simple trick; Murtagh could feel an additional presence in the room, a stifling, inhuman force for which Bachel was merely the vessel.

The effect of the mask was the same as…as…He struggled to remember. Then it came to him: Captain Wren. The same as the masks the captain kept in his study, and it seemed to Murtagh they must have come from the same place. Perhaps Wren had given the Draumar the mask. Or perhaps they gave him his masks.

Either way, Bachel had taken on a terrifying, outsized appearance, and every sound and movement she made acquired a heightened reality, as if he lay before a god made flesh.

As disorienting and intimidating as the experience was, that wasn’t the worst of it. Not for him. For the mask reminded him, more than anything, of when Galbatorix had ordered him to wear a half mask of his own while interrogating Nasuada. Why exactly, Murtagh had never known, but he suspected the king wanted to force distance between Nasuada and him, that she might take no comfort in any look or expression of his, and he might more easily assume the role of torturer.

Murtagh had hated the blasted thing.

“Welcome, Kingkiller.” The witch’s words resonated as if from the peaks of the mountains: a supernatural sound that in no way resembled the voice of a human or elf.

She advanced upon the table, and Murtagh saw she wore jewelry on her hands: for each finger an onyx claw fixed to a setting of carved gold. The claws were sharp, and he stiffened as she traced them across the curve of his shoulder. Even through his shirt, they scratched him.

With an effort of will, he forced himself to say: “What do…do you want, witch?”

“I want you.” She smiled, and beneath the mask, her teeth showed with feral hunger.

“Never.”

“You will bow to me, Kingkiller, and you will serve me and the one I in turn serve.” Her eyes glowed with honeyed light. “And you will be richly rewarded for helping to forge our fearsome future. No longer a princeling but a king fit to rule the world.”

Her oversized, dragon-like bearing was crushing to be near, and Murtagh faltered before the force of it, faltered and felt diminished. “No,” he said, but the word seemed pitifully weak.

“A king,” she whispered, leaning down so he could feel her breath on his ear. “A king such as the world needs, and I your priestess, and we shall bring long-delayed vengeance to this corrupted land.”

He shook his head, trying to block out her insidious voice. A trial was coming, he knew, and it was going to test him to the utmost.

“…Why?”

The witch straightened, as tall and distant as a cruel-faced statue. “We are the devotees of Azlagûr the Devourer. Azlagûr the Firstborn. Azlagûr the Dreamer. He who sleeps and whose sleeping mind weaves the warp and weft of the waking world. But the sleeper grows restless, Kingkiller, and we are His eyes and ears and hands. By our doing, we shall ready the world for His dread arrival. Those who serve Azlagûr, those who well please Him—those He shall elevate above all others and grant to them power. Power such as has not existed in the world since the days of old, when magic was wild and unbound and the Grey Folk were yet primitives clawing their way out of the muck.”

She bent toward him again, her expression terrible, and he thought to see flames leaping in her eyes and blood dripping from her onyx claws. “Join me, Kingkiller. Join me of your own accord. All that you wish will be yours if you but have faith.”

“Never,” he gasped. The air seemed heated, and he found it difficult to breathe. He felt as if he were choking.

“So be it. I shall have you either way, for I am the avatar of Azlagûr, and He cannot be denied.”