Murtagh

Even from that moment, he admired her, for he could see that her resolve was a match for his own. And she showed him kindness when no kindness was warranted; she spoke with him without prejudice, out of a sincere desire to understand what had brought him and Eragon to the Varden. She spoke with him as the person he was, not the person others believed him to be.

She shifted then: her dress changed to that which she had been wearing when, much later and at Galbatorix’s orders, Murtagh had seized her from the Varden’s encampment. Her expression of defiance tore at his heart. He could see her fear beneath, and the monstrous unfairness of the situation broke him.

He saw her chained to the ashen altar within the Hall of the Soothsayer, in the ancient chamber beneath Urû’baen, where Galbatorix had kept her prisoner. Stains and tears appeared on her dress, and her hair grew frazzled, her eyes haunted. Livid marks disfigured her arms. But never did her defiance vanish throughout the tortures Galbatorix had him inflict on her. And still, she showed him understanding.

Then they were together in the rubble-strewn courtyard outside the citadel in Urû’baen. Smoke darkened the sky, and ash fell like snow. The king was dead. The war was won. Nasuada was looking up at him, all defiance gone, her dark eyes round and vulnerable. And the only words he could manage were “I’m sorry.”

They weren’t enough. How could they be?

***

Starlings and magpies were arguing in the alder tops as Murtagh woke. His forehead was sweaty, and under his arms too, and his pulse was racing like a frightened horse.

He sat up and wiped his forehead.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and Thorn was still asleep.

His heart felt hollow. There had been a brief time, after the battle for Tronjheim, where he had been a free man, and Nasuada as yet unburdened by the responsibilities of command. The possibility of a courtship had just begun to form between them when fate had intervened. Had they continued uninterrupted…

He shook his head. It was bootless to consider what ifs and might have beens. What was, was, and it was the lot of the living to deal with it as best they could.

But knowing that did nothing to ease his pain.

Careful to be quiet, Murtagh stood, picked up Zar’roc from by his blanket, and walked a ways from their camp.

The frost-laden grass crunched under his boots, a crisp, dry sound.

He stood in an expanse of empty sward. Chest up, shoulders back, staring forward into the future.

An intake of frozen air, and he swept Zar’roc from its crimson sheath. In dawn’s grey light, the sword’s blade was a sharpened shard of iridescent red—a shimmering thorn of frozen blood, eager to cut and stab and kill. The blade of a Rider, forged out of brightsteel by an elven smith over a century past and imbued with spells of strength and keenness and resistance. The finest weapon a warrior could hope to wield, and yet he regarded it with as much aversion as appreciation. A Rider’s blade, yes, but that Rider had been Morzan. His father. And Morzan had used Zar’roc for many a black and bloody deed…as had Murtagh after him.

Not for nothing had Morzan named the blade Misery in the ancient language, and true to its name, the sword had brought pain to many throughout the land, including Murtagh himself.

Sometimes he wondered if he should have ever taken Zar’roc from Eragon.