Between the Shadow and the Soul

oOo

I

A hundred men have sought to win the hand of Nasuada, High Queen of Alagaësia, in the years since she seized the throne of the tyrant king.

The thought of her kingdom and her power whets their lust—though there are other things, too, that draw them. Some men relish her beauty, her wealth. Others covet the challenge of her bed—folk say she is as frigid as the high winter, as untouchable as death, and these men would have their way with her. Let them but embrace her, and she will melt like candle wax. Let them have but one night, and she will not remain frigid for long.

The suitors declare their devotion—they throw galas in her honor, feasts and masquerades that commence in the torchlit, summer dusk to celebrate her birthday, her political victories, the anniversary of her coronation. They pay poets to extol her beauty and virtue. They lavish her with gifts of perfume and fur, gold trinkets, rich cloth, wine, and silver. Men have gone bankrupt for love of the queen.

The queen acknowledges their gifts and blandishments with the proper gestures: a letter of appreciation, penned in her own hand, sealed with the royal crest, faintly scented. An honored place at her table, a word, a gracious smile. But in over seven years, Queen Nasuada has never once bent, never once broken. A hundred men have sought the prize of her hand, and she has never come close to bestowing it upon anyone.

As the years pass, the suitors' contest grows more desperate—for neither they nor the queen are growing any younger.

Her ministers broach the subject with anxious voices—should she not share the burden of ruling? Would she dare leave the throne without an heir?

To the first she says, with a secret smile, "Do I not share the burden of ruling with you, my ministers?" And inevitably, they agree that indeed, she does.

To the second, her eyes grow distance. She tightens her mouth and keeps her silence.

In the eighth year of her reign, a shadow in the shape of a dragon descends upon Ilirea.

Folk say that the queen goes still and breathless when she hears word of the shadow. They say it is because she already knows of the terror the shadow brings—people slain, their bellies torn open and their lungs filled with ashes. Folk say these tidings came to her in a dream, that the gods warned her of this coming death.

But others say she goes still and breathless for another reason. That for a moment, she thinks the shadow belongs to a dragon with a Rider.

But there have been no unknown Dragon Riders in Alagaësia, not since the tyrant king fell. And this shadow is more savage than any Dragon Rider the kingdom has ever known.

The queen sends knights to battle the shadow. They are all slain, powerless as children before it. She sends another host, all good men, and they too perish. Those who come back wail it is a Shade haunting the city. The queen is desperate; she does not know what to do.

In council, her ministers mutter that a king would know.

"Let a king step forward then," Nasuada snarls. "Where are all my gallant suitors, who vowed to move the sun and moon for me, should I but wish it? Are they not men, to save us from our peril? Gods." She laughs, suddenly, but her dark eyes burn. "If they need an incentive, then let it be known that I will marry the brave soul who can slay this monster."

And so it is known throughout Alagaësia that the queen can be won—let a man but put a sword through the heart of the shadow beast and he will have her and her throne.

But the queen's vow cannot change the hearts of cowards. Of her hundred suitors, most do not take the offer. They flee, in terror, from Ilirea.

There are a few suitors who go forth to battle the shadow, armed with the swords and shields of their forefathers. They die. The queen weeps for all of them.

And then upon the seventh day, another shadow sweeps the walls of Ilirea. Men and women look up and see the glint of red scales, the vast spread of wings against the sun.

It is not another shadow beast, but a dragon. And it bears a Rider upon its back.

The dragon and his Rider stand before the High Queen of Alagaësia. She sits upon her throne, her hands clasped, her face a mask.

"Your Highness," says the Rider. He inclines his head, but he keeps his eyes upon her. His voice is husky with disuse, his clothes and gauntlets travel-worn. The red dragon looms at his side, dwarfing him, the hall, and everyone within it.

"Rider. Dragon." Her lips barely move. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?"

The Rider lifts his head. "We have heard a rumor that there is a shadow wyrm in the land."

"It is no rumor. You have heard true."

They gaze at one another for a long, long moment. And it is as if they are alone together, rather than in an audience chamber thronged with spectators. It is as if neither of them hear the people whispering: traitor. Murderer. Galbatorix's right hand man.

The Rider kneels and touches the hilt of his sheathed sword. "My blade is yours to command as you will," he says, "if you will have it."

A councilor makes a sudden noise. "This traitor is hardly capable of performing this task, milady," he spits. "He should be in chains, awaiting trial for his crimes. Send a trustworthy man."

The dragon growls. The councilor flinches.

"I have sent trustworthy men," says the queen, "and none have returned."

"You dishonor this kingdom and yourself, my queen, if you settle for this… scum."

Thorn's lip curls back. His teeth glint in the pale light, and his muscles ripple as he shifts forward. The Rider lays a hand upon his foreleg.

The queen's mouth tightens. She stands. "Do not presume to lecture me upon the subject of honor, sir," she says to the councilor, very low.

The councilor's eyes flicker to the ground. "Forgive me," he says.

But there is no humility in his voice, only loathing, only venom in the glance he shifts to the Red Rider. The Rider does not look at him. He has eyes, only, for the queen.

Another long, heavy look passes between them. "Rider," the queen begins—and then pauses. "Murtagh."

A shudder seems to pass through the Rider. "My lady?"

"Slay the shadow," she says. "I will honor whatever promises I have made in regards to it. But I will see, too, that you and Thorn are pardoned before all of Alagaësia."

A roar of disbelief breaks through the hall. The councilors, the courtiers, all babbling at once, in shock, in protest. But neither queen nor Rider heed them.

"You have never needed to buy our loyalty, milady," Murtagh says. "It is yours for the taking."

"You presume too much." Nasuada sits back down. Her expression is tired, but there is a tenderness in it that makes Murtagh tremble. "I do not mean to buy your loyalty, Rider. It is your salvation that I want."

It is done, in three days. Three brutal days, wrought of flame and ash. Dragon and Rider hunt the shadow beast through the muck-splattered streets, above the slate roofs, from dusk until the bloody dawn. They bring it down above the city walls, in a shower of mortar, the dragon and shadow beast crushing an empty gatehouse beneath their massive, tangled limbs, Thorn's teeth clamped upon the beast's throat. In the morning, when the people creep from their houses to survey the damage, they find the shadow beast lying amid a heap of stone and oaken beams, decapitated, the cobbles sticky with its blood. Already, laborers straggle through the wreckage.

The dragon and his Rider have vanished.

Naked grief flashes across the queen's face when she learns that Thorn and Murtagh are gone, and she turns away too late to conceal it.

Later, she shuts herself up in her rooms to grieve.

Or so folk say.

II

Nasuada finds him pacing before the fireplace in her solar, in the small hours. The light of her lamp catches upon his bloody gear, on the dark, staring hollowness of his eyes. He blinks at her. She lowers the lamp.

"I'm sorry." His voice is stifled. "I should not have come."

He looks away from her, then back, as if he is at once afraid to gaze at her and yet cannot stop.

"Do not be sorry." She sinks into a chair. "I am glad you have come. Is it done?"

"Yes. The wyrm is dead."

She breathes a long sigh. "Thank you." She pauses. "Are you or Thorn injured?"

"Nothing I could not heal."

Another pause. "I was afraid," she says, "that you would not return to me, once you had killed it."

He shuts his eyes, catches his breath. "I should not have come. I should go."

She fights to keep her voice level, but she is losing the battle already. "Tell me why you cannot stay." Her whisper is fierce. "It has been seven years."

"Thorn and I must hunt down whatever created the shadow wyrm," he says. "That is how those things are born—a magician creates them from poison, from corpses. There may be others."

She realizes she is shaking. "And you will come back, once you and Thorn have found the magician?"

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

His voice is gentle. "It is as you say. It has only been seven years."

"And is that not long enough?"

He shrugs, looks back at the embers. "Not for Thorn. Not for me." He glances at her, sidelong. "And perhaps not for you."

She clenches her hands, to stop them from shaking. "You truly presume too much, Murtagh Morzansson. I can forgive you. I have forgiven you."

"But can you forget?" He stops pacing. "I cannot forget what I have done, neither forget nor forgive." He steps closer to her, then stops as if he is afraid. "Can you truly forgive and forget, Nasuada? Can you?"

She cannot, and she knows this. She cannot forget and she has struggled to forgive. Even now she is not sure if she has completely forgiven him or if she ever can. But it has been seven years and her fondness has proved a little stronger than her pain and terror. She covers her face. He begins to apologize, to excuse himself.

"When do you mean to go?" she asks, hollow-voiced, interrupting him.

"Soon. Now."

She uncovers her face, rises from her chair, and goes to him. She takes his hand. The contact sends a frisson of pleasure sliding down her spine.

"Before you came back," Nasuada begins, "I said that I would wed the man who slew the shadow wyrm."

"Surely," he says, "you did not mean it."

"A queen must keep her promises."

"But you are not a prize to be won."

She squeezes his hand. "I made a second promise. To you. To Thorn." She presses her lips to his fingertips. "Stay, that I may keep it. Let me pardon you before Alagaësia."

He touches the underside of her jaw. "Alagaësia does not wish to see me pardoned, Nasuada. You speak of me. Me. Traitor, Galbatorix's right hand Rider, Morzan's son. Your council will eat you alive for championing my cause."

She stiffens. "Do you think me so powerless, that I am subject to the wishes of my council?"

"I think you," he said, "are but one piece in a dangerous game."

He touches her lips, and for a moment, she is disarmed. She closes her eyes and leans into his hand. She almost does not feel it when he finally pulls away.

"Come back to me, Murtagh," she whispers.

But when she opens her eyes, he is gone.

III

Folk also that say the Red Rider returns years later, that he is a hint of blood and shadow high upon the battlements, slipping into the queen's room. The queen's handmaidens, slumbering nearby, claim to have heard hushed voices—a glimmer of candlelight—in Nasuada's bedchamber.

But servants will gossip of anything. No one has glimpsed the Red Rider in over twenty years.

IV

In the end, he cannot stay away.

The Red Rider comes back, now and then, over the years. Months melt into one another between his visits, and sometimes he is gone so long that Nasuada is never quite sure if she really believes in him, or if their trysts have truly happened. Perhaps she has dreamed him. Perhaps he is but a ghost upon the knife edge of her kingdom.

But there is something beneath her skin that is always hungering for him, so that when she retires to her bedchamber of a night and finds him reading by the light of a candle, her body becomes a feral creature. She sheds her disbelief like scales from her eyes; she embraces him and his kisses are hard and full of need.

She does not ask him to stay, and he does not offer to do so. She suspects that he cannot forgive himself for the horror that lies between them. She tries to understand—and most of the time, she does. But there are moments when she lies awake, pressed against his sweat-slick skin, the smell and salt of him in her mouth, and she wants nothing more to wake with the morning with him still beside her.

But it has never happened. Always, she falls asleep clinging to him. Always, she wakes alone.

And it is for this, she thinks, that she can never quite forgive him.

She loves a shadow, this High Queen. She will never walk with him in the broad daylight, before her court, before the people of her city, before all of Alagaësia. For Murtagh cannot forgive himself for what lies between them. He believes himself tainted.

And tainted things do not deserve salvation.

oOo

A/N: The shadow wyrm was borrowed from the Eragon movie and video game—neither of which I have watched/played. But hey, that's why wikis exist, :x Thanks for reading.