Lyreth’s expression didn’t change, as if Murtagh had done no more than make a passing comment on the weather. “You never did know your place,” he said.

  A powerful itch kindled in the middle of Murtagh’s palm.

  He opened his mouth—

  Lyreth’s finger pressed against the edge of the table.

  Clunk! The floor dropped out beneath Murtagh, the room tilted like a pinwheel, and his stomach lurched as he plummeted into blinding darkness.

  CHAPTER XV

  The Tangle Box

  An instant of shapeless black void, a clang, and—

  —a bone-jarring crash as his heels struck metal and his knees buckled.

  He would have fallen onto all fours. He was falling, and then a battering ram seemed to slam into him front to back and side to side, pinning him in place, holding him upright.

  The impact drove the air from his lungs, and he felt a sudden drain from his wards. He tried to inhale, but the crushing weight pressing in from all sides made it impossible.

  Then the air around him vanished, and the last dregs of breath left in his lungs forced their way up his throat and out his mouth and nose.

  He gaped like a stunned fish.

  A high keening—eye-watering and teeth-vibrating—sounded inside his skull, so loud and penetrating it made thought itself difficult.

  * * *

  Time seemed to slow for Murtagh.

  His lungs were burning with terrible fire. His veins throbbed. His skin was swollen like an overfilled bladder. Crimson stars mottled the edges of his vision. And the ever-present shrilling disrupted his ability to focus.

  He had seconds to act, if that. He couldn’t speak, and holding the ancient language in his mind was impossible.

  So he did the only thing he could.

  He cast a spell without a word to guide the magic. Only intent constrained the burst of energy, and that intent contained and embodied a single sentiment: Stop!

  The energy for the spell was spent in an instant. The shrilling stopped, and blessed silence reigned. But no air returned; still his lungs were empty, and still his veins burned, and he was about to pass out.

  He could see only blackness, but he knew where he was: inside a tangle box. A trap for magicians, designed to keep them from speaking or thinking, designed to suffocate them so they could be safely disposed of.

  He tried to rally his strength for a second spell. If he could break the walls of the tangle box, he could let in air, precious air, and if he could breathe, he would have a chance.

  But he couldn’t concentrate well enough to again work magic. The glass-pane barrier in his mind was too strong for him to reach through to the flow of energy on the other side, and the crimson tunnel narrowing his vision had nearly closed.

  Is this really how I die? THIS? The thought was enraging, but at the same time, he felt acceptance as awareness deserted him….

  * * *

  A thunderous crash sounded above. An earthquake-like vibration shook the metal underneath his feet, and the tremor passed up through his legs and chest and caused his teeth to chatter, rousing him back to awareness.

  Stone cracked, metal tore, and then a rush of cold wind touched his cheeks.

  His lungs filled with sweet air, and he gasped like a drowning man.

  Bright daylight appeared overhead, dispelling the darkness. He looked up, coughing, blinking, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes.

  Through petals of torn iron, he saw Thorn leaning toward him, the dragon’s scales covered with chalky dust, his long, heavy jaws open to show rows of bloody teeth.

  Behind the dragon, the sky was pale blue, devoid of clouds. Broken ceiling beams intruded on the bright expanse.

  Thorn reached down with one taloned paw and scooped Murtagh out of the pile of muddy gravel that had immobilized him. Pebbles fell like hail as Thorn lifted him back up into the dining hall.

  Murtagh’s chest heaved as he struggled for air. Thorn’s mind pressed against his, the dragon’s thoughts sharp with anger, fear, worry, and barely leashed panic. Still, his presence was comforting, and Murtagh began to think he might actually survive.

  Thorn uncurled his paw and deposited Murtagh on the debris-covered floor. He nudged Murtagh in the ribs. How are you hurt? Tell me. Tell me! Try to breathe!

  “I’m—” Murtagh gasped. “I’m…trying.” His lungs still burned as he forced himself onto his knees, half expecting to be attacked.

  No sign remained of Lyreth in the dining hall. The fine wooden table was shattered to pieces beneath Thorn’s weight, and the silken tapestries hung in tatters. By the door to the hall lay three of the bullnecked guards, limp and bloodstained, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles.

  Thorn nudged him again. The dragon’s eyes were wide and wild, and his sides heaved, not just from exertion. Murtagh could nearly taste his fearful agitation.

  Glancing around, Murtagh became aware of how small the interior of the house was. Thorn’s wings almost scraped the walls, which seemed to lean inward with ominous intent, and the timbers jutting overhead were uncomfortably similar to broken branches against a dead sky.

  Newfound alarm caused him to stagger to his feet. He gave Thorn a weak pat on the nose and cast about for his bedroll. A corner of it stuck out from under the ruined table. He grabbed it and started to move toward the dragon’s side, meaning to climb onto his back.

  Outside the broken house, shouts and brassy horns sounded, along with a clatter of arms and armor as soldiers rushed in.

  Blast it! “We have to get out of—”

  A section of roof caved inward, and the slate shingles poured across Thorn’s back with a dusty, deafening discord.

  Thorn roared, and Murtagh both heard and felt his jolt of mindless panic. “No, wait! It’s all—”

  The crimson dragon reared and tried to spread his wings, only to be blocked by the walls of the house. Then he truly went mad. He thrashed like a great snake, and the shell of the building shook and shuddered, and beams tumbled down, and walls collapsed, and a thick cloud of dust darkened the air.

  Murtagh crouched and covered his head with his bedroll as the house fell around them. He tried to join with Thorn’s mind, but the dragon was too far gone in his fear; Murtagh could not reach him, could not calm or reason with him.

  His wards deflected a mass of timbers that would have crushed him, and he gasped at the sudden loss of energy. Zar’roc. He needed the sword, needed the energy stored within the sword’s ruby pommel.

  A moment of shocking silence followed. Before him, Murtagh saw mounds of beams and rubble coated with a finger-thick layer of ashy dust. The house was no more, and beyond its confines, shadowy shapes of men moved behind the curtains of obscuring haze.

  THUD.

  A beat from Thorn’s wings blew whorls of dust spinning into the sky and cleared the area around Murtagh. He lifted his head.

  A shifting group of soldiers surrounded the square, their faces white with fear, hate, and dust. They held their spears pointed toward Thorn—as if the weapons would do any good against a dragon—and they cursed Murtagh and Thorn and shouted insults and provocations. Flights of arrows arched in from between the buildings, whistling their deadly song.

  “Thrysta!” Murtagh cried, and the arrows shattered in the air and fell harmlessly to the streets.

  Thorn roared again, and the men shrank back. Desperate, Murtagh pressed his mind against Thorn’s, but it was like battering his head against a wall of blank stone. Fear ruled the dragon’s thoughts—no other emotion was strong enough to intrude or override. In that moment, he was become a mindless beast, and Murtagh did not know how to help him.

  Thorn twisted and swung his tail through the air and struck the nearby houses. The weight of his tail, and the strength driving it, broke the buildings, snapped their timbers like dry kindling, and sent doors and shutters and shingles and entire walls crashing to the ground.

  Murtagh ran toward Thorn. “St—”

  The dragon turned and placed a paw over Murtagh. The weight pushed Murtagh to the ground, and then Thorn’s claws curved around him, and a forceful yank caused his neck to whip as Thorn loosed an unearthly bellow and sprang into the air.

  Murtagh struggled to move, struggled to see, but the cage of Thorn’s talons was immovable, unbreakable.

  Thorn roared again. Beneath them, Murtagh glimpsed the soldiers fleeing through the streets, and he thought he saw Esvar’s face among the throng, the yellow-haired youth’s expression fear-stricken and accusatory. Closer to the fortress, he spotted two figures garbed in the dark robes of Du Vrangr Gata, and also a trio of elves standing by the corner of a building, the air shimmering between their hands as they chanted in what he knew was the ancient language.

  No!

  More arrows flew up toward them, and an enormous jet of flame shot out from Thorn’s maw. Even closed within Thorn’s paw, Murtagh could feel waves of searing heat rolling out from the fiery torrent.

  The arrows flared red, white, and yellow and vanished like sparks in a campfire.

  With another roar, Thorn bathed the buildings below in a stream of liquid fire. Yellow sheets billowed from the roofs, and the flapping of the ravenous flames drowned out a chorus of shouts and screams.

  Murtagh was shouting as well, but Thorn wasn’t listening.

  Then they were flying across the city, and as Thorn flew, he laid down a track of burning destruction. A spell of some kind caused the air about them to grow cold and thin, but whatever the intended outcome of the enchantment, the effects soon vanished, and Thorn continued as before.

  They passed over the edge of Gil’ead, and then Thorn was climbing into the sky with desperate speed, and the only sounds were the rush of air and the heavy beats of his wings.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Aftermath

  Thorn flew for hours.

  Murtagh kept trying to talk with him, but the dragon’s mind remained closed, armored by unreasoning fear. Helpless to do more, Murtagh strove to impress a sense of calm and safety on Thorn, despite his own upset. He wanted to rage and curse and weep, but he knew that would only worsen Thorn’s state, so he crushed his own feelings and focused on maintaining an even frame of mind. Thorn needed to know that he wasn’t alone and that both he and Murtagh were safe. Only then would he regain his senses.

  Every wingbeat caused a painful jostle as the scales along Thorn’s knobby fingers cut into Murtagh’s skin. The rush of cold air was loud and distracting and leeched the life from his limbs, though he clung to his bedroll for warmth. Soon he began to shiver.

  Murtagh tried to track their path, but he could only see a small patch of the ground. He could tell they were heading north and east, and that was all.

  The sight of the burning buildings kept filling his mind, and he kept pushing it away, not wanting his own distress to worsen Thorn’s. But he couldn’t help but feel a sick sense of inevitability at what they had done.

  * * *

  The sun was directly above them when, at long last, Thorn angled downward and glided to a stop upon a small hill by the edge of the vast eastern plains.

  They landed with a jolt, and Thorn opened his paw. Murtagh dropped onto the dry grass hard enough to cause him to let out his breath in a whuff.

  He unclamped his grip on the bedroll and slowly got to his feet.

  Thorn was crouched next to him, shoulders and wings hunched as if to ward off a blow, eyes half closed, his entire body racked with tiny tremors.

  Murtagh wrapped his arms around Thorn’s head. “Shh. It’s all right,” he said, both out loud and with his mind. “We’re safe. Be at ease.” He repeated the words until he felt the tremors begin to subside.

  It is not all right. Thorn blinked and hunkered lower. It will never be all right.

  “The elves will have put out the fires. It’s easy enough with a word or two.”

  Thorn laid his head on the ground and let out his breath in a great sigh. His scales felt uncommonly cold to Murtagh; normally the dragon ran hotter than a human. How many do you think I killed?

  “…I don’t know. Maybe no one.” But they both knew that was unlikely.

  I hate this weakness in me. This is not how I should be. It is unbecoming for a dragon, much less a dragon with a Rider. I dishonor you and my kind.

  “No, no, no,” said Murtagh. The words tumbled out in a rush. “This isn’t your fault. It never was.”

  Thorn turned doleful eyes on him. Galbatorix is dead. My actions are my own. What he did to me—

  “What he did to us.”

  We cannot be blamed for it, but the fault here is still mine.

  A strange desire to weep came over Murtagh. He remembered Thorn as a hatchling, pure and innocent, free of any misdeed, and despite all they had done, he saw the youngling in Thorn yet. “You’re not helpless,” he said with fierce conviction. “You can overcome this fear of yours. Nothing in this world is mightier than a dragon.”

  Thorn snuffed the ground by his feet. Nothing but a dragon’s own mind. To that, Murtagh had no answer, and his helplessness turned into coiled frustration. Thorn noticed. But I will try, however I can.

  “I know you will. Tomorrow, let’s find some trees, and we’ll work on this together.”

  Together.

  With his right hand, Murtagh stroked the scales along Thorn’s jaw. They were still cold against his palm. “Thank you for coming to get me. I would have died if you hadn’t.”

  I flew…very fast. Thorn shivered again, and his eyelids drooped lower, although his shoulders and wings remained hunched.

  “You need to eat,” said Murtagh. “Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

  No. Do not go….

  But Murtagh was already trotting down the hill.

  * * *

  Thorn’s approach had scared away any nearby game, and Murtagh had to range longer and wider than he wanted before he spotted a herd of red deer grazing along the banks of a creek.

  He stopped some distance away. A pair of does looked in his direction before returning to feeding. They seemed entirely unfrightened; he was too far away to be a threat, and he saw no settlements in the area. The animals weren’t used to being hunted by humans.

  He cast about the ground, looking for a rock, but unlike the land near the Spine, the soil of the plains was rich and black and had no stones in it. What he found instead was a piece of wind-scoured bone, a fragment of a deer’s thigh or foreleg.

  It would do.

  He concentrated on the largest deer, lifted the bone on his outstretched palm, and said, “Thrysta!”

  The shard flew faster than his eye could follow. With a thup, it struck the doe between her eyes. Her head snapped back, and the animal collapsed, hind legs kicking.

  The rest of the herd fled.

  Murtagh walked to the fallen animal. By the time he arrived, the doe had gone limp and still.

  He looked at the deer, contemplating what he had done. The animal’s eyes were still open, and they were beautiful: round and glassy and gentle. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  Then he grabbed the deer by its legs, slung it over his shoulders, and started the long walk back to Thorn.

  As he strode across the grassy plain, the weight of the animal warm and heavy around his neck, Murtagh again saw the stone cell where Galbatorix had kept Thorn imprisoned. The chamber had been long but narrow, with murder holes cut in the ceiling. Too large and cold and unfriendly of a place for a hatchling, but there Galbatorix had placed Thorn all the same and anchored him to the floor with chains of iron. Small ones at first, to match Thorn’s size, but bigger and bigger ones thereafter, until the links were as thick about as a man’s torso and too weighty in their combined mass for even a dragon many times Thorn’s age to lift. Whenever he moved, the chains made a harsh and horrible sound. Many a night Murtagh had lain awake in his own cell, listening for the distinctive clink.

  At first his heart ached for Thorn’s isolation. It was a cruel thing to put a small creature into such a hostile place, and he could not comfort Thorn with his thoughts, for the king and his servants kept them under constant mental watch (and ofttimes outright assault). But the space was not overly large for long. Thorn’s magically augmented growth meant the cell soon became cramped, and the walls kept him from spreading his wings, and the bony knuckles on the fingers that extended through his flight membranes rubbed raw against the rough stones.

  Then Murtagh felt for Thorn’s confinement more than his isolation. He often heard him throwing himself against the walls and chains in a futile attempt to escape, panicked thrashings punctuated by roars and growls that turned to pained whines when the guards came and jabbed spears through the murder holes or else dumped buckets of slop onto Thorn’s sides, forcing him to lick the leavings off his scales.

  It was no way to keep an adult dragon, much less a hatchling. A child by any measure. To spend the first few months of your life in such a fashion…

  Murtagh clenched his jaw and quickened his pace as a familiar rage flared within him. At times, he fantasized about finding a spell that would let him bring Galbatorix back to life so that he could kill him again. But not by imposing understanding. With the sharp edge of his sword so that the man might feel the full, agonizing force of Murtagh’s fury.