“Try!” commanded Murtagh, his tone suddenly hard. Where enticement would not work, perhaps ferocity would serve. “Now! Don’t think about it!”
An anguished roar escaped Thorn, and he lurched forward on stiff legs, as a wounded animal might, and in his haste, his head brushed a low-hanging branch. Blinding fear swept the dragon’s mind with such strength it sent a bolt through Murtagh’s temples. He cried out and dropped to one knee even as Thorn thrashed and wriggled back out of the copse.
Thorn sat on the open ground, shivering and blinking. His jaws were open, and he panted as if from a desperate run. Then he lifted his snout and loosed a mournful howl that sounded so lonesome and eerie, the entirety of Murtagh’s skin crawled.
I cannot, said Thorn. My legs seize up, and I cannot move. It is as if a spell grips me, and I feel as if I will die.
With an effort, Murtagh got back to his feet and, with slow steps, made his way to Thorn. “They’re just emotions. Emotions aren’t you.” He tapped Thorn’s foreleg. “You can feel them, you can let them pass through you, but who you are doesn’t change. Remember that. Remember the parts of your true name that describe the best parts of you and hold to them.”
Thorn lowered his head in acknowledgment. The doing of it is difficult.
“It always is.” Murtagh gestured at the stand of birchwood trees. “Again. Now.”
Fear and uncertainty flickered at the back of Thorn’s gaze as he regarded Murtagh, but then he drew himself up with a proud arch to his neck, and a puff of smoke swirled from his nostrils. For you.
As before, Murtagh backed into the copse, and as before, Thorn attempted to follow. The red dragon managed to force himself a few feet farther than on his first attempt, but then his nerve broke and he had to retreat. So strong were Thorn’s memories of imprisonment that, for an instant, they overwhelmed Murtagh’s mind, and the dungeons of Urû’baen appeared before him, as seen through Thorn’s eyes. That and the dragon’s visceral aversion were enough to drive Murtagh out from among the trees himself.
They took a few moments to collect themselves. Murtagh’s heart was beating uncomfortably fast.
Then they tried once more with similar results.
“Enough,” said Murtagh, laying a hand on Thorn’s neck. The dragon was coiled into a tight knot upon the matted grass, panting and shivering as if with ague. It was still morning, and they were already wrung out.
They were both uncommonly quiet as they returned to camp and prepared to leave.
Only once Murtagh had packed up and was performing a final check on the rigging of Thorn’s saddle did the dragon say, Tomorrow, I will find another stand of trees.
Murtagh paused with a half-fastened buckle in his hand. He finished securing it. “I’ll help you.” And a sense of shared determination passed between them.
Before climbing into the saddle, Murtagh wetted a scrap of cloth and wiped the sweat from his face and under his arms. He would have preferred a proper bath, but the nearby stream was too small to fit in.
“Shall we?” he asked, rinsing and wringing out the cloth.
Thorn stretched the fingers of his wings and shook them, as if to rid himself of nervous energy. The winds are changing. We will have to dance about the clouds.
Murtagh clambered up Thorn’s side and into the saddle. As he cinched the straps around his legs, he took one last look at the peaceful expanse of grasslands and nodded. “Then let us dance. No, let us hunt.”
And Thorn growled with approval.
CHAPTER XVII
Exile
While Thorn flew and the land rolled past below, Murtagh let his mind wander. His natural inclination was to think—to endlessly turn over all that was, had been, and could be—but he fought the urge. No remembering! Rather, he found solace in existence without contemplation. It was a simple pleasure, perhaps the simplest of all, and yet no less profound.
High above the ground, the air was chill, and his lashes froze together if he blinked slower than normal. Murtagh used a spell to buffer the wind in front of him, to slow the loss of heat from his body. Thorn needed no such protection; his scales were sufficient guard.
From the grasslands northeast of Gil’ead, Thorn flew back across Isenstar Lake and started to follow the Ninor River northwest toward the Spine.
They made good time, but Murtagh worried that events were outpacing them, and he was likewise concerned that Du Vrangr Gata, or even the elves, were hunting him and Thorn. Unless Carabel had abilities as yet unsuspected, it would take some days for his letter to reach Nasuada. Until then, Nasuada, Arya, and Eragon—all of whom had no doubt already received word of the fight at Gil’ead—would assume the worst. Eragon and Arya might even be so alarmed, Murtagh belatedly realized, as to set out in pursuit. He half expected them to contact him, and every time he felt a touch on his mind, he fought the urge to flinch. But always it was Thorn, and the dragon said, You are as twitchy as a mountain cat bitten by too many fleas.
Don’t talk to me about cats.
The land beneath them was beautiful, and Murtagh found himself wishing that they could ignore the concerns of queens and kings and live according to their own devices, just as Thorn had wanted. Whether that meant settling in one place—with magic as his tool, he could raise a hut or a palace, whichever suited his fancy—or searching the skies like an albatross set to wander all its days.
But in his heart, he knew neither option would work. No one truly lives apart. We are all connected. And ignoring their responsibilities, his responsibilities, would only lead to regret.
That evening, they made camp by a stand of poplar near the banks of the river. Murtagh went hunting with a pebble and spell and quickly collected a brace of hares and a large blue-footed duck that was foolish enough to swim past.
Before he started a fire and fixed himself dinner, he and Thorn went to the stand of poplar, and Thorn again attempted to enter among the trees.
In this, he was more successful than before, for the poplar were sparsely grown and Thorn had greater room about his head and sides. But in the end, the same fear caused him to freeze and then retreat, and Murtagh did not count the undertaking as much of an improvement.
The exercise furthered their end-of-day tiredness, and they spoke little through the rest of the evening.
After eating, Murtagh banked the fire and sat with his back against Thorn. For a time, he stared moodily at one of the gold crowns he’d received from Wren. Then he took up the dictionary he’d stolen and read from it while the sun set and clouds of gnats rose swarming from the treetops.
On the morning of the second day, while Murtagh waited for what remained of the duck to finish heating, he again returned to the compendium. The words it contained represented an incredible opportunity—potential, in fact—and he found himself constantly thinking of ideas for new spells.
This time, instead of picking up from where he had left off, he flipped through the compendium at random, taking in a word here, a word there.
His gaze landed upon one in particular. “Deyja,” he murmured. He looked at the definition. His eyes widened. “To die. To stop living.”
Thorn snorted. A dangerous word, that.