“Have they yet—”

A disturbance at the doors to her quarters interrupted Nasuada. She heard her guards swear and raise their voices, then a yelp of pain. The sound of metal clashing on metal rang in the hallway. Nasuada backed away from the door in alarm, drawing her dagger from its sheath.

“Run, Lady!” said Trianna. The sorceress placed herself in front of Nasuada and pushed back her sleeves, baring her white arms in preparation to work magic. “Take the servants’ entrance.”

Before Nasuada could move, the doors burst open and a small figure tackled her legs, knocking her to the floor. Even as Nasuada fell, a silvery object flashed through the space she had just occupied, burying itself in the far wall with a dullthud.

Then the four guards entered, and all was confusion as Nasuada felt them drag her assailant off her. When Nasuada managed to stand, she saw Elva hanging in their grip.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Nasuada.

The black-haired girl smiled, then doubled over and retched on the braided rug. Afterward, she fixed her violet eyes on Nasuada and—in her terrible, knowing voice—she said, “Have your magician examine the wall, O Daughter of Ajihad, and see if I have not fulfilled my promise to you.”

Nasuada nodded to Trianna, who glided to the splintered hole in the wall and muttered a spell. She returned holding a metal dart. “This was buried in the wood.”

“But where did it come from?” asked Nasuada, bewildered.

Trianna gestured toward the open window overlooking the city of Aberon. “Somewhere out there, I guess.”

Nasuada returned her attention to the waiting child. “What do you know about this, Elva?”

The girl’s horrible smile widened. “It was an assassin.”

“Who sent him?”

“An assassin trained by Galbatorix himself in the dark uses of magic.” Her burning eyes grew half-lidded, as if she were in a trance. “The man hates you. He’s coming for you. He would have killed you if I hadn’t stopped him.” She lurched forward and retched again, spewing half-digested food across the floor. Nasuada gagged with revulsion. “And he’s about to suffer great pain.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I will tell you he stays in the hostel on Fane Street, in the last room, on the top floor. You had better hurry, or he’ll get away . . . away.” She groaned like a wounded beast and clutched her belly. “Hurry, before Eragon’s spell forces me to stop you from hurting him. You’ll be sorry, then!”

Trianna was already moving as Nasuada said, “Tell Jörmundur what’s happened, then take your strongest magicians and hunt down this man. Capture him if you can. Kill him if you can’t.” After the sorceress left, Nasuada looked at her men and saw that their legs were bleeding from numerous small cuts. She realized what it must have cost Elva to hurt them. “Go,” she told them. “Find a healer who can mend your injuries.”

The warriors shook their heads, and their captain said, “No, Ma’am. We will stay by your side until we know it’s safe again.”

“As you see fit, Captain.”

The men barricaded the windows—which worsened the already sweltering heat that plagued Borromeo Castle—then everyone retreated to her inner chambers for further protection.

Nasuada paced, her heart pounding with delayed shock as she contemplated how close she had come to being killed.What would become of the Varden if I died? she wondered.Who would succeed me? Dismay gripped her; she had made no arrangements for the Varden in the event of her own demise, an oversight that now seemed a monumental failing.I won’t allow the Varden to be thrown into chaos because I failed to take precautions!

She halted. “I am in your debt, Elva.”

“Now and forever.”

Nasuada faltered, disconcerted as she often was by the girl’s responses, then continued: “I apologize for not ordering my guards to let you pass, night or day. I should have anticipated an event like this.”

“You should have,” agreed Elva in a mocking tone.

Smoothing the front of her dress, Nasuada resumed pacing, as much to escape the sight of Elva’s stone-white, dragon-marked face as to disperse her own nervous energy. “How did you escape your rooms unaccompanied?”

“I told my caretaker, Greta, what she wanted to hear.”

“That’s all?”

Elva blinked. “It made her very happy.”

“And what of Angela?”

“She left on an errand this morning.”

“Well, be as that may, you have my gratitude for saving my life. Ask me any boon you want and I shall grant it if it’s within my power.”

Elva glanced around the ornate bedroom, then said, “Do you have any food? I’m hungry.”

PREMONITION OFWAR

Two hours later, Trianna returned, leading a pair of warriors who carried a limp body between them. At Trianna’s word, the men dropped the corpse on the floor. Then the sorceress said, “We found the assassin where Elva said we would. Drail was his name.”

Motivated by a morbid curiosity, Nasuada examined the face of the man who had tried to kill her. The assassin was short, bearded, and plain-looking, no different from countless other men in the city. She felt a certain connection to him, as if his attempt on her life and the fact that she had arranged his death in return linked them in the most intimate manner possible. “How was he killed?” she asked. “I see no marks on his body.”