INHERITANCE: Memorandum Of Scales

HER NAME IS NASUADA

"No evidence? What of your Father? Your Mother?" She asked then.

"Once born, I was given a name. That is all. I lived in the Royal House, yes, but as a ward. All second sons and third sons and fourth sons live as I did, as wards and adopted children, despite having direct blood relations. In the records, it is written as such. An adoption, not a birth of a newborn secondson. This is done to further protect the King."

Zidda was listening intently on his own steed, opposite to Murtagh. He was like that- He would never speak unless spoken to, but took in everything. He must be amazed- In some ways, Zidda had lived better than this forsaken Prince.

"A cruel existence." Murtagh said.

"You may think so. But that is how peace is kept. Our women may bear as many as thirty offspring. How would our people fare if every new moon there was a new usurper? Or worse, a youth manipulated into open revolt due to the whisperings of a man who would instill him on the throne as a puppet leader? The girls . . . they are married off to seal political alliances, and there is always want of them. Boys . . . they have no use. No noble wants to marry his daughter to a second son. It is either the Guild or the Dwaribahem."

They plodded on for a few silent moments after that. Neybark spoke as if this was simply routine, yet Murtagh did not even know what he would do in that situation. He had come across some Dwarf  traders who entered Galbatorix's court, yet this . . . The idea that it was possible for dirty merchants who haggled with the King were in fact trueborn Princes almost brought a smile to Murtagh's face.

"The Guilds are each controlled by one of the many Trade Families. There are Guilds for all types of trade that is able to be sold.

Merchant armies, traders, even those who would sell their own bodies. All of that is able to be chosen by a second son. I had always loved seeing the underground waterways fill with ships, snaking in Rharib-made tunnels as they slowly escaped from the dark earth, into the riverways and then the oceans. As such, I chose to be a Ship-bound Merchant. There can be more than one Guild with the same vocation, which leads to stiff competition between Trade Families. All this in turn leads to greater profit for the King. I came to be called Wind due to my adeptness on ship, with sails and rope. I have been wherever the sun sets, seen people and things that you would never believe. People have looked down on my kind ever since we were subjected in the wars, but now it should be the other way around. Everything you own and touch came about, in some small way, from the actions of mr, an Eharib."

Murtagh had surmised that the words Dwarib, Eharib, and Rharib were what the Dwarves called themselves once they had picked a Guild. Eharib must mean one affiliated with trading, or at the very least a ship-traversing merchant, like Neybark.

"Murtagh?" Nasuada asked, calling him from his musings of the day's journey and back into the night.

Zidda, Neybark, and the others were all sleeping, save for he and Nasuada. He did not know when they first began to speak, and what began as stiff conversation quickly flowered into something more. He lowered his eye from the sky and looked upon Nasuada's face. It was long and sharp, ebony and smooth. She had slightly slanted eyes and full lips, with a flat nose and a sharp chin. Strong jaws assisted her while she spoke, and strands of hair darker than Murtagh's own fell from her tied-up bun.

"You fell silent."

"I was . . . thinking."

"Ah. This is quite the place to lose yourself to thought. So vast, so wide and yet so closed. I always feel as if I am trapped when I cross the desert. It is worse than any prison."

"How so?" Murtagh couldn't disagree more. The desert was the epitome of freedom. Flat, save for the dunes, quiet, save for the passing desert direwolf or bandit; and it seemed to go on forever . . .