Luminescent (Inheritance Cycle and Beyond)

Chapter Sixty-One: Blinding

Unlike most of the court woman and girls, Mal kept her deep pink lips pressed in a neutral position as her black-lined, sparkling blue almond eyes scanned over the audience. Even under all these eyes, she still kept a level head.

Then the whispers had started. It had taken Murtagh seconds to understand what those around him whispered. Wënyalín. The elvan princess, sister to Queen Izlanzadí. Why did they think Mal was the elvan princess that ran from Urü'Baen all those years ago?

The grating chatter from the noblewoman that had sauntered up to him, faded along with all others. Mal had been his sole focus.

Mal possessed a rare beauty, the kind that drew you in, and it wasn't just from her looks. Her entire persona was likable, anyone would be able to tell that she was a woman of a kind nature. Murtagh smirked, she may be a kind woman, but she did not put up with any kind of falsehood.

That quickly became apparent when the yellow-haired harpy that had previously been annoying him set her sights on Mal. Mal had destroyed the woman within five minutes of conversation.

Murtagh's eyes flickered open as wave distress and pain hit him. He placed the dagger back on his nightstand and stood up. Someone in this section of the castle was in severe pain. The only people in this wing of the castle were him, a couple of servants that stayed close if needed, the guards, and—"

"Mal." Murtagh breathed before he was running out of his room and towards the very end of the wing. He passed several guards who gave him wary looks before he slid to a stop in front of the door that led to Mal's room.

Waves of pain hit him along with the physical sound of quiet whimpering. Murtagh opened the door and stepped into the moonlit room.

"Mal?" Murtagh asked, his eyes staring at the shaking lump in the middle of the large bed.

"What are you doing here!?! Get out!" Mal squeaked out, stumbling over the words. "Get out! Just get out."

"Mal," Murtagh said, walking over to the side of the bed, so his eyes connected with her painfilled blue ones. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You idiot." Mal moaned out before tucking her chin into her chest as her whole body shuddered.

"I can sense your pain from my room, what's going on? I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"You can't help me; no one can," Mal whispered in a defeated voice.

"You're being negative." Mal fixed her eyes on Murtagh.

"You want to know why I haven't been sleeping? This is why." Mal hissed out before another wave of pain had her whimpering, clutching at her shoulder. "I've been trying to get rid of it since Tronjheim, well nothing has worked!"

Murtagh pulled off his boots before climbing into the bed.

"Come here," Murtagh said, wrapping his arms around Mal's waist and pulling her to his chest. Mal continued to shudder for a few minutes until she eventually relaxed from her ridged position. "Does this happen every night?"

"Most, they've been awful lately. I am so tired, but every time I try to sleep, my shoulder acts up. You can leave now." Murtagh inwardly sighed as her stubbornness appeared.

"I already told you that I'm not going anywhere."

"You are infuriating," Mal replied with a grumble.

"Just try to go back to sleep."

A haunted look crossed Eragon's face as he reached over his shoulder and rubbed his upper back.

"I always assumed..." Eragon trailed off in a whisper.

"You assumed what?" Eragon sighed.

"I'm sure that you've noticed that Mal's wound completely disappeared without scarring," Eragon said as he plucked a weed from the ground and started to pick at it, chucking the pieces into the fire. "during our time in Ellesmira, there was a celebration that through the power of a spirit and those in Ellesmira, Mal and I were healed from our maladies. The pain from my scar longer plagued me, and Mal could use her right arm once more, I thought we were free from the injuries we sustained in Farthendur."

"But not Mal," Murtagh murmured.

"I never questioned why she seemed so fatigued, we were at war with Galbatorix, and she was the acting queen of a nation. It'd made sense at the time that she was exhausted." Eragon said before angrily chucking the rest of the weed into the fire. He watched as it went up in flames before shriveling into a dark brown mess and disappearing. "I've been free of physical pain... but Mal has been dealing with the psychological pain all these months without having anyone to help her."

"I think that's her defense mechanism," Murtagh replied. "She was so afraid of what Galbatorix would do to those she loved, she refused to let them in."