Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in the Inheritance Trilogy. They all belong to the mastermind that is Christopher Paolini. The only thing I do own are my own characters, which aren’t as thrilling as saying that you own Murtagh. L

AN: I hope you enjoy this story as much I as enjoy writing it. Please review. They’re much appreciated and give me inspiration to write.

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“Adelaide,” a voice whispered harshly in the darkness. The urgency in the voice wasn’t masked and overrode any other emotion. They shook the shoulder of a small, slumbering girl, who was snoring lightly under her breath. A groan escaped the child’s mouth as she rolled over onto her side and slowly cracked her eyes open, revealing startling blue irises.

The little girl blinked slowly, trying to shake the thick blanket that was sleep from her eyes. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands and sat up slowly. “Ma ma?”

“Shhhh!” Her mother scorned, all but hissing at her. “You must remain quiet! It’s imperative! Do you understand?”

“Yes ma ma,” Adelaide nodded her head of dark hair. “I understand.”

“Good,” her mother muttered under her breath, casting a cautious look over her shoulder and out the tent flap. Adelaide watched her mother intently, cocking her head to the side as she studied her. When her mother turned back to her, Adelaide saw that she was extremely pale and tears were prickling her dark eyes.

“Ma ma?” The tiny child questioned, her voice laced with concern. “What’s going on?” Her mother licked her chapped, thin lips and, with her hand shaking violently, tucked a strand of her daughter’s dark, wavy hair behind her ear. Her cold hand lingered on Adelaide’s cheek. Her mother’s thumb stroked the length of her cheekbone and Adelaide pressed her face into her mother’s hand.

“Oh Addie,” Her mother breathed, the woman’s heart breaking in her chest. She gathered her tiny daughter up in her arms and Adelaide clung to her mother. She could feel her mother shaking as she stroked the ending wisps of her hair. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

Adelaide pulled back from her mother’s tight embrace and furrowed her brow in confusion. Her brilliant blue eyes searched her mother’s face for any sign of an answer, but deep down, she knew she wasn’t going to get one. Even if she was only seven summers old, it did not mean she didn’t understand the looks her mother gave her. Her mother brought a shaky finger to her mouth, communicating that Adelaide should no longer as questions and just listen. Though it was very difficult for her to do, the small child nodded her head and a tear rolled down her cheek. Whatever it was her mother was going to tell her, it couldn’t be good.

Just when her mother opened her mouth to say something, a loud cry from outside broke through the thin fabric of the tent, piercing right through both its occupants.

“URGALS!”

Adelaide let out a startled gasp and Morganna ripped herself away from her daughter. Tears of fear were rolling down the young girl’s face at full speed and her mother stood up abruptly, her dark eyes wide with alarm. Several more shouts from all the men of the camp reached their ears and a sob escaped Adelaide’s mouth. She watched, shaking in the spot she sat in, as her mother shoved various things into a burlap sack small enough for Adelaide to carry on her back.

The flap of the tent was suddenly wretched back and Adelaide screamed. Morganna clapped a hand over her mouth and told her to relax, that it was just her older brother Nolan. Her mother then picked her up and handed her over to Nolan. Morganna looked at her son, her stare penetrating his green eyes as she spoke, “Nolan. Take your sister and get as far away from here as possible. Do you understand?”

“Yes Mother,” the boy of eleven winters said, nodding his head while a few tears escaped the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away with a free hand and set Adelaide on the ground.

Morganna’s smile waned and, reaching out for her son, she held him tightly in her arms. “I love you, my son.”

“And I you, Mother.”

Morganna turned to her daughter, her mouth opening again, when loud battle cries broke. Another sob escaped Adelaide and her brother held her hand tightly. “Go! You must!” Morganna pushed her children out of the tent. Her face read that of fear and, oddly enough, bravery. Tears were rolling freely down her cheeks, yet they made her look dignified. The fires blazing through the grassy plains reflected in her eyes and she looked wild. A shiver ran down Adelaide’s back and Nolan gripped his sister’s hand tightly.

“GO!” Morganna all but screamed at her children as the Urgals started to break through the thin line of men. The sound of swords crashing was deafening and shook the dark haired little girl to the core. There was so much blood shed. So many screams of pain, both men and Urgal alike. Adelaide stood there in shock, watching the wreckage unfold around her. Big, fat tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed on her bare feet.

Nolan tugged Adelaide in the direction of their horse, but she rooted her feet in the ground, refusing to move. “Come on, Addie!”

“Ma ma!” She cried repeatedly, her tiny chest heaving. She struggled against her brother’s firm grasp, nearly ripping her arm out of her socket and causing Nolan to fall to the ground when she tugged rather violently one particular time. Adelaide continued to scream out for her mother. So loudly that it had caught an Urgal’s attention and he stalked over their way.

When Morganna saw her children‘s lives were in danger, she screamed hoarsely, “RUN ADDIE! YOU MUST RUN!”

“MA MA!”

Morganna’s soulful brown eyes bored into Adelaide’s as the young girl screamed in protest as Nolan picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. He took off running across the field toward their frightened horse. Even though her vision was severely blurred by tears, it was damn near impossible to miss the Urgal kicking her mother to the muddy ground and bringing their blade upon her neck, severing her head from her body. Adelaide let out a blood curdling scream and struggled against her brother as he forced her onto the horse, before he swung into the saddle himself. His arms kept her firmly in place and, as he flicked the reins, she saw the Urgal picked up her mother’s head and laughed at it mockingly.

And that was the very last thing young Adelaide of Yazuac saw before her eyes rolled back into her head and her head slumped against her brother’s chest.

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A loud scream broke Nolan from his sleep. He bolted into an upright position, his thin sheepskin blanket falling from his arms. The cold night air brought goose bumps to his skin and his piercing green eyes locked around the camp. Across from him, on the other side of the fire, his younger sister was thrashing about in her pallet. “Not again.” With a sigh, Nolan tucked his knife back into his belt and walked over to his sister.

“Addie,” He said as he gently reached out and touched her shoulder. She screamed again and her eyelids flew back as she sat up suddenly, knocking foreheads with her older brother. The impact of her skull against his sent Nolan to the ground and he rubbed his forehead. “Another nightmare?” He asked as he brushed the dirt off the seat of his trousers.

Addie nodded faintly, her chest heaving as she tried to regain her breath. She placed her hand over her heart and found it beating erratically. “It was the one of-.” A lump formed in her throat and she couldn’t get the words out. She licked her dry, chap lips and pushed her damp hair away from her forehead, lightly touching the tender spot where she had knocked craniums with Nolan. She tried to speak again, but the words wouldn’t come.

Nolan sent his sister a sympathetic look and he finished the sentence for her, “It was the one of Mother dieing again, wasn’t it?”

Again, Addie nodded and she drew her knees up to her chest. “Yes, it was.” She muttered under her breath, struggling to push her tears back where they belonged. Her gaze fixated on the dieing flames of the fire they had built naught but a few hours beforehand and she emitted a long sigh. “I just don’t understand why they keep coming back. It’s been nearly ten years since she died.” She moved her eyes to her brother’s face and scanned it searchingly, hoping to find the answer to her question.

Nolan could only offer a shrug and Addie sighed again. He touched her shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. She placed her own smaller hand on top of his and threaded her fingers through his warm hand. “I can’t answer that question for you, Adelaide. You have to find the answer yourself and, maybe then, your nightmares will go away.”

Addie let her fingers slip through her brother’s task and she returned her pale hand to her lap. Tugging the worn deerskin blanket around her shoulders, Addie rested her chin in the valley between her knobby knees and her gaze wandered from the fire, to the trees surrounding them, and back again. It wasn’t until she heard the clank of a copper pan they had nicked from an abandoned home that Addie looked toward her brother. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion and she bit the inside of her cheek. “What are you doing?”

Her older brother, in all his lean and muscular glory that would make any woman with the gift of sight go ga-gag, looked over his shoulder at her and smiled, another aspect of her brother’s entirely too perfect being that got the women swooning. “We’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

Nolan shrugged. “I’m not sure. Check where we are now.” He gestured toward her nap sack, the one that had been Nolan’s when they had narrowly escaped the Urgal attack on their caravan.

She rolled her bright blue eyes and stretched her lithe body, grabbing the pack and pulling it toward herself. The pack was tattered and had a few, small holes that Addie had stopped stitching up after the tenth time they reopened themselves. She rummaged through the pack and withdrew the map. “Do we have another more apples?” Addie asked curiously as she spread the map out on the soil in front of her, a serious glaze settling into her eyes. She received her response and, had she not glanced upward in time, would’ve been hit in her head with an apple that appeared bruised to most, but looked extraordinarily scrumptious to Addie.

“So,” Nolan drawled as he rolled his pallet up and shoved it into his traveling pack. “Have you found out location?” He walked over to his sister and stood over her, placing a hand on his hip and casting a shadow over a portion of the map.

“We’re a days ride from Bullridge,” Addie replied, looking up at her brother with her index finger on the map. “Is there anything we might need while near the settlement?”

“Do you need anything of utmost importance that requires us to go into town, taking the risk of being seen?” Nolan asked, cocking his head to the side and struggling to bite back a smile.

Addie was usually the one that asked that particular question and she stuck her pink tongue out at him. “Quiet you,” she said warningly, glaring as best as she could and shaking her finger at him. Nolan chortled and she hit him lightly in the stomach. “As a matter of fact,” Addie continued, folding up the map and stowing it in her nap sack. “There is something that I need to get that requires us to go into town and take the risk of being seen by complete strangers.”

Nolan looked at his sister curiously, an eyebrow raised in amusement as he watched her roll up her pallet and stuffed it into her already overflowing nap sack. Sometimes, he wondered how she fit so much stuff into her pack when he could barely manage his bed roll and a few pieces of half rotted fruit. “Oh, and what might that be?”

She stood up, her knees popping slightly as she did. A grin was pulling at the corners of her lips and, as she walked passed her brother, she placed something in his hand. Looking down, Nolan saw that a half eaten apple was in his palm. The smile broke across Addie’s lips as she strapped her bags to her mare. “We need to get more apples; yours suck.”

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AU : Well, that's the first chapter. I hope you guys liked it. If you did, please review! Feedback is what keeps an author going and I really like this story. So, make me proud and review! I know this particular chapter wasn't interesting, but it's just to get things set up. I promise Adelaide won't turn into a Mary Sue! But, anyway, thanks so much for taking your time to read this and, if you really want to be extra special and totally radical, drop a review!