Dagny: An Inheritance Cycle Fanfiction.

9. The Palace of Illirea

Alanna sheathed her sword in one smooth motion and brushed the dust from her palms. Despite the wintry air, she was sweating, invigorated by the training. Nothing got her heart pumping like the heady clash of steel on steel.

Her opponent limped away to lick his wounds, his bowed head and hunched shoulders betraying the fury he felt at losing to a woman. She couldn't help taking a malicious satisfaction in his humiliation. These boors should know better than to challenge her.

Pulling her wineskin from her hip, she tipped the last dregs of pure, icy water down her dry throat. She cast her thoughts out for Imontar, finding her far off to the west and a thousand feet above ground. She was hunting, intent on an errant herd of deer, and Ala pulled back to herself quickly, lest she distract her.

"Anyone else?" She called out, searching the yard of soldiers for another challenger. They all remained mute, glaring sullenly at her. She could see mistrust in their dark gazes. They thought she had cheated - used some sort of witchcraft or trickery. Because, clearly, no woman could best elite soldiers of the Royal Army, even if she were a Rider.

It left a sour taste in her mouth. After so long in Du Weldenvarden, she was unused to gender attitudes in human society. She chafed at the blatant misogyny that was somehow acceptable amongst her own people. No other race in Alagaesia was so backward, no other race in Alagaesia kept half its population as second-class citizens.

She pulled her battered helm from her head, tossing it to the ground of the training field. "Have it your way."

Ala stormed out, leaving the field to the men.

She was irritated. Her muscles bunched and tensed under her skin. Normally a training session would leave her calmed, steadied and centred, but she thrummed with nervous energy like a taut bowstring. The few people she passed on her way through the palace grounds gave her a wide berth.

There was a strange, brittle silence in the grounds. It was more than just the quiet of the early morning, caused by the relative emptiness of the grounds. This silence was pervasive, borne of grief - and fear.

The queen of the Broddring Kingdom lay dying in her bed. Her people, preemptively, mourned their loss. And they feared their murky future in a world that had grown suddenly unsteady beneath their feet.

There were dark days coming, Ala was certain of that. In the Broddring Kingdom, there were very few noblemen who would stand idly by while the son of Murtagh took his mother's throne. There were too many with family trees - real or cleverly faked, it made no difference - that stretched back to the human kings of eld. And there was a power-hungry tyrant across the Surdan border, with his avaricious eyes ever-fixed on the throne in Illirea.

War was coming. It hung unspoken in the air, the subtext of every whispered conversation. It was in the silences that crept through the palace and stole the place of the laughter that had once rung through Nasuada's halls. It pressed like fog against the windowpanes, seeping through the stone walls of Nasuada's keep with the winter chill. The threat of war weighed heavy on the mind of every lord in the land, and shone from the eyes of the common people, looking remarkably like fear.

In these times, even the peaceable lords readied their garrisons. Furtive alliances were made behind closed doors, as the Broddring Kingdom consolidated itself into factions, into armies. The golden age, the harmony Nasuada had worked so hard to champion, that was gasping out its last. The message was clear: Peace, such as it was, was dying with the queen.

Alanna took the steps into the palace two at a time, her impatience making her move quickly. She didn't actually have anywhere to be, anything to do. The Riders, along with everyone else in Alagaesia, were locked in a sort of stalemate. Everyone was preparing for battle, but until the queen actually passed, they were stuck enacting this stiff charade of peace. That, as much as anything else, grated on her limited patience.