“And what of Lord Halstead? Did you capture him as well?”

“He was attempting to escape the palace when some of my men chanced upon him. Halstead had only a small number of guards with him, not enough to fight off our warriors, so he and his retainers fled into a wine cellar and barricaded themselves inside.…” Roran rubbed his thumb over a ruby set in the goblet before him. “They wouldn’t surrender, and I didn’t dare storm the room; it would have been too costly. So … I ordered the men to fetch pots of oil from the kitchens, light them on fire, and throw them against the door.”

“Were you trying to smoke them out?” Nasuada asked.

He nodded slowly. “A few of the soldiers ran out once the door burned down, but Halstead waited too long. We found him on the floor, suffocated.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“Also … his daughter, Lady Galiana.” In his mind, he could still see her: tiny, delicate, garbed in a beautiful lavender dress covered with frills and ribbons.

Nasuada frowned. “Who succeeds Halstead as the earl of Fenmark?”

“Tharos the Quick.”

“The same who led the charge against you yesterday?”

“The same.”

It had been midafternoon when his men had brought Tharos before him. The small, bearded man had appeared dazed, though uninjured, and he had been missing his helm with its flamboyant plumes. To him, Roran—who was lying belly-down on a padded couch to save his back—had said, “I believe you owe me a bottle of wine.”

“How have you done this?!” Tharos had demanded in response, the sound of despair ringing in his voice. “The city was impregnable. None but a dragon could have broken our walls. And yet look what you wrought. You are something other than human, something other than …” And he had fallen silent, unable to speak any longer.

“How did he react to the deaths of his father and sister?” Nasuada asked.

Roran leaned his head against his hand. His brow was slick with sweat, so he wiped it dry with his sleeve. He shivered. Despite the perspiration, he felt cold all over, especially in his hands and feet. “He didn’t seem to much care about his father. His sister, though …” Roran winced as he remembered the torrent of abuse Tharos had directed at him after learning that Galiana was dead.

“If ever I get the chance, I’ll kill you for this,” Tharos had said. “I swear it.”

“You had best move quickly, then,” Roran had retorted. “Another has already claimed my life, and if anyone is going to kill me, my guess is that it’ll be her.”

“… Roran? … Roran!”

With a faint sense of surprise, he realized that Nasuada was calling his name. He looked at her again, framed in the mirror like a portrait, and struggled to find his tongue. At last he said, “Tharos isn’t really the earl of Fenmark. He’s the youngest of Halstead’s seven sons, but all of his brothers have fled or are hiding. So, for the time being, Tharos is the only one left to claim the title. He makes a good envoy between us and the elders of the city. Without Carn, though, there’s no way for me to tell who is sworn to Galbatorix and who isn’t. Most of the lords and ladies are, I assume, and the soldiers, of course, but it’s impossible to know who else.”

Nasuada pursed her lips. “I see.… Dauth is the closest city to you. I’ll ask Lady Alarice—whom I believe you’ve met—to send someone to Aroughs who is skilled in the art of reading minds. Most nobles keep one such person in their retinue, so it should be easy enough for Alarice to fulfill our request. However, when we marched for the Burning Plains, King Orrin brought with him every spellcaster of note from Surda, which means that whoever Alarice sends will most likely have no other skill with magic besides the ability to hear others’ thoughts. And without the proper spells, it will be difficult to prevent those who are loyal to Galbatorix from opposing us at every turn.”

While she spoke, Roran allowed his gaze to drift across the desk until it came to rest on the dark bottle of wine. I wonder if Tharos poisoned it? The thought failed to alarm him.

Then Nasuada was speaking to him again: “… hope that you have kept tight rein over your men and not let them run wild in Aroughs, burning, plundering, and taking liberties with its people?”

Roran was so tired, he found it difficult to marshal a coherent response, but at last he managed to say, “There are too few of us for the men to make mischief. They know as well as I do that the soldiers could retake the city if we gave them even the slightest opportunity.”

“A mixed blessing, I suppose.… How many casualties did you suffer during the attack?”

“Forty-two.”

For a while, silence lay between them. Then Nasuada said, “Did Carn have any family?”

Roran shrugged, a slight inward motion of his left shoulder. “I don’t know. He was from somewhere in the north, I think, but neither of us really talked about our lives before … before all of this.… It never seemed that important.”

A sudden itch in Roran’s throat forced him to cough again and again, and he curled over the table until his forehead touched the wood, grimacing as waves of pain assailed him from his back, his shoulder, and his mangled mouth. His convulsions were so violent, the wine in the goblet slopped over the rim and spilled onto his hand and wrist.

As he slowly recovered, Nasuada said, “Roran, you have to summon a healer to examine you. You’re unwell, and you ought to be in bed.”