The skree-skree of the burrow grub increased in volume as Galbatorix dropped it onto the bare skin of her right arm, just below the elbow. She flinched as the disgusting creature landed on her; it was heavier than it looked, and its underside gripped her with what felt like hundreds of little hooks.
The burrow grub squalled for a moment more; then it gathered up its body in a tight bundle and hopped several inches up her arm.
She wrenched at her bonds, hoping to dislodge the grub, but it continued to cling to her.
Again it hopped.
And again, and now it was on her shoulder, the hooks pinching and digging into her skin like a strip of minute cockleburs. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the burrow grub lift up its eyeless head and point it toward her face, as if testing the air. Its tiny mouth opened, and she saw that it had sharp cutting mandibles behind its upper and lower lips.
Skree-skree? said the burrow grub. Skree-skra?
“Not there,” Galbatorix said, and he spoke a word in the ancient language.
On hearing it, the burrow grub swung away from her head, for which she felt a measure of relief. Then it began to worm its way back down her arm.
Few things frightened her. The touch of the hot iron frightened her. The thought that Galbatorix might reign forevermore in Urû’baen frightened her. Death, of course, frightened her, although not so much because she feared the end of her existence as because she feared leaving undone all the things she still hoped to accomplish.
But, for whatever reason, the sight and feel of the burrow grub unnerved her in a way that, until that very moment, nothing else had. Every muscle in her body seemed to burn and tingle, and she felt an overwhelming urge to run, to flee, to put as much distance between herself and the creature as she could, for there seemed to be something profoundly wrong about the burrow grub. It did not move as it should, and its obscene little mouth reminded her of a child’s, and the sound it made, the horrible, horrible sound, elicited a primal loathing within her.
The burrow grub paused by her elbow.
Skree-skree!
Then its fat, limbless body contracted, and it hopped four, five inches straight up into the air and then dove headfirst toward the inner part of her elbow.
As it landed, the burrow grub divided into a dozen small, bright green centipedes, which swarmed over her arm before each chose a spot to sink its mandibles into her flesh and bore its way through her skin.
The pain was too great for her to bear; she struggled against her restraints and screamed at the ceiling, but she could not escape her torment, not then and not for a seemingly endless span of time thereafter. The iron had hurt more, but she would have preferred its touch, for the hot metal was impersonal, inanimate, and predictable, all things the burrow grub was not. There was a special horror in knowing that the cause of her pain was a creature chewing on her, and worse, that it was inside her.
At the last, she lost her pride and self-control and cried out to the goddess Gokukara for mercy, and then she began to babble as a child might, unable to stop the flow of random words coming from her mouth.
And behind her, she heard Galbatorix laughing, and his enjoyment of her suffering made her hate him all the more.
She blinked, slowly coming back to herself.
After several moments, she realized that Murtagh and Galbatorix were gone. She had no recollection of their departure; she must have lost consciousness.
The pain was less than before, but she still hurt terribly. She glanced down her body, then averted her eyes, feeling her pulse quicken. Where the centipedes had been—she was not sure whether individually they were still considered burrow grubs—her flesh was swollen and lines of purple blood filled the tracks they had left underneath the surface of her skin, and every track burned. It felt as if she had been lashed across the front of her body with a metal whip.
She wondered if perhaps the burrow grubs were still inside of her, lying dormant while they digested their meal. Or perhaps they were metamorphosing, like maggots into flies, and they would turn into something even worse. Or, and this seemed the most terrible possibility, perhaps they were laying eggs within her, and more of them would soon hatch and begin to feast on her.
She shuddered and cried out with fear and frustration.
The wounds made it difficult for her to remain coherent. Her vision faded in and out, and she found herself weeping, which disgusted her, but she could not stop, no matter how hard she tried. As a distraction, she fell to talking to herself—nonsense mostly—anything to bolster her resolve or focus her mind on other subjects. It helped, if only a little.
She knew that Galbatorix did not want to kill her, but she feared that in his anger he had gone further than he intended. She was shaking, and her entire body felt inflamed, as if she had been stung by hundreds of bees. Willpower could sustain her for only so long; no matter how determined she was, there was a limit to what her frame could withstand, and she felt that she was well past that point. Something deep inside her seemed to have broken, and she was no longer confident that she could recover from her injuries.
The door to the chamber scraped open.
She forced her eyes to focus as she strained to see who was approaching.
It was Murtagh.
He looked down at her, his lips pinched, his nostrils flared, and a furrow between his brows. At first she thought he was angry, but then she realized he was actually worried and afraid, deathly so. The strength of his concern surprised her; she knew he regarded her with a certain liking—why else would he have convinced Galbatorix to keep her alive?—but she had not suspected that he cared for her quite so much.
She tried to reassure him with a smile. It must not have come out right, for as she did, Murtagh clenched his jaw, as if he was struggling to contain himself.
“Try not to move,” he said, and lifted his hands over her and began to murmur in the ancient language.
As if I could, she thought.
His magic soon took effect, and wound by wound, her pain abated, but it did not disappear entirely.
She frowned at him, puzzled, and he said, “I’m sorry. I can do no more. Galbatorix would know how, but it’s beyond me.”
“What … what about your Eldunarí?” she asked. “Surely they can help.”
He shook his head. “Young dragons all, or they were when their bodies died. They knew little of magic then, and Galbatorix has taught them almost nothing since.… I’m sorry.”
“Are those things still in me?”
“No! No, they’re not. Galbatorix removed them once you passed out.”
Her relief was profound. “Your spell didn’t stop the pain.” She tried not to sound accusatory, but she could not prevent a note of anger from creeping into her voice.
He grimaced. “I’m not sure why. It ought to have. Whatever that creature is, it doesn’t fit into the normal pattern of the world.”
“Do you know where it’s from?”
“No. I only learned of it today, when Galbatorix fetched it from his inner chambers.”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Let me up.”
“Are you s—”
“Let me up.”
Without a word, he undid her restraints. Then she got to her feet and stood swaying next to the slab while she waited for an attack of light-headedness to recede.
“Here,” said Murtagh, handing her his cape. She wrapped it around her body, covering herself for both modesty and warmth, and also so that she did not have to look at the burns, scabs, blisters, and blood-filled lines that disfigured her.