At the end of the day, I really only had two choices.

Head back to the Varden on foot.

Head into the Empire on my own.

And between the two, I found myself wandering northward instead of heading back to my allies.

I could make up reasons or excuses why I decided not to head back as quickly as possible but most of it boiled down to one simple reason. I didn’t actually need the Varden for anything right now.

Sure they were a great help at providing a basic workshop for me to experiment and make a variety of mystic codes as needed, not to mention getting the materials I asked for, but I had long passed the point where I was actually doing anything new. If I wanted to make new or better tools, I needed better methods to manufacture them with. Purer metals, better instruments, things like that. And none of that could be easily made in the middle of a marching army.

If I needed a comparison, I was a hobbyist that had maxed out what could be done with random tools in a basement or garage. I would need a dedicated shop with a professional setup to push myself further and that wasn’t happening without more time and effort than I was willing to invest.

Which is why I wasn’t in a hurry to return.

Sure I could go back, keep trying to stay out of internal politics and hope that I came across the swords I needed to get the Horizon fixed at some point…

…or I could go looking around some major cities without having to fight through the walls since Samuel, and by extension Galbatorix, thought I was dead and weren’t likely to be on the lookout for me.

Besides, I’d taken a tour of a few fantasy Dwarven and Elven cities. Why not check out the evil human Empire and see if it had any cities that stacked up?

I was avoiding the closest city of Dras-Leona though. I really didn’t want to see a place where people worshiped the practice of amputating parts of themselves.

-o-

Of course that didn’t mean I could reach another major city just because I decided to.

The next closest city after Dras-Leona was Uru’baen, the capital of the Empire and Galbatorix’s seat of power. After fighting Samuel I was confident that I could at least put up enough of a fight to run away from the mad king if I couldn’t just kill him, but that didn’t mean I was going to try taking him, his dragon, an entire army, and possibly Samuel and Murtagh on all at the same time by myself.

There were a few bigger cities to the north that I had taken note of, mostly thanks to them being called out during strategy meetings, with the biggest being Gil’ead. Considering it was basically a fortress-city, it was the most likely place outside the capital for what I was looking for and therefore my destination.

I just had to get there.

“Look, I told you I’m traveling north by myself. I’m not running from anyone, and I’m not someone’s mistress! I’m here to spend the night, restock some food I don’t need to hunt down myself, and then move on.” I argued for the third time. Turns out the biggest challenge I had with the Empire’s forces wasn’t their Dragon Riders, or their magicians, or their soldiers. It was a suspicious middle-aged gate guard.

“And we don’t need some unknown woman coming in and stirring up trouble.” He repeated. “With clothes like that, yer either a noble runaway or a thief. Doubt a thief would wear them so openly though, so which is it?”

“Neither, I’m just a traveler!”

“And I’m the Queen of the Empire.”

Urgh, I was ready to strangle this jackass!

“Okay, fine.” I said as I wrestled the last bit of my patience. “If I’m a thief, then I have to be the single most arrogant or stupid one around. Since if anything goes missing you’re going to come running straight to me. So pretty unlikely, right? But if I am a noble like you think – even though I’m not – what could you possibly gain by frustrating me like this?”

“Personally? Not a damned thing.” The guard had the nerve to shrug! “But if this is some kind of noble’s game, then I can warn the scoundrels here to be polite instead of you taking offense and hanging them from the gallows. If you’re a mistress or wife on the run, though, we don’t lose our heads when whoever is following you catches up and asks about a woman with finer gear than even the Governor was seen in the area. Might even get a reward to boot.”

Part of me wanted to ask if runaway wives were common enough for that to actually seriously consider, but a much larger part of me was tired and hungry. If this guard wasn’t going to let me in nicely, then I was just going to have to go through him.

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t give you a chance.” I grumbled as I placed a hand on his chest, a small spell circle appearing around where I touched.

“What are you – WHI…!” He began to shout before he crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

Schlummern was a really useful spell for things like this.

I quickly grabbed him and leaned him against the wooden palisade hopefully out of sight from random civilians or other guards. Then it was just a matter of repositioning him to look like he fell asleep on the job and that was that. With a little luck someone would come by and wake him up or the sleep curse would wear off naturally and he would think the whole encounter was a dream.

Now then, time to go find an inn for the night.

-o-

Unsurprisingly, the inn was a loud and rowdy place.

It was practically a guarantee when you mixed alcohol, music, and bored people. And considering there wasn’t a whole lot for normal people to do once the sun began to set besides party and drink, inns were a great place to do both.

It was also a pretty good place to pick up information if you knew who to ask, which was why I was politely grilling the waitress who brought me my food when she stopped by. I’d like to say she was enjoying my good looks and company, but considering I was offering a few extra coins and was hiding my face under a traveling hood, she was likely just after my money and a chance to avoid being harassed by the bunch of drunks a few tables down.

“So nothing about heirloom blades or special swords?” I asked one more time.

“Sorry, not the kind of thing a small town like ours really hears about.” the waitress apologized. “Some of the guards or older folks might know more, but…”

I waved her off. “No, it’s fine…don’t want to bother anyone over nothing. I’m just looking for stories.”

“Are you sure? Because I wouldn’t mind. I know a few men that are decently well traveled before they decided to settle down here.” I got the impression that she was using me as an excuse to not talk to the other customers.

Considering how drunk some of them were, I couldn’t really blame her.

“I’m sure, but I’d love to hear any other interesting rumors you’ve picked up if you want.” I offered as an out.

“Interesting rumors, hmm?” she mused. “I doubt you care much about hearing about who’s been sleeping with the miller’s daughter and things like that, but let me think…”

I ended up getting some fairly generic news about items some local shopkeepers had picked up from traders that stopped by, unconfirmed rumors about some bandits off to the east, and some of the happenings around town, but nothing really useful to me, personally.

My conversation partner also seemed to avoid saying anything about the war, the only time she even came close was mentioning some local’s son had run off to join the army. I didn’t know if it was because she didn’t want to or was actively told not to, but I didn’t mind. Even if I was trying to spy for the Varden I doubted a random inn waitress would be able to tell me anything anyway.

I was just about to excuse myself for the night when a man burst through the door.

Nearly every eye turned to him and I was a little surprised to see more than one person with a naked blade in the crowd.

“News from the capital!” The newcomer shouted in the resulting silence. “The Sun Witch was captured by Rider Samuel!” And just like that he was gone again, running through the town shouting the same thing over and over. Not that I could hear him. The inn erupted into a screaming match almost the second that he rushed back out.

But the thing I was paying attention to was the few men in the crowd reluctantly or disappointedly stuffing daggers back into sheaths while glaring in my direction. The fact my waitress nearly collapsed onto my table hinted that wasn’t a coincidence either.

“...captured? But I thought for sure…”

Well that made it pretty clear what was going on.

“You thought I was the Sun Witch?” I said in a falsely offended tone. Though seriously, Sun Witch? That was the best they could come up with? “Then this whole time was, what, a distraction so your friends could get close and assault me? You do this often?”

“No, no!” The waitress frantically denied. “It is just…you looked so similar to the poster, and with the added taxes to support the war in the south, we thought…” She trailed off.

“...poster?”

Without a word she produced a carefully folded piece of paper and handed it to me.

Once I opened it I was face to face with an actually very good drawing of my own face, but how…

Ah, right…mind readers.

Galbatorix probably had any one of his spies share a memory of what I looked like with an artist and had it replicated enough to have one in a small inn out of some random town.

That was really freaking clever.

Also really annoying because I wasn’t expecting anyone to be able to recognise me unless I started using magic around other people. Luckily Samuel’s attempt to convince the Varden he managed to capture me would deter most people from thinking I was an enemy walking among them. Too bad there was surely going to be a handful too stupid to let that stop them or just plain hadn’t heard the announcement.

Problems for later.

“I can see the resemblance, but I obviously can’t be her.” I lied, handing the paper back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head to my room. I’m not feeling very welcome at the moment.”

“O-of course. If you need anything-”

“I’ll call for someone.”

And with that, I quickly retreated to the small room I rented for the night.

Some basic protections were put in place to keep out pests and deter casual intruders and then I simply collapsed on the thin mattress to think.

I still didn’t regret going off on my own into the Empire but now I would need to be careful about how I did it. If only to keep Galbatorix’s agents from reporting where I was. It would definitely get Samuel in trouble, but that would probably mean getting the king’s personal attention.

Something that would definitely end my little sword hunt.

A hunt that was probably going to be more difficult than expected. Because if a town only a few miles away from a major city like Dras-Leona didn’t have any rumors of them floating around, then there was very little chance of others being in someplace smaller.

Granted, I could just have bad luck and this particular inn didn’t know about it, but with Samuel’s announcement that I had been captured getting out I was on a bit of a timer. I wasn’t about to turn around and head back to the Varden, but I definitely wanted to get into contact with them somehow. If only to stop them from doing something stupid.

Too bad I couldn’t replicate the local methods for long distance communication.

It should be fine though.

Nasuada and Arya were there. They should be able to keep everyone’s head on straight.