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palm with the gedwëy ignasia.”
For the first time in his life, Eragon witnessed an elf dumbstruck.
Oromis’s gray eyes widened, his mouth opened, and he clutched the arms
of his chair until the wood groaned with protest. “One who bears the sign
of the Riders, and yet is not a Rider,” he murmured. “In all my years, I
have never met anyone such as the two of you. Every decision you make
seems to have an impact far beyond what anyone could anticipate. You
change the world with your whims.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Neither, it just is. Where is the babe now?”
It took a moment for Eragon to compose his thoughts. “With the
Varden, either in Farthen Dûr or Surda. Do you think that Saphira’s mark
will help her?”
“I know not,” said Oromis. “No precedent exists to draw upon for wis-
dom.”
“There must be ways to remove the blessing, to negate a spell.” Eragon
was almost pleading.
“There are. But for them to be most effective, you should be the one to
apply them, and you cannot be spared here. Even under the best of cir-
cumstances, remnants of your magic will haunt this girl evermore. Such is
the power of the ancient language.” He paused. “I see that you understand
the gravity of the situation, so I will say this only once: you bear full re-
sponsibility for this girl’s doom, and, because of the wrong you did her, it
is incumbent upon you to help her if ever the opportunity should arise.
By the Riders’ law, she is your shame as surely as if you had begotten her
out of wedlock, a disgrace among humans, if I remember correctly.”
“Aye,” whispered Eragon. “I understand.” I understand that I forced a de-
fenseless baby to pursue a certain destiny without ever giving her a choice in
the matter. Can someone be truly good if they never have the opportunity to
act badly? I made her a slave. He also knew that if he had been bound in
that manner without permission, he would hate his jailer with every fiber
of his being.
“Then we will speak of this no more.”
“Yes, Ebrithil.”
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Eragon was still subdued, even depressed, by the end of the day. He
barely looked up when they went outside to meet Saphira and Glaedr
upon their return. The trees shook from the fury of the gale that the two
dragons created with their wings. Saphira seemed proud of herself; she
arched her neck and pranced toward Eragon, opening her chops in a lu-
pine grin.
A stone cracked under Glaedr’s weight as the ancient dragon turned a
giant eye—as large as a dinner platter—on Eragon and asked, What are
the rules three to spotting downdrafts, and the rules five for escaping them?
Startled out of his reverie, Eragon could only blink dumbly. “I don’t
know.”
Then Oromis confronted Saphira and asked, “What creatures do ants
farm, and how do they extract food from them?”
I wouldn’t know, declared Saphira. She sounded affronted.
A gleam of anger leaped into Oromis’s eyes and he crossed his arms,
though his expression remained calm. “After all the two of you have
done together, I would think that you had learned the most basic lesson
of being Shur’tugal: Share everything with your partner. Would you cut
off your right arm? Would you fly with only one wing? Never. Then why
would you ignore the bond that links you? By doing so, you reject your
greatest gift and your advantage over any single opponent. Nor should
you just talk to each other with your minds, but rather mingle your con-
sciousnesses until you act and think as one. I expect both of you to know
what either one of you is taught.”
“What about our privacy?” objected Eragon.
Privacy? said Glaedr. Keep your thoughts to thyself when you leave here,
if it pleases you, but while we tutor you, you have no privacy.
Eragon looked at Saphira, feeling even worse than before. She avoided
his gaze, then stamped a foot and faced him directly. What?
They’re right. We have been negligent.
It’s not my fault.
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I didn’t say that it was. She had guessed his opinion, though. He re-
sented the attention she lavished on Glaedr and how it drew her away
from him. We’ll do better, won’t we?
Of course! she snapped.
She declined to offer Oromis and Glaedr an apology, though, leaving
the task to Eragon. “We won’t disappoint you again.”
“See that you don’t. You will be tested tomorrow on what the other
learned.” Oromis revealed a round wood bauble nestled in the middle of
his palm. “So long as you take care to wind it regularly, this device will
wake you at the proper time each morning. Return here as soon as you
have bathed and eaten.”
The bauble was surprisingly heavy when Eragon took it. The size of a
walnut, it had been carved with deep whorls around a knob wrought in
the likeness of a moss-rose blossom. He turned the knob experimentally
and heard three clicks as a hidden ratchet advanced. “Thank you,” he said.
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UNDER THE MENOA TREE
After Eragon and Saphira had said their farewells, they flew back to
their tree house with Saphira’s new saddle dangling between her front
claws. Without acknowledging the fact, they gradually opened their
minds and allowed their connection to widen and deepen, though neither
of them consciously reached for the other. Eragon’s tumultuous emotions
must have been strong enough for Saphira to sense anyway, though, for
she asked, What happened, then?
A throbbing pain built up behind his eyes as he explained the terrible
crime he had committed in Farthen Dûr. Saphira was as appalled by it as
he was. He said, Your gift may help that girl, but what I did is inexcusable
and will only hurt her.
The blame isn’t all yours. I share your knowledge of the ancient language,
and I didn’t spot the error any more than you did. When Eragon remained
silent, she added, At least your back didn’t cause any trouble today. Be
grateful for that.
He grunted, unwilling to be tempted out of his black mood. And what
did you learn this fine day?
How to identify and avoid dangerous weather patterns. She paused, ap-
parently ready to share the memories with him, but he was too busy
worrying about his distorted blessing to inquire further. Nor could he
bear the thought of being so intimate right then. When he did not pursue
the matter, Saphira withdrew into a taciturn silence.
Back in their bedroom, he found a tray of food by the screen door, as
he had the previous night. Carrying the tray to his bed—which had been
remade with fresh linens—he settled down to eat, cursing the lack of
meat. Already sore from the Rimgar, he propped himself up with pillows
and was about to take his first bite when there came a gentle rapping at
the opening to his chamber. “Enter,” he growled. He took a drink of wa-
ter.
Eragon nearly choked as Arya stepped through the doorway. She had
abandoned the leather clothes she usually wore in favor of a soft green
tunic cinched at the waist with a girdle adorned with moonstones. She
had also removed her customary headband, allowing her hair to tumble
around her face and over her shoulders. The biggest change, however,
was not so much in her dress but her bearing; the brittle tension that had
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permeated her demeanor ever since Eragon first met her was now gone.
She seemed to have finally relaxed.
He scrambled to his feet, noticing that her own were bare. “Arya! Why
are you here?”
Touching her first two fingers to her lips, she said, “Do you plan on
spending another evening inside?”
“I—”
“You have been in Ellesméra for three days now, and yet you have seen
nothing of our city. I know that you always wished to explore it. Set
aside your weariness this once and accompany me.” Gliding toward him,
she took Zar’roc from where it lay by his side and beckoned to him.
He rose from the bed and followed her into the vestibule, where they
descended through the trapdoor and down the precipitous staircase that
wound around the rough tree trunk. Overhead, the gathering clouds
glowed with the sun’s last rays before it was extinguished behind the
edge of the world.
A piece of bark fell on Eragon’s head and he looked up to see Saphira
leaning out of their bedroom, gripping the wood with her claws. Without
opening her wings, she sprang into the air and dropped the hundred or so
feet to the ground, landing in a thunderous cloud of dirt. I’m coming.
“Of course,” said Arya, as if she expected nothing less. Eragon scowled;
he had wanted to be alone with her, but he knew better than to com-
plain.
They walked under the trees, where dusk already extended its tendrils
from inside hollow logs, dark crevices in boulders, and the underside of
knobby eaves. Here and there, a gemlike lantern twinkled within the side
of a tree or at the end of a branch, casting gentle pools of light on either
side of the path.
Elves worked on various projects in and around the lanterns’ radius,
solitary except for a few, rare couples. Several elves sat high in the trees,
playing mellifluous tunes on their reed pipes, while others stared at the
sky with peaceful expressions—neither awake nor asleep. One elf sat
cross-legged before a pottery wheel that whirled round and round with a
steady rhythm while a delicate urn took form beneath his hands. The
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werecat, Maud, crouched beside him in the shadows, watching his pro-
gress. Her eyes flared silver as she looked at Eragon and Saphira. The elf
followed her gaze and nodded to them without halting his work.
Through the trees, Eragon glimpsed an elf—man or woman, he could
not tell—squatting on a rock in the middle of a stream, muttering a spell
over the orb of glass clutched in its hands. He twisted his neck in an at-
tempt to get an unobstructed view, but the spectacle had already van-
ished into the dark.
“What,” asked Eragon, keeping his voice low so as to not disturb any-
one, “do most elves do for a living or profession?”
Arya answered just as quietly. “Our strength with magic grants us as
much leisure as we desire. We neither hunt nor farm, and, as a result, we
spend our days working to master our interests, whatever they might be.
Very little exists that we must strive for.”
Through a tunnel of dogwood draped with creepers, they entered the
enclosed atrium of a house grown out of a ring of trees. An open-walled
hut occupied the center of the atrium, which sheltered a forge and an as-
sortment of tools that Eragon knew even Horst would covet.
An elf woman held a pair of small tongs in a nest of molten coals,
working bellows with her right hand. With uncanny speed, she pulled
the tongs from the fire—revealing a ring of white-hot steel clamped in
the pincers’ jaws—looped the ring through the edge of an incomplete
mail corselet hung over the anvil, grasped a hammer, and welded shut the
open ends of the ring with a blow and a burst of sparks.
Only then did Arya approach. “Atra esterní ono thelduin.”
The elf faced them, her neck and cheek lit from underneath by the
coals’ bloody light. Like taut wires embedded in her skin, her face was
scribed with a delicate pattern of lines—the greatest display of age Er-
agon had seen in an elf. She gave no response to Arya, which he knew
was offensive and discourteous, especially since the queen’s daughter had
honored her by speaking first.
“Rhunön-elda, I have brought you the newest Rider, Eragon Shade-
slayer.”
“I heard you were dead,” said Rhunön to Arya. Rhunön’s voice guttered
and rasped unlike any other elf’s. It reminded Eragon of the old men of
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Carvahall who sat on the porches outside their houses, smoking pipes and
telling stories.
Arya smiled. “When did you last leave your house, Rhunön?”
“You should know. It was that Midsummer’s Feast you forced me to at-
tend.”
“That was three years ago.”
“Was it?” Rhunön frowned as she banked the coals and covered them
with a grated lid. “Well, what of it? I find company trying. A gaggle of
meaningless chatter that. .” She glared at Arya. “Why are we speaking this
foul language? I suppose you want me to forge a sword for him? You
know I swore to never create instruments of death again, not after that
traitor of a Rider and the destruction he wreaked with my blade.”
“Eragon already has a sword,” said Arya. She raised her arm and pre-
sented Zar’roc to the smith.
Rhunön took Zar’roc with a look of wonder. She caressed the wine-red
sheath, lingered on the black symbol etched into it, rubbed a bit of dirt
from the hilt, then wrapped her fingers around the handle and drew the
sword with all the authority of a warrior. She sighted down each of
Zar’roc’s edges and flexed the blade between her hands until Eragon
feared it might break. Then, in a single movement, Rhunön swung
Zar’roc over her head and brought it down upon the tongs on her anvil,
riving them in half with a resounding ring.
“Zar’roc,” said Rhunön. “I remember thee.” She cradled the weapon like