race looped down over the elves, brushing them with an insubstantial
wing. It came to a stop before Eragon, engulfing him in an endless, whirl-
ing gaze. Bidden by some instinct, Eragon raised his right hand, his palm
tingling.
In his mind echoed a voice of fire: Our gift so you may do what you
must.
The dragon bent his neck and, with his snout, touched the heart of Er-
agon’s gedwëy ignasia. A spark jumped between them, and Eragon went
rigid as incandescent heat poured through his body, consuming his in-
sides. His vision flashed red and black, and the scar on his back burned as
if branded. Fleeing to safety, he fell deep within himself, where darkness
grasped him and he had not the strength to resist it.
Last, he again heard the voice of fire say, Our gift to you.
440
IN A STARRY GLADE
Eragon was alone when he woke.
He opened his eyes to stare at the carved ceiling in the tree house he
and Saphira shared. Outside, night still reigned and the sounds of the
elves’ revels drifted from the glittering city below.
Before he noticed more than that, Saphira leaped into his mind, radiat-
ing concern and anxiety. An image passed to him of her standing beside
Islanzadí at the Menoa tree, then she asked, How are you?
I feel... good. Better than I’ve felt in a long time. How long have I—
Only an hour. I would have stayed with you, but they needed Oromis,
Glaedr, and me to complete the ceremony. You should have seen the elves’
reaction when you fainted. Nothing like this has occurred before.
Did you cause this, Saphira?
It was not my work alone, nor Glaedr’s. The memories of our race, which
were given form and substance by the elves’ magic, anointed you with what
skill we dragons possess, for you are our best hope to avoid extinction.
I don’t understand.
Look in a mirror, she suggested. Then rest and recover and I shall rejoin
you at dawn.
She left, and Eragon got to his feet and stretched, amazed by the sense
of well-being that pervaded him. Going to the wash closet, he retrieved
the mirror he used for shaving and brought it into the light of a nearby
lantern.
Eragon froze with surprise.
It was as if the numerous physical changes that, over time, alter the ap-
pearance of a human Rider—and which Eragon had already begun to ex-
perience since bonding with Saphira—had been completed while he was
unconscious. His face was now as smooth and angled as an elf’s, with ears
tapered like theirs and eyes slanted like theirs, and his skin was as pale as
alabaster and seemed to emit a faint glow, as if with the sheen of magic. I
look like a princeling. Eragon had never before applied the term to a man,
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least of all himself, but the only word that described him now was beau-
tiful. Yet he was not entirely an elf. His jaw was stronger, his brow
thicker, his face broader. He was fairer than any human and more rugged
than any elf.
With trembling fingers, Eragon reached around the nape of his neck in
search of his scar.
He felt nothing.
Eragon tore off his tunic and twisted in front of the mirror to examine
his back. It was as smooth as it had been before the battle of Farthen
Dûr. Tears sprang to Eragon’s eyes as he slid his hand over the place
where Durza had maimed him. He knew that his back would never
trouble him again.
Not only was the savage blight he had elected to keep gone, but every
other scar and blemish had vanished from his body, leaving him as un-
marked as a newborn babe. Eragon traced a line upon his wrist where he
had cut himself while sharpening Garrow’s scythe. No evidence of the
wound remained. The blotchy scars on the insides of his thighs, remnants
from his first flight with Saphira, had also disappeared. For a moment, he
missed them as a record of his life, but his regret was short-lived as he re-
alized that the damage from every injury he had ever suffered, no matter
how small, had been repaired.
I have become what I was meant to be, he thought, and took a deep
breath of the intoxicating air.
He dropped the mirror on the bed and garbed himself in his finest
clothes: a crimson tunic stitched with gold thread; a belt studded with
white jade; warm, felted leggings; a pair of the cloth boots favored by the
elves; and upon his forearms, leather vambraces the dwarves had given
him.
Descending from the tree, Eragon wandered the shadows of Ellesméra
and observed the elves carousing in the fever of the night. None of them
recognized him, though they greeted him as one of their own and invited
him to share in their saturnalias.
Eragon floated in a state of heightened awareness, his senses thrumming
with the multitude of new sights, sounds, smells, and feelings that as-
sailed him. He could see in darkness that would have blinded him before.
He could touch a leaf and, by touch alone, count the individual hairs that
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grew upon it. He could identify the odors wafting about him as well as a
wolf or a dragon. And he could hear the patter of mice in the underbrush
and the noise a flake of bark makes as it falls to earth; the beating of his
heart was as a drum to him.
His aimless path led him past the Menoa tree, where he paused to
watch Saphira among the festivities, though he did not reveal himself to
those in the glade.
Where go you, little one? she asked.
He saw Arya rise from her mother’s side, make her way through the
gathered elves, and then, like a forest sprite, glide underneath the trees
beyond. I walk between the candle and the dark, he replied, and followed
Arya.
Eragon tracked Arya by her delicate scent of crushed pine needles, by
the feathery touch of her foot upon the ground, and by the disturbance
of her wake in the air. He found her standing alone on the edge of a
clearing, poised like a wild creature as she watched the constellations
turn in the sky above.
As Eragon emerged in the open, Arya looked at him, and he felt as if
she saw him for the first time. Her eyes widened, and she whispered, “Is
that you, Eragon?”
“Aye.”
“What have they done to you?”
“I know not.”
He went to her, and together they wandered the dense woods, which
echoed with fragments of music and voices from the festivities. Changed
as he was, Eragon was acutely conscious of Arya’s presence, of the whis-
per of her clothes over her skin, of the soft, pale exposure of her neck,
and of her eyelashes, which were coated with a layer of oil that made
them glisten and curl like black petals wet with rain.
They stopped on the bank of a narrow stream so clear, it was invisible
in the faint light. The only thing that betrayed its presence was the
throaty gurgle of water pouring over rocks. Around them, the thick pines
formed a cave with their branches, hiding Eragon and Arya from the
world and muffling the cool, still air. The hollow seemed ageless, as if it
443
were removed from the world and protected by some magic against the
withering breath of time.
In that secret place, Eragon felt suddenly close to Arya, and all his pas-
sion for her sprang to the fore of his mind. He was so intoxicated with
the strength and vitality coursing through his veins—as well as the un-
tamed magic that filled the forest—he ignored caution and said, “How
tall the trees, how bright the stars. . and how beautiful you are, O Arya
Svit-kona.” Under normal circumstances, he would have considered his
deed the height of folly, but in that fey, madcap night, it seemed per-
fectly sane.
She stiffened. “Eragon. .”
He ignored her warning. “Arya, I’ll do anything to win your hand. I
would follow you to the ends of the earth. I would build a palace for you
with nothing but my bare hands. I would—”
“Will you stop pursuing me? Can you promise me that?” When he
hesitated, she stepped closer and said, low and gentle, “Eragon, this can-
not be. You are young and I am old, and that shall never change.”
“Do you feel nothing for me?”
“My feelings for you,” she said, “are those of a friend and nothing more.
I am grateful to you for rescuing me from Gil’ead, and I find your com-
pany pleasant. That is all. . Relinquish this quest of yours—it will only
bring you heartache—and find someone your own age to spend the long
years with.”
His eyes brimmed with tears. “How can you be so cruel?”
“I am not cruel, but kind. You and I are not meant for each other.”
In desperation, he suggested, “You could give me your memories, and
then I would have the same amount of experience and knowledge as
you.”
“It would be an abomination.” Arya lifted her chin, her face grave and
solemn and brushed with silver from the glimmering stars. A hint of steel
entered her voice: “Hear me well, Eragon. This cannot, nor ever shall be.
And until you master yourself, our friendship must cease to exist, for
your emotions do nothing but distract us from our duty.” She bowed to
him. “Goodbye, Eragon Shadeslayer.” Then she strode past and vanished
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into Du Weldenvarden.
Now the tears spilled down Eragon’s cheeks and dropped to the moss
below, where they lay unabsorbed, like pearls strewn across a blanket of
emerald velvet. Numb, Eragon sat upon a rotting log and buried his face
in his hands, weeping that his affection for Arya was doomed to remain
unrequited, and weeping that he had driven her further away.
Within moments, Saphira joined him. Oh, little one. She nuzzled him.
Why did you have to inflict this upon yourself? You knew what would hap-
pen if you tried to woo Arya again.
I couldn’t stop myself. He wrapped his arms around his belly and rocked
back and forth on the log, reduced to hiccuping sobs by the strength of
his misery. Putting one warm wing over him, Saphira drew him close to
her side, like a mother falcon with her offspring. He curled up against her
and remained huddled there as night passed into day and the Agaetí
Blödhren came to an end.
445
LANDFALL
Roran stood upon the poop deck of the Red Boar, his arms crossed over
his chest and his feet planted wide apart to steady himself on the rolling
barge. The salty wind ruffled his hair and tugged at his thick beard and
tickled the hairs on his bare forearms.
Beside him, Clovis manned the tiller. The weathered sailor pointed to-
ward the coastline at a seagull-covered rock silhouetted on the crest of a
rolling hill that extended into the ocean. “Teirm be right on the far side
of that peak.”
Roran squinted into the afternoon sun, which reflected off the ocean in
a blindingly bright band. “We’ll stop here for now, then.”
“You don’t want to go on into the city yet?”
“Not all of us at once. Call over Torson and Flint and have them run
the barges up on that shore. It looks like a good place to camp.”
Clovis grimaced. “Arrgh. I was hoping t’ get a hot meal tonight.” Roran
understood; the fresh food from Narda had long since been eaten, leaving
them with naught but salt pork, salted herring, salted cabbage, sea bis-
cuits the villagers had made from their purchased flour, pickled vegeta-
bles, and the occasional fresh meat when the villagers slaughtered one of
their few remaining animals or managed to catch game when they landed.
Clovis’s rough voice echoed over the water as he shouted to the skip-
pers of the other two barges. When they drew near, he ordered them to
pull ashore, much to their vociferous displeasure. They and the other
sailors had counted on reaching Teirm that day and lavishing their pay on
the city’s delights.
After the barges were beached, Roran walked among the villagers and
helped them by pitching tents here and there, unloading equipment,
fetching water from a nearby stream, and otherwise lending his assistance
until everyone was settled. He paused to give Morn and Tara a word of
encouragement, for they appeared despondent, and received a guarded
response in turn. The tavern owner and his wife had been aloof to him
ever since they left Palancar Valley. On the whole, the villagers were in
better condition than when they arrived at Narda due to the rest they
had garnered on the barges, but constant worry and exposure to the harsh
elements had prevented them from recuperating as well as Roran hoped.
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“Stronghammer, will you sup at our tent tonight?” asked Thane, coming
up to Roran.
Roran declined with as much grace as he could and turned to find him-
self confronted by Felda, whose husband, Byrd, had been murdered by
Sloan. She bobbed a quick curtsy, then said, “May I speak with you, Ro-
ran Garrowsson?”
He smiled at her. “Always, Felda. You know that.”
“Thank you.” With a furtive expression, she fingered the tassels that
edged her shawl and glanced toward her tent. “I would ask a favor of you.
It’s about Mandel—” Roran nodded; he had chosen her eldest son to ac-
company him into Narda on that fateful trip when he killed the two