Dead Man’s Magic

by Inviria

Summary:

The target of the Blood-Oath’s magic isn’t who Eragon expected, but nor was it a surprise. However, that doesn’t mean he understands, and it certainly doesn’t mean he’s happy.

When everything we knew is flipped upside down, who will Eragon become?

Notes:

Please excuse me in advance for any spelling mistakes. I am typing this late at night while simultaneously writing an essay. My cat is beta-reading.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Eragon dipped his head with growing distaste as he looked upon the fruit in his hand. Sticky juice still ran down his wrists in unorganized rivulets, dripping off his skin and flecking his breeches. 

He had tried to forget. Tried to erase the memory of the Blood-Oath Celebration altogether. 

It was meant to be something rare—something magnificent he could not have hoped to see for many years to come, or ever if he did not survive facing Galbatorix. And instead it presented itself as a crude presence; a twisting in the peace of his mind. 

He’d wanted no argument. What reason was there to quarrel over something he could not change? To bicker and gripe when this was his fate, and though it had not smiled upon him, it would not do so simply because he willed it to with rude words and angry statements. 

Oromis perched upon an aged treestump, the makeshift seat worn smooth from years of use and the elf’s face serene with a peace and absence of inevitability he hadn’t felt in many years. 

His silver hair had been drawn back behind his slender ears, his grey eyes more piercing than Eragon had previously remembered them. 

“Your mind drifts, Eragon,” Oromis said, voice gentle, quiet, yet leaving no room for rearrangement, like water over riverstones. “Focus.”

If only it had been so easy. 

Eragon shifted in place, the sticks and the pebbles grinding into his skin despite the layer of fabric, but despite his best efforts, concentration always evaded him. He came so close, yet it remained just outside his reach. 

His lips tilted, bittered in a scowl. Taking a disinterested bite of the fruit in his hand, he shook his head. He knew he would not be succeeding in the exercise anytime in the near future. But now he wasn’t sure he truly even wished to. 

“You must learn to master this, Eragon. To be able to locate and single out minds among the presence of and without alerting others is a valuable skill, and one you will be hard-pressed to find the time to learn in the future. If not now, then I suggest you practice. Perhaps throughout your evenings, when you have finished studying.” 

Devoid of the drive to so much as frown in argument, Eragon tilted his head aimlessly. “Yes, master,” he murmured. 

“Very well, then. That is all for today. Fetch your scrolls and you may return to your treehouse.”

Boots scuffing the ground, Eragon rose to his feet. His hair swayed over his eyes, tickling his forehead, but he simply swayed in place and took a step forward, eyes swooping over the ground in a deliberation so clear it felt practiced—dishonest, even.i 

Eragon could feel the weight of Oromis’ disapproval like an anvil upon his shoulders. Yet, when he saw Oromis rise from his throne of the stump, his teacher’s motions were easy and fluid, just as his own would have—should have—been, if not for this wretched wound upon his back. 

He stowed his resentment. It was selfish to hold contempt over something such as this. Oromis had been healed—something he had longed for likely longer than Eragon had even breathed. What right had Eragon to begrudge him the relief he’d waited for so tirelessly?

Yet… the jealousy remained, coiled like a stranglingg vine around his heart, reminding him with every shallow beat what he had come so close to, yet missed entirely. 

He could feel the first stirrings of Saphira’s disapproval not so far from his reach, twitching just beyond the stretch of his mind’s fingers as she stretched her wings and abandoned the cliffs where she learned beneath Glaedr. 

The resonating chords of the golden dragon’s aged, bass mind felt close with Saphira’s open thoughts, her longing for the dragon opening more to him than he truly wished it had. 

Eragon stiffened, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Then he froze, his heart feeling chilled beneath his skin as he heard Oromis’ steps cease behind him. 

“You have neglected your studies, Eragon.” 

Eragon’s jaw tightened. His eyes darted to the ground, darkening with something even he couldn’t aptly name—something sour and tired. 

“Where you once studied with zeal, you now apply only the effort for acceptance and nothing more. Why is this?”

A quiver of hatred thrummed down Eragon’s spine—a sensation so vile and unfamiliar it made his stomach turn. “I study as I must. As I always have, Ebrithil.” But the utterance was as weak as the interest behind it. 

“Speak to me, Eragon-vodhr. I wish to guide you. What is it that troubles you?”

Pain twinged over the cramping muscles of Eragon’s back, taunted further by the tension lurking beneath his skin. He twisted ever so slightly, praying Oromis’ did not hear the hitch in his breath. 

Something in the elf gentled, as though a piece had fallen into place. 

“Do you wish you were healed, Eragon?”

Eragon’s countenance twisted, the shadows cast over his skin suddenly darker, his gaze more loathing. “I wish I had not been hurt at all,” he said stonily, then turned to face Oromis, scrolls now gathered in a pyramid in his arms. In a voice almost too patient to be natural, he gave a bow and said, “I work as I can manage. I am sorry if I disappoint you, Ebrithil. I shall work to improve.”

He hated the way the words tasted, like metal on his tongue. But still they dripped past his lips, and Oromis took them, no doubt knowing how far the depths of his stubbornness could truly abound. 

Saphira’s dissatisfaction curled in his stomach, but he could not afford to acknowledge it. Could not make whatever it was he avoided real. 

Because if it was real, then he would truly never escape it. 

Oromis must have sensed his irritation, because he leaned back, ancient eyes searching—though for what, Eragon knew not. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. 

Giving one final farewell to his teacher, a handful of words that felt far too old for the tongue that spoke them, Eragon began the shuffling journey back—to his treehouse, to his bed, to the eternal embrace of pain and labor that waited for him each and every night since Durza had injured him. 

He should have found peace in the silence. Or, at the very least, a moment of rest—imperfect as it may have been. Instead, he went to be bundled and tossed aside in his misery, nothing left to ease his mind. 

He missed Orik. Missed his stolen faelnirv and awful, drunken stories, all taller than the trees dotting the elven city. He missed Arya, her laugh like ringing bells and the glint in her green eyes when she spoke of the flowers she had found in the catacombs of Tronjheim. 

But neither awaited him there. Not anymore. Come, little one, Saphira would say, let us go home. 

Home! 

Home, where the elves perched in the trees, whispering, mocking. 

Home, she declared, so convinced—home. Where Vanir cheated his way through spars, where the people shoved him aside or shot him disdainful glances from the forest canopy—where they muttered about his unworthiness, his weakness. 

He often pretended as though they believed he did not speak the language. 

He gave a bitter huff, the thought dying on his breath. How he hated the word home. It was never what it was meant to be—always something cruel, something empty… or something to be taken away soon as he grew comfortable in its presence. 

Garrow’s face passed his eyes, carved into the bark of the trees around him. He shook his head. Carvahall, like any other home he deigned to love, was gone. And that was just the way of things. 

That would always be the way of things. 

 

Chapter 2

Death is a kind thing. Misunderstood; tangled in the throes of grief and of anger. For some, it means loss, but for others, blessed, kind relief. 

And there lay the dilemma, Eragon supposed. The back-and-forth tangle of something too complicated to be summed up with a single statement or half-tangible thought. 

So he leaned back, and he rested his head among the cradle of the pine bark, allowing the crude creases and cracks dig into the pounding beneath his scalp. Meditate, Oromis had told him, a tone of patience so thick and relieved in the words that Eragon almost desired to scream. The words were not those of his teacher. Not really. 

They were the words of a man glad to be healed. 

And Eragon despised it. 

He’d have done anything, really, to have taken Oromis’ place. To have his own malady taken from him. But that was an ugly thought. An unwelcome thought. And he did not want it. 

He was glad for Oromis’ relief; for his comfort and for his release from an illness that had claimed him so long—longer than Eragon had even existed. 

But that made his resentment no less terrible. Why could not both of them be healed? Why must one live on and the other die a slow, putrid death, no better than the diseased buck he’d once caught wandering the outer clearings of the Spine, or the sickly pups of one of Horst’s old hunting dogs, passing in the night without a sound. Oromis would have called it foolishness to think such thoughts. You are only a cripple if you believe yourself one, he had once said. 

Well, he did. And philosophy, meditation, magic—none of it could fix the weal on his back, or the thread of death slithering around his heart, tugging, squeezing. 

The tree bark scraped against his head, pulling his hair, pinching the nape of his neck. The ants crawled just beyond the stretch of his mind, numerous and brilliant, but he felt no draw to reach them. To delve into their hierarchies and politics, their economies and glory. Not like before. To reach was all Oromis asked. To outstretch the fingers of his consciousness and listen to all the world. But how could he do so now? How could he bear another noise inside his head?

 

***

 

”Orik?” 

Eragon’s voice scraped, harsh and raw with the liquor searing his veins and the tightness in his chest. His fingers dragged along the stone wall sluggishly, then drew to a stop where his forehead rested, light as a feather against the doorframe. 

“…Is that you?” 

His fingernail tapped. Once. Twice. A sullen breath seeped from his lungs, and still only silence stood to soothe his angry thoughts. 
He could have sworn he heard the dwarf. The thump of his footsteps, the boisterous ramblings of a dwarf long past the midway of his drinking spree. He’d spent many nights too tired to care, and many too angry to truly listen, but Orik had never stopped coming. 
Eragon wished he had been there now. 

Disappointment dragging his eyelids shut once more, he shuffled blindly across the room, dropping with a ginger, hollow thump against the bed. He did not bother with the blankets—the ache in his body had long since settled too deep. 

He let his consciousness spill from his skull, slipping to a stop at the hollow in the floor, where Saphira ought to have been. Was, most nights. But today, the glimmer of her dreams was absent, her thoughts somewhere far beyond his reach. 
He longed for her warmth. 

But everywhere he reached was just another cavity. Arya had left for the Varden straight after the Agaetí Blödhren, never allowing him to so much as wish her well, though he hadn't seen her during the ceremony. Saphira may have been hunting, flying, thinking wishful thoughts of Glaedr. And Orik was… well, he didn't know quite where Orik was.  

Whatever the case, Eragon was here. Alone. With his pain and his resentment and his love. Love he didn’t want, but harbored nonetheless. 

The fire in his back intensified, sharp and pungent like the sting of vinegar. It clawed its way from his shoulder to his hip, deep-seated, stubborn. His hand flung itself languidly from the mattress, scrabbling with useless fingers at the drawer. His eyelids twitched, cracking open to reveal a sliver of once-fiery brown, now dead and exhausted. 

It came open with a scrape and he lifted the flask inside, unscrewing the cap. It slipped from his fingers, tapping and skittering before rolling away across the floorboards. He paid it no mind, drinking of his bitter concoction and setting it aside, willing himself to believe it was faelnirv, with the scent of elderberries in his nostrils and spun moonbeams on the tip of his tongue. 

But all there was was a sourness. Like unripe persimmons, rude like hog-pits. A wish of hopeless relief hiding in the ground of it. 

Then, a thunk, a thud… a booming curse. 

Eragon never had wanted to hear an obscenity more. He sat up, body screaming, muscles aching as hatefully as his head was pounding, but heart sickly with a fleeting hope. His hearing warped. The room spun. For a moment, near-darkness came, swallowing him whole. 

Then a knock. Three. Hard and fast. “Eragon!” Orik called, voice thick with spirits and twice as loud. “Come on, lad—I know you ain’t asleep. The sun’s only been down a while. Open the door!”

Eragon nodded slowly. With a feeble burst of strength, he lurched from the bed and hobbled past the table again, praying to thin air that the potion might set in soon and ease his crying body. 

But as he twisted the knob and the door squeaked open, he allowed himself only relief. Orik gave another cry of his name, clapping him on the bicep with unruly strength. “Evenin’,” he chorused with a hum, “drownin’ in scrolls and lessons again, are you?” 

Eragon gave a weak laugh, bobbing his head. He ran clumsy fingers through his hair, ignoring the sting of the tangles he yanked loose. “Something like that,” he said breathily, nudging the door shut behind Orik with a foot. 

No need to let slip the truth. Orik had seen hints—he did not need more. 

But thank the ancients he was here. 

***

 

Orik leaned back in his seat, already shuffling the cards in callused palms. “—been too long since we’ve done this,” he rambled on, accent layered with the gracious scent of alcohol. “I think you’ve been too wrapped up in all these elf-folk and their elf riddles and speech and… bah. Flowery stuff, all that.” He waved a hand in dismissal. 

A soft breath left Eragon’s nose. Almost a laugh. He shook his head, thumb twitching at his knee. He drank off the flask, enjoying the burn down his throat, then dropped his head back and sighed. A hair tickled his temple. “The elves are… memorable.”

Orik chuckled. “That sounds more a grudge than a compliment, lad. I’d watch what you say around here.” 

“Mm, well, can’t be that bad.” He raised the flask, ignoring the tremor that sent his skin twitching. “To elves, I suppose.” 

“To elves, indeed… Grab yer cards before I peek.” 

Eragon snatched them up lazily, considering it before he took another swig of faelnirv and set aside the flask. And, without further hesitation, Orik laid out the pieces and they began. 

“So,” Orik began, tongue flicking against his lower lip as he glossed over whatever thought graced his mind. “Your lessons with Oromis.” 

Eragon arched a brow. “Lecture or question?” 

“I’m not here to lecture you,” scoffed Orik, laying down a card loosely. “But it’s my job to oversee your training, and I take my work seriously.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be drunk?”

”Not too drunk to think,” he snorted. Eragon nodded, but the gesture was more resigned than agreeable. The shift in position said that Orik noticed, too. “Oromis has been correcting you a lot lately. Says you haven’t been as…”

”Vigorous?”

”Aye.” 

Eragon shrugged. “Chronic pain’ll do that,” he said, his laughter without amusement. “I’m training, Orik. You don’t need to worry about that. Oromis is just… enjoying his new health. More freedom to pick on me,” he joked. 

“Eh?” Orik waved a hand at the scrolls all over the shelf, some cubbies holding multiple, others half-unrolled on the foot of the bed. “Then what’s all that? Couldn’t sleep?”

”…It’s just scrolls. I’m fine on everything else.”

”Scrolls are half your work, Eragon.” Orik’s voice sterner a moment. His jaw worked. Then he drummed his fingers against the table, placed down a card, and sighed. “I want to trust you. But you’ve gotta at least try and give me a reason to.” 

“Yeah. I understand.” 

The words felt like a lie on his tongue. 

“Well, then, what are studying right now?” Orik asked, leaning forward with clear eagerness to return to their previous lightheartedness. 

Eragon’s lips twitched. “Eastern rock formations. Desert poisons. Things like that.” 

“Wide topics, those.” 

Eragon snorted. “You gonna make me list rocks?”

”I might,” he said. He thumped his chest twice with a fist, “Honoring your clan and all, it’s an option.” 

With a bob o this head, Eragon snapped up two of Orik’s tiles between his middle fingers and slapped down another card. A curse nested in Orik’s beard. 

“How much longer do you think this’ll last?” 

A card smacked the table. “Your training?”

”Aye.” Attempting to wipe the grim scene that was his expression, he smirked, snubbing the tip of his nose with the butt of the flask. “Think these elves’ll drive me mad if I’m here much longer.”

”Ha! You and me both, lad.” 

“Think it’s almost over?”

Orik titled his head, eyes still shining but brows nearing one another as he studied Eragon. Searching for something. “I think,” he said slowly, “that that depends on you.” 

Eragon blinked. Then grunted, unimpressed. “…riddles rubbing off on you. Stealing my friend,” he grumbled, only half teasingly. 

Orik’s flask clacked against the table. He swiped aside a paper. The parchment scraped. “Stealing or not, this training length is up to you. Especially with Oromis and all—no off days, no slow portions… he’s healthy. And if he’s helping with your back—“

”—three pieces,” Eragon said, a bit more sharply than intended, cutting Orik off. The dwarf scowled, but scooped them up without complaint. When Orik opened his mouth to speak again, Eragon took another quaff of his drink and said, “Saphira says hi, by the way. She didn’t see you last time.” 

The dwarf took a moment, considering Eragon seriously, then, “Aye; hello to her, too.” 

A scrape of metal. A card thumped against the table. A stolen tile. Eragon’s heart picked up and ran inside his chest, kicking at his rib cage with abusive strength. “I learned how to make reverse light,” he said. 

“Reverse light?”

”Yeah. Basically have to create a light and block it at the same time, and you have… well, I guess it’s more of an animated shadow than anything,” Eragon sighed. “Better than the Rimgar.” 

Orik’s beard twitched. His knuckles rapped against the arm of his chair. “You still spar with the elf brat?”

”Vanir? Aye. He’s still insufferable, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“Can’t be that bad,” Orik said, though dread dangled on a fishhook above the words, making his knowledge of the opposite painfully obvious. Eragon almost considered lying, if only to comfort him, but shook his head. 

“Hit me on the back the other day.”

Orik folded forward. “On purpose?” He demanded, spitting as he slammed down his flask in shock, a red blotch crawling up his poorly-obscured throat. Eragon said nothing. “Did Oromis even address it?” Orik cried. 

Eragon licked the fronts of his teeth slowly. “Oromis believes I should solve my own problem,” he said with forced calmness. A chill ran down his spine. “In any case, I’m used to Vanir’s behavior. I won’t have to fight him forever.” 

“Aye, but I might! The little—“

Eragon’s head throbbed. His arm quivered.”Your draw.”

”Hmph/“ 

Orik drew a card, but glared. “Your hand’s shaking.” 

“I’m drunk,” came the flat reply. 

Orik’s eyes narrowed. He kicked the leg off the table with shallow restraint. “Not that drunk.” 

“Nnh. Give me a tile.” 

“…I don’t think I will.”  Eragon’s eyes snapped up in an instant, flickering with the indecision of someone unsure whether they felt cold or confused. Orik simply squeezed his own bicep and set down his cards face-down. “You’re not being very honest with me.”

Eragon rolled his eyes, dispassionate but stomach coiled with annoyance. Or desperation. 

“Is Oromis helping you with your back?“

”He’s done what he could. The spells are—“

”That’s not what I asked.”

Eragon gritted his teeth. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “No.” 

Orik dragged a hand down his face, acutely aware of the vein pulsing in his temple. “Why?” 

“He has better things to do.” 

“That is not an answer.” 

“You said you didn’t come to lecture me. Pick up your cards, Orik. Please. We can discuss this in the morning. For now, just play.” 

But Orik shook his head, looking painfully close to regret. “I don’t think this is meant to wait. I want to know. Why aren’t you being helped? You might hide it well as you can, Eragon, but you still look like shit and clearly feel worse. So why—“ 

“Because it doesn’t matter,” Eragon snapped, the anger bubbling in his throat, bitter as bile. He set down his own flask and cards with cruel precision, eyes narrowing to slits with concentration. He looked around the room to maintain his composure—then the answers came. “I am… irrelevant.” 

Orik stiffened. He opened his mouth. 

“No, Orik. Listen. Oromis is healed now. Glaedr may still have his injury, but he is still deadly. He and Glaedr have centuries of experience, of knowledge, of… everything that we need to win this war. They are carrying on my training, yes, but… not for the reason you think.”

Orik’s voice dropped low. ”What do you mean by that?” Eragon bit his tongue. Orik hit the table, the rattling flasks echoing through the room. “Eragon!”

”I mean…” he said, chewing on every word like poison in the mouth of a man wishing for the end. “I mean that I will not be returning to the Varden to kill Galbatorix. Oromis ad Glaedr plan to do that themselves.”

Orik flung his hands in the air, then paced twist with a roar of indecipherable dwarvish. Then he whirled on Eragon, face red as dragon fire. “Then why even teach you?!” 

“Because,” Eragon sighed, “they want me to be capable of teaching the new Riders if they win but don‘t survive.” 

“Eragon—“ Orik sounded almost frantically sad, and it made a thousand ants crawl under Eragon’s skin like cruelest grief. 

“Don’t. I wouldn’t have been useful anyway. We both know it, Orik—I wouldn’t have lived to see Galbatorix, let along kill the bastard. My back would kill me before we reached Dras-Leona. Now… well, I guess I have to die a little more slowly, eh? Scrolls and education. Could be worse,” he huffed, as though the words did not taste like blood.

Orik looked ready to kill. On Eragon’s behalf. “That’s not right. It’s not. You got all the way here, you got this far, that’s no way to—“

”It is what it is.” 

Orik snarled, leaning over the table and jabbing a finger over Eragon’s heart. “I know you don’t think that.”

But Eragon could only muster a sad smile through the mist in his eyes. “I don’t have a choice.”

Chapter 3

“Your training is incomplete.” 

The words rang forth, hollow and condescending in their bluntness. Queen Islanzadi, all power and flair and brilliant composure, looked upon him like he had already failed her. Or verged upon it. A look he’d seen many times from Oromis. 

He bowed his head. “I understand, Your Majesty, but as it is, my training shall never truly be complete. I have learned what is essential for now. The war shall not wait for me to be perfect; Nasuada has already bought me what time she could. I must return.”

”Your back is unhealed.”

”It shall remain so.” He lifted his chin, swallowing down the tightness in his throat that it insulted his dignity no further. “Oromis and Glaedr-elda have both already gone. They shall take much of what was previously mine. What is left, I shall manage. They are healed. That is all that matters.”

”That is unwise thinking, Eragon Shadeslayer. You cannot find conclusion in any action that befalls you. Your usefulness—“ 

“Is limited as I am. Yes, I understand. But this is what I have left to offer. I am afraid all the Varden has left to do is accept it, or else turn me away.”

Islanzadi’s raven eyes darkened, swept with shadow and anger deep as the roots they stood over. She straightened, tall spine arching with suppressed indignance. Blagden wobbled upon her staff, then righted himself with a squawk and a flap of wings. 

Finally, she withdrew. Ripples ran through the ground between them, stirring the grass like a whisper through water. 

“Very well. But tread wisely, Shur’tugal. Your path is changed—not extinguished.”

It took every thread of discipline to restrain the laugh that threatened to tear his chest. 

—

“Stay with me. Please,” Eragon whispered, the words drifting from his tongue before he could stop them. Pain ripped through his spine, spat in his nerves like acid and fire, unrelenting, crude. 

Scrutiny flickered in her eyes. Forest green altered by indecision—by judgement he couldn't decide to be for good or for ill. Raven tresses poured down her shoulders, swaying like a stilled waterfall. It glinted, glossy like ink, sleek as Saphira’s scales. 

“Arya?” He breathed. 

Hesitation bristled through her. Regret, nearly. “I cannot.” 

“Arya, wait—“ 

“I cannot.“

And she was gone. And he was alone. With his pain. With his fear. With the echoes of lessons he could not complete still coating his skull like oil. 

The song in the distance soured in his stomach. 

—

Eragon scowled. It had been hours since they had left Silthrim. Days since Ellesmera. And still, with hours having slipped away like water through netting, they seemed to have gotten nowhere. The land beneath had become monotonous; an endless drifting of grass and reeds, yellowed with draught and long with peace. 

Orik’s fingers twitched against the rim of the saddle. His fingernails had whitened at the cuticles, strained by his grip. Eragon arched a brow, but Orik only shot him an impromptu glare. Eragon said nothing. 

But now it seemed difficult not to. Not even for concern, but boredom. He knew the replies Orik would spine—a dwarf is meant for the stone beneath his feet, not the sky, he had said—but some part of him begged for even further repetition if it only came in the form of a voice. 

Saphira had fallen quiet long ago, thoughts drifting to a place Eragon dared not tear them from. Let her have her daydreams. He opened his mouth, but Orik beat him to it. 

“—you plan to speak to Nasuada?”

Eragon faltered. Creases bloomed between his brows. “Aye, I assume she’d expect me to. I’d have to tell her what my oath doesn’t prevent.”

Orik snorted, eyes glinting grimly. “Lad, your pride will prevent more than that oath ever could. The oath takes names, titles, brands—not sincerity. What of the rest of the Varden? They’ll have questions, you know.”

Something tugged the corner of Ergaon’s lip. “I’ll avoid what I can.”

That, at least, earned a laugh. 

Slowly, Eragon readjusted himself in the saddle and sifted through his thoughts, speaking carefully as his fingers stroked the waxy lip of the saddle horn. 

“Nasuada and I got along. We did not spend a large amount of time together, but we were agreeable. Do you believe she will still wish to have my friendship now that Oromis has taken my place? Even if I had not sworn fealty—“

A rumbling growl rose in Saphira’s throat. He felt her lips twitch, fangs no doubt gleaming in the midafternoon sun. You will not think that way, she projected, both to he and to Orik. 

Eragon huffed wearily. “I hear that often lately, it seems.”

Two thumps of his heart passed. Then ten. Then Orik spoke, a hand grazing his beard, the other white-knuckled against a stray strap. “We shall not value you any less, Eragon. This will complicate things, yes. But it will not decide them.” 

Temptation rose thick on his tongue to brush off the comment. To disregard it entirely in favor of his anger—anger was easy. Anger made sense. Making peace, however, was difficult. Today especially, he cursed difficulty.        

The days passed in a surreal sway with the coming and going of the sun, then the stars. He had forgotten how many times he had seen Aedail, the morning star, show its face in the distance. There was no more marking the time, only willing it to pass, or staring at the land so long and so detached that large portions of it seemed never to have occurred at all. 

Orik waxed to nervous riddles and waned to a distrustful, wary silence, his eyes on the ground and his head uncertain of what was to come. That, at least, Eragon understood. Perhaps too well. 

He imagined what it would be like to return to the Varden. To see the people he had before, but no longer as the high-up boy some resented, or the all-powerful Dragon Rider others held to the highest esteem. Now it would be Oromis, an elf, a sage, old as time to take his place. Saphira had no qualms with doing what it took to maintain her stature as the Varden’s most beautiful, fearsome dragon—He is stronger, she stated simply, but I am faster. He cannot take that of us—but Eragon had no will to challenge Oromis or be a person of power. He would have been satisfied if only he did not have to be in pain. 

Already he had driven Orik half-mad by shifting every five seconds, too ashamed and angry to admit that the dwarrow’s leather scale vest kept pressing into his scar, and that the motions of Saphira’s flight had become agony. 

Saphira, though sympathetic, spouted a certain sense of indignation. Resentment even. You are called my Rider. You are meant to join me in the skies. Always this wound must steal from us. 

Eragon felt his heart ache at that. 

Still, despite the drifting time, it was not long enough before camp began to roll into sight. First the most stray of pitched tents. Then the proper bivouacs he had come to expect and know, swelling into what became the whole expanse of a rebellion army. 

Ignoring the twist in his stomach, he clutched the spike in front of him a mite tighter as Saphira banked, snorting in protest at archers and ballistae that looked all to ready to fire without paying attention to who they were shooting at. 

His eyes clenched shut, the spin of the earth churning behind his eyes. Orik cursed avidly as she landed, earning a disapproving grumble from Saphira, and both Eragon and Orik slid off her back, trying to shake off the numbness in their legs. Without much thought, he patted a beautiful scale, and loosened the saddle straps around Saphira’s girth, promising to remove the ‘itchy two-legs seat’ as soon as they were closer to his tent—assuming Nasuada had left it undisturbed. He hoped so. 

“Will you stay?” Eragon queried gruffly, casting a glance at the dwarf, rubbing his aching back with a faint grimace as the pain surged rudely. 

“Aye,” Orik grunted, “but only until I give mine report to Hrothgar. Hvedra’s due mine attention, as is our clan.”

The word were firm, in Orik’s usual steadfast fashion—his roughness likely influenced by Feldûnost, Hrothgar, or some combination of both, Eragon thought—but not without understanding. So Eragon nodded, clapped him lightly on the shoulder, and they began to walk, Saphira still stretching her limbs and ridding herself of the dust from the flight behind them. 

The walk to Nasuada’s tent was short. Too short to plan for all outcomes of Nasuada’s reception of him, as he knew for a fact Oromis and Glaedr were here already, but not short enough for him to evade a feeling of complete dread. 

He pushed aside the flap, held it askew for Orik to pass, and stepped inside. Only to immediately wish that he had not. Nasuada stood there, mossy hair tied back in a bun framed by tight braids, scarlet dress clinging to her shape, and at her side were the familiar piercing eyes and gathered stance of Oromis. 

Eragon froze, instinct seizing before anything else could even try. His back twinged with how quickly he touched two fingers to his lips and twisted his hand over his sternum. “Ebrithil. Atra esterní ono thelduin,” 

Oromis inclined his head, silver hair falling against his slender ears. “Atra du evarínya varda, Eragon-finiarel.” Before Eragon could speak further, he raised a placating palm and asked, “I trust the flight was uneventful?”

”Yes, Master,” Eragon said, stepping back faintly. Surprise flickered across Nasuada’s features at the title, but Eragon feigned obliviousness to it, merely correcting his posture and standing still. Timidly, he asked, “…And all has gone well here?”

”All is in order.”

”W-“

Eragon had hardly opened his mouth before Orik turned to see Hrothgar, who Eragon promptly offered a bow before stepping aside to give him space to enter the tent and find his usual spot in the pavilion. He never got to speak before Nasuada did. Her eyes locked directly onto Eragon, not accusing, but sharp. 

“You failed to tell me of the change in plans,” she remarked coolly. “I trust you thought it significant of note, Eragon?”

”Of course, Lady Nasuada. I apologize I did not reach out sooner. My promises prevented me from speaking without Oromis’ blessing. Now he is here and your questions may find answers.”

Tension in the room rippled. Nasuada’s lips pressed together. “Oromis has told me the basics. He says your condition has worsened?”

He tried to conceal the wince that passed his features. He failed. “Significantly,” he admitted, not without pain. 

“I see.” 

“Oromis claims to be taking your place entirely.” Hrothgar spoke slowly. Thoughtfully. Gnarled hands traced his droll, snowy beard. Wrinkles knotted his brow. 

“Yes, Your Majesty.” 

“You will assume a new role, then.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” 

Hrothgar’s eyes sharpened. Scrutiny, however necessary, was never pleasant. “What role do you expect to take?”

Eragon’s hand hesitated against Zar’roc’s pommel, quivering faintly before settling. His skin tinted lighter with nervousness, palms slick with sweat. But his voice, when it came, was certain. “I will continue to fight. I have not come this far only to abandon the Varden because the plans have changed. I will help as I can.” 

That seemed to be an acceptable answer, for Hrothgar’s head lifted an inch, and Nasuada’s eyes fluttered shut momentarily in a respectful approval—almost relieved, he noticed with surprise. Oromis’ expression remained inscrutable. That made his skin crawl unexplainably, something thin and churning pricking below his flesh. 

“However, I present a few questions of my own. Beyond battle and camp activities, what might my purpose here truly be, if I am no longer intended to fly against Galbatorix? Surely there must be some purpose I may serve,” he mused, gesturing loosely with a hand. Whatever conviction laid beneath the words felt oddly distant from him. He swallowed down the feeling. 

“What sort of duties do you intend to pursue?” Nasuada’s brow arched high above one almond eye, intelligent and scrutinizing.

“That, I am unsure of.”

“Then your true purpose will reveal itself in time,” Hrothgar rumbled, white beard pouring down his chest, strands caught between fingers weathered by time and by trial. “I see no reason we must rush to assert an occupation upon you when you could be recovering. Medicine may be sought for your weal, Eragon, and we shall do what we can.”

He bowed his head. “You honor me.”

“I have adopted you into my clan, Shur’tugal. If you are welcome to roam my hearth and my halls, so too may you have the gifts of our medicine. It is your right, so long as you would extend the same to our own brethren if the day fell upon you. Now! No more of this. I am certain you are weary on your feet, Argetlam, and it would do us all good to sit and sup together.” 

The announcement left little room for dispute, and Eragon soon found himself following the dwarf, narrowly tailed by Nasuada, Oromis, and Jormundur, whose face had become narrower since last Eragon had beheld him. 

Scale-plated mail jangled faintly beneath the fashioned leather vest Hrothgar wore, an assurance to his safety as much as a testament to the dwarves’ skill in secrecy and warfare both. Fleetingly, he wondered if he might be able to acquire some of the dwarven leather coveted in Tronjheim, and some metal. A brace of sorts, perhaps, to support his back, preventing the obsolete number of seizures he’d recently suffered. 

Canvas stretched taut between poles driven into the earth to form the pavilion they entered. A banquet table stretched nearly the tent’s length, positioned squarely in the pavilion’s center, the first platters to be a hot meal already placed upon the table, a few trenchers piled in the center for those who cared to spare the dishes. Eragon didn’t mind even faintly, though his fingers twitched at his sides, all too aware of the way his stomach twisted with the aroma of potatoes and vegetables and rich, juicy meat, mocking him conflictingly with hunger and the vertigo of pain.

Damn this, he thought, shaking his head. His lips moved faintly, but his words went unheard by the others, back aching as he trudged to his place at the table, pulling out his chair and sinking into it only when the others had begun to do the same. 

And perhaps the prospect was silly, but his fork went untouched, eyes following the sway of Oromis’s healthy limbs so closely it dizzied him. Silver brows arched high above his eyes, impassive reserve steadfast as virtue in his storm grey irises. “Are you well, Eragon?”

“Of course, Ebrithil,” he said, voice hoarser than he recalled it being a moment before. 

“Then eat. The meal has been prepared in speciality for your arrival.”

Opening his mouth, he hesitated, then leaned back, fork scraping the wood of the table’s surface as he pushed it an inch away. His training loomed over his head; he knew better than to eat before Oromis did. Elder first, superiors first; the rule was as much a part of Ellesmera as the society that had tormented him and heralded him like a king depending on whose eyes were watching. 

Saphira lingered outside, forked tongue flickering from between her lips to scour her scales for the dust of a lesser dragon than she. Orik, who had dwelled behind a moment to speak with her, promptly ducked through the flaps and found his place beside Eragon with a sourpuss’s grunt. 

Hrothgar’s eyes, small and eyes, traversed the familiar faces in placid regard, though they  doted a moment too long upon the quiver in Eragon’s wrist. He ducked his hands beneath the table. 

“Do not forget your manners, Eragon-finiarel,” Oromis reminded tonelessly. “Eat.”

“I am merely waiting.”

“For what?”

“Custom has been put to me vigorously. It is not the expectation for me to eat before you,” he said, carefully tracking his own words. Calm and level-headed. He’ll not take you seriously if he feels embarrassed, or as though I am implying something.

“We are no longer in Ellesmera.”

“Habit, then, I suppose.” Eragon shrugged airily. Oromis squinted, but ate a dainty bite of the first thing he saw. A Surdan grape, by the dull sheen of the skin. Expected. Eragon dipped his head and forced down a spoonful of soup, feeling his guts twist unpleasantly at the food he’d consumed. So resembled every meal he’d had in the past month.

“It is good to have you back, Eragon,” Nasuada said, flicking her fork absentmindedly at the entrance. “You have been sorely missed. The Varden speaks already of their Rider’s return.”

Chuckling faintly, he said “Saphira’s, more so, I’m sure. They always were more enamored with she.”

“She is a stunning creature. Admiration is due.”

“Of course,” he agreed, feeling his bond with her hum faintly, cautious pleasure passing from her mind to his. “She is fierce as she is beautiful. I only hope admiration does not make men reckless. One soldier seemed to be under the impression she might shed scales he could collect. This was before our departure to Du Weldenvarden, of course, but even then I knew dragons did not naturally shed their scales.”

“They do not?” 

“No. If a scale is badly bruised, then it will fall out to be replaced by another, but otherwise there is no such process as shedding in regard to the scales, though she has grown several sets of teeth.” 

“Curious,” Jormundur remarked. “I would not have thought to wonder. Do you keep the teeth?” 

“The first few were carried with me throughout much of my initial journeying with Brom. I thought that, if we became desperate enough, they might sell for the money we needed and, if not, they would make a decent keepsake of her hatchling days, as I failed to collect any pieces of the eggshell in my attempt to hide the whole affair from my uncle and cousin.”

“In Ellesmera, the teeth are pulverized,” Oromis said coolly, fingers curling around the stalk of his goblet just as they had around his staff so many times during Eragon’s training. “We prohibit trade of most dragon artifacts, as humans become greedy for them. The dust is either tossed away or used medicinally in our eastern cities.”

“It is not entirely efficient,” Eragon said. Realizing he had spoken aloud, he straightened, foot tapping the floor rapidly, and corrected himself. “I imagine, I mean. It is merely bone and enamel–not particularly common for medicinal purposes, to my knowledge.”

“Your knowledge is shallow,” Oromis said. Eragon knew it was a warning. 

But his tongue hadn’t the same sense. “You taught me. My knowledge resides only in what you have seen fit to give–”

“Silence, Eragon-vodhr,” Oromis said, a more biting cadence colliding with his words. Moving a little faster than before, he cut a strip of egg from the rest of the omelet and ate it, entirely unfocused upon Eragon in his usual fashion to turn away at the faintest sign of insolence. Eragon sighed, but did not acknowledge the prying glances of Hrothgar, Nasuada, and Jormundur, nor the knowing twitch of Orik’s beard. 

Always it was so, with the correction of all he did or said. Always the taut composure and the look that said he was waiting to see Eragon fail unless he performed immaculately, which never would happen. Not with the agony in his body, not with the fragility of a mind fractured by strain, unable to be compensated by the meditation Oromis pressed upon him. 

“I apologize,” he uttered as some time slid by, “I am tired and would much like to rest with Saphira awhile. If I may be excused–”

“Stay,” Oromis said. “You will leave among us all.”

“Ebrithil,” 

“I have given you your order.” Nasuada’s wide lips pressed together, Orik and Hrothgar exchanging communicative glances, but nothing more was said. Eragon stayed, heat curling off the surface of the meal in front of him, stomach churning and the first stirrings of a headache waking up in the pulse at his temples. 

Notes:

I apologize that this took so long. Significant life events are beating me to death in a polite, scholarly way. With a crowbar.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Blood Oaths and Curses