“Then I don’t ever want to hear that you’ve refused to help Nasuada for no other reason than spite, else there will be a reckoning between you and me, Elva Farseer, and it’s not one you would win.”
“You could never defeat me,” she mumbled, her voice thick with emotion.
“You might be surprised. You have a valuable talent, Elva. The Varden needs your help, now more than ever. I don’t know how we’re going to defeat the king at Urû’baen, but if you stand with us—if you turn your skill against him—we might just have a chance.”
Elva seemed to struggle with herself. Then she nodded, and Eragon saw that she was crying, tears overflowing from her eyes. He took no pleasure in her distress, but he felt a certain amount of satisfaction that his words had affected her so strongly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He released the yarn and stood. “Your apologies cannot bring back Wyrden. Do better in the future, and perhaps you can atone for your mistake.”
He nodded to the old woman Greta, who had remained silent throughout their exchange, and then he strode out of the light and back between the dark rows of tents.
You did well, said Saphira. She will act differently from now on, I think.
I hope so.
Upbraiding Elva had been an unusual experience for Eragon. He remembered when Brom and Garrow had chastised him for making mistakes, and to now find himself the one doing the chastising left him feeling … different … more mature.
And so the wheel turns, he thought.
He took his time walking through the camp, enjoying the cool breeze wafting off the lake hidden within the shadows.
* * *
After the capture of Dras-Leona, Nasuada had surprised everyone by insisting that the Varden not stay the night in the city. She had given no explanation for her decision, but Eragon suspected it was because the long delay at Dras-Leona had left her overeager to resume their journey to Urû’baen, and also because she had no desire to linger within the city, where any number of Galbatorix’s agents might be lurking.
Once the Varden had secured the streets, Nasuada detailed a number of warriors to remain in the city, under the command of Martland Redbeard. Then the Varden had left Dras-Leona and marched north, following the shore of the neighboring lake. Along the way, a constant stream of messengers had ridden back and forth between the Varden and Dras-Leona as Martland and Nasuada conferred about the numerous issues attending the governance of the city.
Before the Varden had departed, Eragon, Saphira, and Blödhgarm’s spellcasters had returned to the ruined cathedral, retrieved Wyrden’s body, and searched for the belt of Beloth the Wise. It had taken only a few minutes for Saphira to pull aside the jumble of stone that blocked the entrance to the underground chambers and for Blödhgarm and the other elves to fetch Wyrden. But no matter how long they looked, and no matter what spells they used, they could not find the belt.
The elves had carried Wyrden on their shields out of the city, to a knoll next to a small creek. There they buried him while singing several aching laments in the ancient language—songs so sad that Eragon had wept without restraint and all the birds and animals within hearing had stopped and listened.
The silver-haired elf woman Yaela had knelt by the side of the grave, taken an acorn from the pouch on her belt, and planted it directly above Wyrden’s chest. And then the twelve elves, Arya included, sang to the acorn, which took root and sprouted and grew twining upward, reaching and grasping toward the sky like a clutch of hands.
When the elves had finished, the leafy oak stood twenty feet high, with long strings of green flowers at the end of every branch.
Eragon had thought it was the nicest burial he had ever attended. He much preferred it to the dwarves’ practice of entombing their dead in hard, cold stone deep below the ground, and he liked the idea of one’s body providing food for a tree that might live for hundreds of years more. If he had to die, he decided that he would want an apple tree planted over him, so that his friends and family could eat the fruit born of his body.
The concept had amused him tremendously, albeit in a rather morbid manner.
Besides searching the cathedral and retrieving Wyrden’s body, Eragon had also done one other thing of note in Dras-Leona after its capture. He had, with Nasuada’s approval, declared every slave within the city a free person, and he had personally gone to the manors and auction houses and cut loose many of the men, women, and children chained therein. The act had given him a great deal of satisfaction, and he hoped it would improve the lives of the people he had released.
As he drew near his tent, he saw Arya waiting for him by the entrance. Eragon quickened his stride, but before he could greet her, someone called out: “Shadeslayer!”
Eragon turned and saw one of Nasuada’s pages trotting toward them. “Shadeslayer,” the boy repeated, somewhat out of breath, and bowed to Arya. “Lady Nasuada would like you to come to her tent an hour before dawn tomorrow morning, in order to confer with her. What shall I tell her, Lady Arya?”
“You may tell her I will be there when she wishes,” Arya replied, inclining her head slightly.
The page bowed again, and then he spun around and ran off in the direction from which he had come.
“It’s somewhat confusing, now that we’ve both killed a Shade,” Eragon observed with a faint grin.
Arya smiled as well, the motion of her lips almost invisible in the darkness. “Would you rather I had let Varaug live?”
“No … no, not at all.”
“I could have kept him as a slave, to do my bidding.”