Going up in flames
I own nothing, it's all Christopher Paolini.
Arya stood regally by her mother's side, with Nasuada on her other side as the flames licked the darkened skyline.
Let them burn.
Let them be reduced to ash and dust for the crimes they had committed against Alagaësia, and against her heart.
As Galbatorix and Shruikan burned, Arya kept her poker face, and calm but fierce composure, but they had taken her heart from her. Both Eragon and Saphira were gone, lost to the inky darkness of the vault of souls. Tears threatened to pour down her face, but she held them back, with her mother's hand pressed affectionately against the small of her back.
Arya had never told anyone of her love for Eragon, her adoration of his immature wisdom, so untainted by politics that she herself was put to shame upon hearing it. His morals had been the better of anyone she had ever met, striving to preserve as much life and goodness as possible no matter the sacrifice, including himself.
He and Saphira had died for it.
They would always be remembered. The dwarves would carve their stone, the elves would shape their trees and sing their songs, the humans would pass their story along to everyone they met, and the saviours of Alagaësia would never be forgotten until the stories grew old, the present generations died out and it became the stuff of legends.
But never forgotten.
Arya could never forget how the young rider, the last of his kind, had touched her life in a way no other could possibly hope to contend with. Faolin had been her mate, but love built from childhood could be outgrown, and she had distanced herself from him before he had died, reducing the pain of heartbreak.
Now she had no heart left to break, he had taken it with him.
They all knew this. She had never breathed a word of it. Not to her mother, not to Nasuada, not to her elfin friends. No one. Not even Eragon himself.
And how she hated herself for it.
He had loved her, that much she had known. He had told her many times, and each time, her heart swelled with pleasure, and then swallowed its pride and rejected him for his own safety. He would never have concentrated on the war if he had had her to love him.
They all knew this too. From the moment they stepped into Ellesméra the chatter of elves had filled with the rumours of love between the Princess and the Rider. Eragon had been oblivious, he was so used to being gossiped about that he never saw the whispering, never heard the speculation. The Varden were similar.
But she had never told him, and it ate away at her soul now that he was gone.
Not even dead, just gone. And he could not return to her.
As the fire raged on, reducing the tyrant and his unfortunate partner to nothing, the entirety of the city stood in silence. Everyone of value had gathered on Vroengard to watch the fallen Riders be given their final respect, by destroying the one who had betrayed them, at their feet, in front of their graves. An honour to the dead. Even Murtagh and Thorn lay among the fallen, given the respect they had earned, despite their actions, for defying oaths and breaking free to help bring the Empire to the ground. Everyone else, had gathered on the shores of the mainland, holding flaming torches in silence.
And now all the dragons were gone, save for the untouched green egg, which still lay somewhere in Alagaësia. Unknown to everyone. They had not found it when they had rampaged the castle. It was lost.
It was also irrelevant. Without Saphira, there was no hope of replenishing the mighty race.
They had known this. Saphira had known this.
And yet they had still done what was necessary to save everyone.
Arya shivered, not from the cold, but from the strain of holding back her grief as the memory that haunted her soul and mind, washed over her.
No one had ever ventured behind the Beor Mountains. But there they were. The rock of Kuthian jutted out from the valley between the cliffs in one jagged arrow towards the sky.
And their Galbatorix stood, at the entrance to the vault of souls, desperately attempting to gain control of more spirits.
Eragon and Saphira had bested them.
Shruikan was slain on the ground, the once terrifying body of the black beast broken, crumpled, and discarded.
The war between armies raged on far across the land at Urû'baen, where the elves, dwarves and the Varden clashed with the soldiers of the Empire.
Arya had followed them. She had Murtagh and Thorn take her to the edge of the mountains, before they dashed to battle, and she had followed as Eragon and Saphira had collided with the dark king. She stood at the entrance to the valley, unable to enter. She was not a rider.
Metal against metal clanged through the valley, echoing off of rocks and cliffs, and sounding in her ears like war bells.
Galbatorix swung his sword down on Eragon's shoulder and was easily blocked, but kicked his chest and sent Eragon stumbling back for a moment. Long enough to throw down his sword and spread his arms wide, glowing a bright white, while a black shimmer burned above where his heart should have been.
He was drawing the spirits to him.
Without a word he pointed to Eragon and a bolt of lightning sprung from his finger and aimed itself at Eragon's heart. He jumped out the way just in time so that the bolt crashed into the cliff, burning the hard rock, and...smiled?
Had he been expecting this?
Another bolt forced Eragon to roll to the right, towards the rock of Kuthian, and as Galbatorix turned to face him and raise his hand again, Eragon pressed his hand against the rock and said "ilumëo draumr" Truth Dreamer.
Arya heard him speak his true name loud and clearly to the rock and she remembered Solembum's words. "Speak your name to the rock of Kuthian to open the Vault of Souls" But the rock did nothing. Had he got his name wrong? No, the rock was shaking and a crack was splitting up the centre, prying it apart.
It was hollow inside. A wide round room that got smaller and thinner towards the top, with a single beam of light penetrating through the top of the rock and casting a path of light down the centre, leaving the edges coated in shadows.
Arya leaned forward as the light became clearer, showing orbs of glowing light in all different colours hovering in the beam. They hovered for a second, and then started streaming out of the rock and leaving into the air.
This was what Eragon had wanted. The orbs- souls, Arya presumed them to be- began to leave Galbatorix as well. His arms were spread wide and orbs were leaving him through his skin, fleeing the evil king.
With the distraction, Eragon retrieved his father's sword and drove it through Galbatorix's chest. As the last spirit left him, Galbatorix fell to the ground, the sword still penetrating his heart, a deadly out of place grin on his face.
"If I can't have Alagaësia, no one ever will." He said, before letting his last breath leave him, and convulsing one final time.
Saphira, who had been immobilised by Galbatorix broke free with a deafening roar and trudged over to her rider, pushing him with her nose.
"It is over, little one. We are free." She said.
Eragon froze.
"No, Saphira. There is something else, I can feel it coming."
Arya listened in on their conversation, lightly pushing into their minds, they were too distracted to know she was there.
A small creak sounded from her left and Arya turned her head to come face to face with a small crack in the rock she was leaning on. Funny, it had not been there before.
Another creak resounded, and then another and another, before an almighty crash filled the valley, and the earth beneath their feet began to tremble.
The cliffs around them began to split open, still shaking the earth, the trees and grass in the valley grew brown and died.
Arya shouted for Eragon to help her but her voice faded into the valley as a man stepped around the rock of Kuthian, dressed in finery, and bowed to Eragon and Saphira.
"Rider" he called, demanding Eragon and Saphira's attention. "Congratulations on your latest feat, however, you may have destroyed the dark tyrant, but you have also destroyed this world."
Eragon did not move, and motioned for the man to continue with a quizzical look as the ground shook again.
"My name is Kuthian. And this is my rock" he said, motioning to the rock. "Inside it the souls of the dead are stored, and they have unlimited energy. From this supply, the world is fed its energy and it grows, prospers, lives. By cracking open the rock you have released the souls and prevented any other souls from entering their once they are without bodies. Therefore, the world does not have its energy, and so it cannot grow. It cannot prosper. It cannot live. The ground shakes because the forces of the world move it, and it does not have the energy to stay still. The rocks crack because they cannot hold themselves together. The trees and the grass die because they have nothing to live on. Soon it will begin to kill the people of this world with exhaustion. Our world is damned."
Eragon stood motionless. "Is there a way to reverse it?"
"The rock needs souls, and then to be closed. I can close it; however, I have no soul as my soul is the rock."
Eragon was quiet for a moment.
"I understand." He whispered.
In his head he spoke to Saphira.
"Do you understand Saphira?" he asked. She moved her head so that it was close to Eragon's and he leant his forehead on her.
"I do, little one. We must go. This world needs to survive."
"What of the dragon race?"
She laughed. "Perhaps we were always too great for this life."
He smiled, but it did not touch his eyes. "Together forever, Saphira. I love you, and we shall do this for the good of everyone we love."
"Everyone, little one. We need them to survive."
"To live on for us and build the world into what it should be."
They disconnected their heads and turned, nodding to Kuthian, and hesitantly strolled to the entrance of the rock.
Arya screamed once she realised what they planned on doing, but they couldn't hear her in the valley.
They paused in the darkness surrounding the beam of light, then placed themselves directly in the centre and turned to face Kuthian. He nodded to them, and he lifted his hands, forcing the rock to close as Eragon and Saphira began to disintegrate into thousands of little orbs that eventually formed two sapphire souls that floated off higher into the light.
Arya continued to scream until her voice was hoarse and her throat bloody and she choked on the warm rusty liquid filling her mouth.
A pair of warm arms wrapped around her middle and pulled her from the edge of the valley.
Her mother.
Islanzadi held her daughter close while she screamed and cried, and she looked up at Nasuada with a sorrow in her eyes that mirrored that only of when Evandar, her mate, had died.
They had all seen. And they would all remember the saviour Rider and his great sapphire dragon for their sacrifice as the ground stopped shaking, the rocks stopped crumbling, and the flowers around them opened again to reveal beautiful, colourful petals.
Arya continued to scream and cry in her mother's arms.
The flames licked the sky again as one of Orrin's lords, angry and in tears, threw a bottle of whisky onto the fire, smashing the glass over the burning bodies and fuelling the fire.
No one made a move to scold him. As long as the bodies burned, as fast as possible so that the mourning for Eragon and Saphira could begin, no one would care how.
How Arya longed to cry, to let her tears of love, rather than shock and loss, pour over her face. To shout why at the sky and stars until she ripped her voice apart again.
Twice now love had been taken from her, and she shivered again. Islanzadi pulled Arya closer to her and tightened her grip. Arya would not cry alone tomorrow.
She should never have to be alone again. But she would. She could replace Faolin with Eragon, but they both knew, the love for Eragon in her heart would never die, and so she would always feel alone.
Ok, so, good or bad? What do you think: this happens after it all (obviously) and well, I can either make this a one-shot, or I can continue it with some fairly shocking twists, from multiple points of view. What do you think?
I love the Inheritance Cycle and I really think that Book 4 is taking far far far too long to be written. Luckily there is enough fanfiction to keep us all going, and I have now added to that.
Arya is one of my favourite characters and I intend to expose a different side to her.
But, the question is: To be or Not to be a One-shot?
Tell me in you reviews what you want! Please!
-Sassie.x