The basic plot of this story has been eating away at my brain for ten years. Its earliest drafts are scrawled in my old middle school journals. Less than a week away from moving to a different continent, when I should be focused on everything but fic writing, I finally feel the uncontrollable urge to post this sucker XD

This story is a post-Eldest AU.

"Pacin' went make the babe come any faster, lad."

Cadoc steadfastly ignored his father, hunched over in his rocking chair and puffing away at his pipe. Garrow, red-faced and squalling, only quieted with constant motion. All Cadoc could do was walk back and forth, rocking his newborn gently in his arms, and softly murmur whatever prayers and nonsense words came to him.

Nothing could dampen the sounds of his wife's agony. Beline ranted, raved, and shrieked curses in that strange, guttural language of hers.

Those old-timers who claimed twins were twice the blessing had never endured a twin that refused to be born. Hours ago Garrow had slipped into the world with little fuss. Now the night air was too cold to take him outside and escape from his mother's screams.

Then again, when rumor spread around Carvahall that Beline was likely pregnant with twins, there had been only tight smiles and dark looks exchanged when they thought Cadoc's back was turned. Quite a few villagers already whispered he should have let Beline, nude and burning with fever, on the side of the ditch to die.

Cadoc's murmurs faltered when his wife let out one last scream so deep it was almost a roar. A baby's loud, angry cry followed.

Not long after his mother emerged from the room, smiling wearily. Gertrude, Carvahall's young healer, followed behind her and only looked glad the ordeal was over.

"Mother and child are both healthy," she reported wearily.

"It's a girl, Cadoc," Annah said triumphantly, taking her newborn grandson from his arms. "Already promising to be as beautiful as her mother."

Gavin muttered darkly that was all his granddaughter better have inherited from her. Cadoc was too relieved to argue. His father's complaints against Beline were nothing new.

He entered their bedroom to discover his wife already sitting up and nursing. She crooned a lullaby so softly Cadoc could barely hear her. They were not words he understood. The babe suckled at her right breast, as far away from the angry red scar tissue above her mother's heart as possible.

Beline's skin was even paler than usual and her pale hair a sweat-slicked mess. Her blue-gray eyes radiated love, pride, grief, and emotions Cadoc could only guess at. The lullaby on her lips died. She did not look up at him, even when he went to side and placed a tender kiss upon her brow.

"She is beautiful, Beline."

After a long moment Beline pulled their daughter from her breast and presented her to him. While Garrow had screamed bloody murder every time he sucked the cloth dry of goat's milk, his sister did not whimper once. Gently Cadoc took the babe into his arms. He loved Garrow, but gods bless him, the boy's red and squashed face was not a pretty sight. Annah assured him time would fatten the boy up into a proper babe. Already his sister was lovely, with delicate features and a fine head of light brown hair. Garrow's eyes were indefinite infant blue, their color not yet set. The eyes that blinked up at Cadoc were already Beline's bright blue-gray and seemed to look right through him.

"Her name is Selena."

Cadoc flinched. Garrow was a good, strong name, the name of his own grandfather. 'Selena' sounded pretty enough, but he disliked how... alien his wife's sibilant tongue pronounced it. It was far too grandiose for a farmer's daughter.

"We could name her Lara, for my mother's mother," he suggested tentatively. Beline and Gavin hated each other so much he did not even offer up the name of his other grandmother.

Beline's lip twitched. When she had first come to them she had sneered and snarled at whatever had given her displeasure. "Her name is Selena."

"But-"

"Garrow is your heir, is he not?" she snapped. "Can you not let me have my daughter?"

Cadoc reeled back at the force of her outburst. In his arms his daughter began to cry. Gently he returned her to her mother's embrace.

Beline had been with his family for three years, and his wife for two. He still knew nothing about her past, for over and over she repeated only that she had deserved whatever hand the gods saw fit to deal her. That included being left for dead in a ditch, perhaps forsaken in the wilderness weeks before. When he had first stumbled across her nude and bleeding body, he had thought her dead. Then he had touched her shoulder and found her burning with fever, hotter than he ever knew someone could be.

Eventually he and Annah had both secretly concluded Beline to be a noble's daughter forsaken by her family. It explained her elegant if exotic appearance and her proud way of carrying herself. There were certainly isolated cities in the Empire with strange customs, Kuasta among them. Surely some must have had their own peculiar languages too. Perhaps Selena was a family name.

Neither he nor his mother dared speculate on how Beline had acquired her scars. Or the stretch-marks that had marred her belly since he'd found her naked, delusional, and at death's door. Gavin's dark mutterings about witchcraft and enchantment weren't tolerated in their household. No matter how... odd his wife could be at times, she never turned her nose up at hard work and had never done him or his parents harm.

"They are both our children, Beline," he said quietly. "Garrow is as much your son as... Selena is my daughter."

Beline said nothing. Only years later would he realize how wrong he'd been.

Selena may have only been seven years old, but she knew quite a bit about the gods. Her grandmother insisted on her learning countless names and rituals, how to appease them and how to avoid offending them through leaving little gifts buried in the fields or tucked behind the barn. Her grandfather flatly insisted gods did not exist. Her father only remembered what he saw as the 'important things,' like the prayers for fertile fields and bountiful harvests. Garrow was much too busy with chores and his stupid friends in the village to have any real thoughts on the matter.

Mother's gods had strange names like Taliv Mahed and Ahd Ahed. They were secret gods, like the nonsense words she sometimes spoke, meant only for herself and Selena.

Mother called the moon Tria Luan, but to Selena he was the Lord Moon. When he was wide awake, and his eye opened fully, Selena and her mother were awake with him. They had the whole night to themselves once everyone else had gone to bed.

When Selena was very little she remembered Mother sneaking her outside in the warmer months. They'd play and dance and chase each other like Mother was a girl herself. Now, even on full moon nights, Mother barely had enough energy to claim out of bed and to grandfather's rocking chair by the hearth.

Selena wasn't sure she liked the Lord Moon. As he waned each month so did Mother. On moonless nights she slept and did not stir. Sometimes she breathed so shallowly Selena feared her dead. It now took her nearly a week afterward to recover. Even when the Lord Moon grew round again, Mother's peak strength was always a little weaker than it had been the previous month.

For hours, Selena had sat in silence, allowing Mother to comb her hair and sing her nonsense words. Now she could bear it no longer.

"Are you dying, Mother?"

Her mother scarcely hesitated in her stroke. The comb smoothly slid through Selena's hair. "Aye, my dearest. I am dying."

Selena whirled her head around. Even on full moon nights, when mother's eyes glowed brightest, the dark hallows beneath them remained. Tears pricked in her eyes but she didn't let them fall. Grandfather called even a little girl's tears weakness. She had never seen Mother cry. Selena wanted to be like her, as strong as the woman in her oldest memories.

"Is the moon killing you?" she demanded instead. Everyone in Carvahall knew her grandmother's gods. They were old as Palancar Valley itself. Maybe, if Selena prayed hard enough, they could chase off the Lord Moon and make him give up his hold on her mother.

Mother shook her head. She looked like Elain's grandmother did when Gertrude had declared her failing eyesight incurable; neither angry nor sad, only resigned to what was to come. "I was dying before I ever met your father, Selena. The Lord Moon helps prolong the inevitable."

Selena scowled. She knew the moon should stay wide awake, day or night, to help her mother. His eye should have never dimmed. She did not say it aloud. Her mother had already sharply scolded her for wishing the moon a longer watch than he already had.

"Are we witches, Mother?"

Mother snorted. "Sloan again, I take it?"

Selena nodded vehemently. Stupid Garrow hadn't heard Sloan's comment, but she had. She'd kicked Sloan for it, right in the shin, but he'd dragged her down with him. A good bite on his arm had stopped him from crushing her.

Father had dragged her back home and spanked her. Grandfather had roared his grandchildren would not be raised as beasts. While Selena had cowered at his fury, Mother had weathered him like a mountain did the storm, even when his spittle landed on her face. Grandmother had made her clean out the chicken coop and sent her off to bed without dinner.

When everyone else had gone to bed, Mother let her eat her fill.

"He deserved it, Mother, but is he right? Normal girls aren't awake with the moon."

Mother's eyes blazed in the darkness. "You are no normal girl, Selena. You're my child."

Selena crossed her arms. "Garrow's my twin and he snores right through every full moon night. You never let me wake him up to play with us."

"Garrow is your father's son through and through, dearest. It is simply who he is. He can grow old and die as a farmer without ever regretting a single day of it. You were born with the rabhadh, the potential to be so much more."

"What's a r-radvick?"

Mother laughed, pointy canines glinting in the moonlight. "The rabhadh, my dearest, the spark. If you fan the flames, you can become... so much more than this."

She put a hand to her daughter's chest. Selena's heart jolted at the touch. It was pleasantly warm, as if a fire burned merrily inside like it did in the hearth.

"Do you have a spark, Mother?"

Mother withdrew her hand as if burned. "I do not, dearest. Not anymore."

The pleasant warmth in Selena's chest sputtered and died. Mother's high neckline concealed the scars above her heart but she knew they were still there. Sloan had told her a demon had ripped out her mother's heart and she was now only a walking corpse, but Sloan was stupid. Beneath the scar Mother's heart thumped like any other villager's. Selena could hold back her tears no longer. She fell into her mother's embrace and wept. Mother stroked her hair and hummed her lullaby, the one meant only for Selena, with a voice that ebbed and flowed like the tide.

When she could cry no more, Selena sniffled and looked up into her mother's face. "Teach me more. About my spark." Sparks grew into fires. Maybe, if Selena's fire was large enough, she could pass some on to her Mother like how Father lit torches from the hearth.

"When you are older, dearest, and can better bear the burden." Selena's protest died in her throat when Mother stared stoically down at her. Her eyes glanced out to the moon now sitting low on the horizon. "I have been dying for a very long time, Selena. I can hold on for a few years more."

She now sung her lullaby in earnest. Selena did not understand her words, but she loved it all the same. As the sun rose, Selena snuggled into her mother's arms and dreamed of silver seas. She had never left Palancar Valley before, but still she smelled salt in the breeze and heard the whisper of waves upon the shore.

Then she flew across it. Selena always woke up before she reached the other side.

Mother did not hold on for a few more years. She scarcely managed a few more months. As the chilly autumn descended into the coldest winter Grandfather complained his old bones had ever weathered, so too did her health.

One day Mother stopped getting out of bed. Even on the next full moon, she could not find the strength. Then she started losing the little things, like Grandmother's name or that the word for broth was not 'brod.'

As the snow piled up, so too did Mother's first tongue. She impatiently called for 'ushge' when thirsty and for 'mopashteen' when lonely. At first they tried to remind her of the right words, but they gave up after awhile.

Then came the day Mother stopped recognizing Father. He tried to embrace her, as he did every day, and she bit him in the shoulder. She thrashed and wailed in her bed like a wounded beast until Selena mustered up the courage to go to her side.

Mother always knew who Selena was. Selena couldn't understand her lullaby's meaning, much less pronounce it, but she knew it like her mother's heartbeat. Though Selena's tongue stumbled over the words, the melody was right. It soothed Mother into sleep.

From that day on Selena helped Grandmother nurse her mother. Cadoc worked long days outside and slept in front of the hearth. Garrow joined him. He had tried to help Mother, at first, but Grandfather had only sneered and called it women's work. Garrow had stopped helping after that.

After Mother's memory went her mind. She started gazing off into empty air, talking to people that weren't there. Always the conversations were in her native tongue.

Mother slept many long hours, but soon there came a day when she wouldn't wake up, no matter how hard Selena shook her. Mother had always been warmer than others, but now her skin burned with fever.

Though the snow was nearly waist-high, Father raced to Carvahall and returned with the healer. Selena had stubbornly refused to leave her mother's side when Gertrude examined her.

Grandmother tried to shoo her out of the room before Gertrude announced her verdict, but Selena already knew what was happening. The grim line on the healer's face said it all.

"I have no better a grasp on what ailment this is than I did three months ago. I do know it will be over soon."

Father sighed. "Will she ever wake again?"

"I'm afraid that's highly unlikely, Cadoc," Gertrude said. "Perhaps it's better that-"

Selena reached down to brush a pale lock from her mother's gaunt face. Her eyelids fluttered open. Selena held her breath. Mother's gaze was still glassy, but still sharp enough to focus on her face.

"Mother?" she whispered. A faint hope, delicate as a soap bubble, rose in her chest. The rest of the room fell silent.

Mother smiled. "Selena, my dearest. Where are your braiden?"

Like a soap bubble, Selena's hope shattered. Feeling the expectant gazes of her elders burrowing into her, Selena shook her head helplessly.

Mother's brow knit in frustration. "Mo caedmon! Your brothers, girl! Mo amleth! Your brothers!"

Grandmother and Father exchanged helpless glances. Grandfather's face darkened, but he left the room and returned hauling Garrow behind him.

"Your mum's calling for yeah, lad," he said gruffly. Then he shoved Garrow forward. He stumbled a few steps, but went no further. Mother's frown only deepened.

"A-Aye, M-M-Mother?" At his desperate stammer, Selena only stared at her twin, torn between pity and frustration. Was that the best he could do?

Mother bared her teeth at him. Garrow stumbled back. "That oin-anem is not my son." Whatever that word meant, Selena knew it was a curse. Mother's blue eyes darted about, her bewilderment quickly mounting into hysteria. "Mo caedmon, mo amleth. Mami, mo leinib! Mami!"

Her cries rose into a wordless shriek. Garrow fled from the room when their mother began to thrash back and forth in her bed. Selena rushed forward. Perhaps if tried to stroke her hair, to calm her as she usually did, she could bring Mother back to them. But her grandparents grabbed her arms, hauling her away.

"Mommy!" Selena screamed.

Mother's wail deepened into a furious roar as she tried springing from the bed, her teeth snapping inches from Grandfather's face before Father forced her back. Selena's last sight of her mother alive was of Father and Gertrude rushing to subdue her. Her screams echoed long after.

Beline, daughter of none, died and took her secrets with her. With them went Selena's childhood.

From birth Garrow had his future all planned out for him. One day he'd inherit the family farm and in turn pass it down to a new generation of farmers. He courted a nice village girl named Marian and settled down with her as quickly as he could. Aside from a few minor features like the curve of his jaw, he was Cadoc's splitting image. Despite a few suspicious mutterings from the superstitious elders in his youth, Garrow proved himself a reliable and salt of the earth man. Carvahall concluded Beline had not passed her strangeness down to him.

In turn Selena grew up to resemble her mother, her light brown hair being the only obvious feature from her father's side of the family.

Carvahall had once whispered Beline to be a 'witch' and Selena a 'witch-girl.' Even men who continued calling her nasty things behind her back proposed to her. Perhaps they were bewitched by her beauty or thought they could 'tame' the wild out of her. Some suitors came from as far as Therinsford. Even one old Traveller, who stopped by every autumn, made Cadoc an offer with far more crowns than Selena had ever seen in all place.

Selena turned every offer down. She vowed not to wither away in an unhappy marriage like her mother had. Beline had been someone, once, before she'd wound up in a backwater mutilated and dying. She'd promised Selena had even greater potential. Even marrying a Traveler could bring her no satisfaction, for they followed their same plodding courses throughout the Empire year after year.

It was pure luck Selena was in town the day Morzan stopped through. He had not revealed himself to the Seven Sheaves to be a Dragon Rider on the King's business, but she had needed only one glimpse to know he was like no other man. Selena had only known her mother as a burnt-out husk, but Morzan radiated power and confidence like a noonday sun.

Across the tavern, his eyes met hers, and knew they were kindred souls. That very evening she sat astride a dragon's back, clinging to Morzan's broad shoulders as Carvahall and its valley vanished beneath them.

The spark Beline had once claimed burned in her daughter's soul must have been magic. How else could Morzan have trained her into his valued Black Hand? To be one of the Imperial agents the Varden feared above all others?

Morzan's physical prowess was accompanied by rugged good looks. He could make handsome children. When Selena accidentally fell pregnant from one of their throes of passion, she thought to keep the child. She fancied a little girl to name and raise in her mother's honor. Perhaps, if the gods smiled upon her, a daughter of a Forsworn and his loyal Black Hand would be found worthy of one day becoming a Rider herself.

Instead Selena bore a squalling, red-faced boy. She saw nothing of herself or her mother in him. Looking into his eyes of undetermined infant blue, she saw no spark, only bitter disappointment. Beline must have once felt the same way with Garrow.

She named the boy Murtagh, a rough name for a rough babe. Leaving him to the care of nannies and nursemaids, she thought little of him for the first years of his life. Morzan and his missions were far too important than a mistake that could never hope to live up to her legacy, much less his sire's.

Though she and Morzan ignored him both, Murtagh was still their son, and their blood had only made him twice as tenacious. He quickly learned to escape his caregivers. He learned where in the estate his parents preferred to hide, how to slide his way into their laps or wrap his pudgy little arms around their legs to keep them from leaving.

Selena grudgingly admired his temerity. Perhaps there was promise in him yet.

Murtagh quickly caught on to her approval and soon primarily sought her out. Morzan grew envious of his own flesh and blood, a boy barely out of infancy. He was too thick to understand children wished their affections returned, and naturally sought out love where it was given.

Morzan staggered into her quarters one night drunk and looking for his usual release. He had not been amused to find Murtagh seated on her lap, fascinated by a simple display of spellwork.

Morzan bellowed like a beast, but Selena stood her ground. She had not obeyed her father or her brother's wishes of her. She loved Morzan (or so she thought), but not even he could stop her from spending time with her own gods-damned child.

As Morzan's fury mounted, he unsheathed his blade and hurled it across the room in frustration. Murtagh, who had scurried to the safety of the corner, wailed as the steel cut into his tender flesh.

On pure instinct Selena knocked Morzan unconscious and rushed to her son's side. She had devoted years of her life to how to best kill a target, but knew little beyond the basics of healing. Her magic saved Murtagh's life. It could not heal his back. Zar'roc was a Rider's blade steeped in decades of malice and the blood of countless victims. Not even Morzan could erase such a deep scar it had dealt.

Selena never allowed Morzan to touch her after that. She knew in her heart of hearts she'd try to kill him if he ever again let his guard down around her. Morzan returned the favor by all but refusing her to see her son.

Just as Murtagh had once sought love from the only parent willing to give it, Selena again searched for another to fill the hole in her heart. Her mother had first ripped it and Morzan had only torn it wider. She thought she found it in the estate's humble gardener with the kind blue eyes.

Of course the second love of her life turned out to be Brom, the Varden's most notorious agent and Morzan's mortal enemy. When she fell pregnant by him, Selena couldn't have cared less about the child's gender or magical aptitude, only that it was born far away from the King's clutches.

There had been no time to save Murtagh when she first fled, not with Morzan's servants watching him so closely. Selena vowed to return once her second babe was born and its safety secured.

Morzan had never revealed exactly where he had found his prized Black Hand. His secrecy worked to Selena's advantage. He had known how much she'd loathed Carvahall, how she'd vowed to never return once he'd rescued her from it. He would never seek her there.

Selena's homecoming was bittersweet. Her grandparents died several winters after Beline, but Cadoc had only died the year prior. She could never reconcile with him. Garrow, at least, was amenable. He opened his home to her. Marian was excited to have her young son up with a cousin. Selena did not tell her she also had a boy only a year older than little Roran. Until Murtagh was safe and sound in Carvahall, she could afford to tell her family nothing, not with Imperial spies lurking about.

Her second son scarcely cried when he slipped into the world. He came a month early, for Selena's confinement left her stressed and sick, but he was healthy all the same. His eyes were already brilliant blue-gray. They were her eyes. Her mother's eyes.

In her heart of hearts Selena knew he'd her spark. She loved him no more or no less for it. He was no more her son than Murtagh was. If only she'd learned earlier how to love her children properly.

Selena would have named a girl in her mother's honor. Instead she named her son Eragon, after the first Dragon Rider, to honor the father had helped bring him into being.

The full moon flew high and bright that night. While Garrow and his young family slept, Selena sung Beline's lullaby to Eragon over and over again. She had never thought to sing it to Murtagh until it had been too late.

Selena had never learned what homeland her mother had hailed from, had never found another that spoke a language approaching her own. By the time she finished her final rendition, the sun was rising and her newborn slept. Her voice was hoarse, and her headache throbbing, but her pronunciation now sounded like her mother's.

Selena vowed to sing it again once Murtagh was safely nestled down beside his brother. Perhaps one day they would discover what it meant.

Secrets were a family tradition. So too were broken promises.

Selena pushed herself too hard. By the time she arrived at Morzan's estate, feverish and delusional, the healers could do nothing.

Like her mother before her, Selena died screaming for her sons.

Somewhere across the sea, three souls screamed with her, though they did not know why.

Garrow did not. However, he did bury his last hopes of his sister returning for her son. Whatever... otherness that had claimed their mother had claimed Selena too.

He vowed it would be different with her son. Marian might have coddled Eragon and indulged his fantasies, but after she died Garrow took no chances. He worked Eragon day and night. Still Eragon still proved too restless to sleep on full moon nights, and spoke wistfully of flying dreams in the nights leading up to it. When he first mentioned a voice had begun calling out to him, Garrow had buried his fear beneath sheer determination and ordered him into the Spine to hunt. The challenge gave him a tangible goal to focus on.

Beline, daughter of none, had been found near dead in a ditch near the Spine. Gods knew how long she had survived in the woods alone, suffering from a grievous chest wound and delirious with fever. Now she was buried at its edge, with all other of Garrow's ancestors who had lived and died upon his land.

Garrow did not fear for his nephew's life when he ventured out into the Spine, but he still found himself praying for Eragon's safe return every time he did so. Hunting might have been the boy's only constructive outlet, but his thoughts grew distant without Garrow and Roran to keep him grounded. Twice Selena had slipped into the night. On the second time she had never returned.

In his more hysterical moments Garrow feared the voice in Eragon's dreams was Selena's, calling him away from home forever. In his darkest nightmares the voice belonged to his mother, luring Eragon into death as she must have Selena. Like his twin, there would have been no body left to bury.

But always, Eragon returned, successful or not in his hunts. He grumbled when Garrow sent him out to do chores but did them all the same. No longer did he gaze out into the distance and speak of flying and phantom voices, but fought to keep his eyes open as he struggled only on the task at hand.

By the time Eragon entered adolescence, he stopped speaking of strange dreams altogether and slept soundly on even the brightest nights. Garrow thought the family curse broken at last. His desperate nightmares of his mother and sister stealing his nephew away in the night faded into unpleasant memory.

Only years later, when Eragon disappeared for long hours on end, did he begin to suspect otherwise. By then it was too late.

Some drafts of this prologue were literally three times this length. I decided to trim down on some lengthy exposition. I have a few more chapters written as first drafts and a good idea where the plot is going, but I am gonna be very busy in the coming month. But this is one I definitely plan on finishing.

Selena has a flawed understanding of the situation. All words she think she knows in Beline's language are a very rough phonetic approximation. Astute readers might already notice what real world language I'm riffing from ;)