While Hallien and Daris faced off, Eragon was sound asleep. His dream, or rather his nightmare, was troubled and he was tossing and turning in his sleep with ragged breathing. In his dream he was standing in the forest. He could hear the trees wailing and their branches and roots grabbed at him. The wailing brought tears to his eyes, and as Eragon watched helplessly the leaves of the forest wilted and the braches of the trees began to crack and fall dead to the ground. He couldn't breathe easily for the air was chokingly thick with blood.
Eragon tried to run from the scent and Alfheim's lament, but no matter how far he ran the scent remained. Leaves from the plants scratched at his face and arms, and he winced as kept running. The planet kept trying to grab him and eventually the plants branches managed to grab him up like a clawed hand.
"What's going on?" Eragon shouted at the trees as he was dragged into the air. "Alfheim! What are you so scared of?"
He knew this dream was from Alfheim, but he couldn't understand what his home wanted him to know. The branches of Alfheim suddenly released Eragon and he fell through the air to the ground. What was it that Alfheim was trying to tell him?
The shock from the fall jolted Eragon from his nightmare and into the real world. His blue garnet eyes opened just in time to see the blade of a sword arcing down towards him. Now Eragon let out a small shriek and flung up his left arm instinctively to protect itself.
The sword's blade hit a golden energy field that materialized protectively around Eragon's arm, and recoiled with enough force to send Eragon's attacker flying backwards. He hit the ground hard enough that Eragon's attacker did not stir. Eragon lay in bed with the arm he had raised trembling, and a stunned look on his usually bright features. This ward around Eragon's arm was not from his own magic, but from the pure golden essence of the realm's lifeforce. Alfheim had protected him.
Eragon sat up in bed and lowered his arm as Alfheim's ward dissolved into small simplified golden "birds" that looked like a pair of diamond shaped wings. Magic was artificially colored to be the same color as the magic user's soul, but since no one had a golden soul the magic would forever be diluted. The truest form of magic was the golden birds around Eragon, and only Alfheim itself could use this magic.
Eragon looked at his attacker in uncomprehending shock as the birds fluttered around him protectively. They made a chirping sound as if there were a thousand birds chirping at once endlessly, but the sound was soothing and reassuring rather than unpleasant. This was true magic. His attacker was an Immortal Guard.
"What?" Eragon whispered as the true magic's birds began to fade, "An Immortal Guard? Why?"
There were footsteps outside his room, and two more Immortal Guard ran in. Eragon started to relax, assuming that these were friends. The true magic flashed around him briefly in warning, and Eragon tensed again. Alfheim's instincts were correct, for a second later one of the new Guard drew his sword. It wasn't just one Immortal Guard trying to kill him.
Eragon threw out both of his hands in a gust of wind, and the Immortal Guard raised their arms to shield their faces. It wasn't a gust of wind honed sharply enough to slice off limbs, but a blunt one meant to knock them back. While they raised their arms Eragon reached over in bed for his wristbow.
He had spent all day today training with his wristbow and magic, and when he had finally gone to bed he had been exhausted. Eragon had been so tired that h had forgotten to take off his wristbow's bracer before he had gone to bed. It was a stroke of good luck now because Eragon was able to reach over to his nightstand and instantly lock his wristbow onto his bracer.
The last of the true magic around him faded, but Eragon knew that was for the best. In order to help Eragon, Alfheim had to give its lifeforce to him, lifeforce that should be used for sustaining the life of the planet and those on it. Every time Alfheim helped him with the true magic the leaves in the forest would wilt and the temperature would get dangerously cold as Alfheim's very lifeforce was drained. It helped him at the cost of life on the planet. He didn't want the life on Alfheim to suffer.
Eragon held out his right hand towards the attacking guards with his fingers straight and relaxed, and then he tightened his hand into a fist sharply. As it was supposed to, the movement switched the wristbow from sleep mode to battle mode. Its silver vine-like arms that had been retracted around the edge of the wristbow's body snapped out straight so it looked like a crossbow, and light like blue garnet glittered around those arms like ribbons of sparkling dust. An arrow made of the same energy materialized, tracing the silver midrib on the leaf-like wristbow. The blue garnet light in the veins that had been dim beneath the surface now glowed like brilliant neon stripes, and the light they gave off rippled like water.
Eragon pointed the wristbow at his new attackers as they lowered their arms from their faces. The arrow in Eragon's wristbow crackled and shifted as if it had an electrical element. Being in a position where you could down the length of a wristbow's arrow was never a good place to be, and Eragon was in a dangerous mood.
Eragon wanted to demand them to tell him what they were doing, but he was forced to shoot first. He had been practicing with his aim, but one of the Immortal Guard cut his arrow in two with their saber. Without skipping a beat, Eragon fired a second arrow as he leaped out of bed. The second arrow knocked a sword out of the hands of one Immortal Guard, and he quickly jerked aside to avoid a blade's swing.
He didn't have enough practice in combat to be able to deal with the Immortal Guard, and now there were two. The one that had been repulsed by Alfheim wasn't stirring, and Ergon was fairly certain he was dead. Eragon raised his wristbow and a saber blade slid across its surface, leaving him unharmed.
The instant the saber blade had slid away Eragon shot an arrow at the guard. He was successful in getting his opponent in the throat and Eragon's arrow went clear through his throat. His wristbow was responding to his thoughts of battle, so the arrows he was shooting were becoming more powerful.
Another blade appeared in the corner of his sight, and Eragon just barely managed to raise his wristbow in time to catch the blade on it. There was so much force behind the strike though that Eragon was thrown off his feet and crashed into the side of his bed. He fell to the floor, stunned. Through blurred vision, Eragon looked up at the Immortal Guard approaching him.
What was going on? Eragon thought desperately as he jumped to his feet and tried to run to the doorway, knowing he wasn't trained enough to stand a chance of winning. He turned around and fired a few arrows at his attackers to make them flinch back.
What cost Eragon was that he was looking forward and not behind, so he wasn't aware of the appearance of a fourth attacker and was unable to block his sword blade. Eragon's next shot went wild and harmlessly hit the wall as the sword sliced open his back. He fell forward, not comprehending that he had been hit, and as he fell the Immortal Guard who had struck him smiled.
It was Rane. He had known that Eragon would run, and so all Rane needed to do was wait the prince to come to him. Commander Daris should be finishing up with Hallien soon, Rane thought as he raised his sword in a reverse grip in preparation for a downward thrust to kill the prince. It was sad that Eragon had to die, but he was Hallien's sons and the same blood ran in his veins that it did for Hallien. He had to die to, and it was only if Eragon died as well as his father that Daris could become king. Daris was the only royal without Hallien's blood, and the only one that could lead Alfhiem.
Why are they attacking me? Eragon thought desperately. I'm their prince, so why are they trying to kill me?
Rane brought his sword down.
Sitting on one of the branches of Alfheim's giant trees, Tilaria raised her head. She wasn't aware of what was happening to her brother at the palace, but she could feel the blood in the air. Someone was using blood magic, and a lot of it.
Tilaria stood on the branch and closed her eyes. She focused her thoughts and turned towards the source of the scent. There were no major cities in the direction she was left facing so she curiously hopped from one branch to another up the tree without using her hands, moving as easily as if she were walking up stairs. Once she reached the upper branches, she walked out to the end of one branch. From her new perch she could see above the canopy, and she saw something as she looked in the direction of the scent. There was something else rising above the canopy, and circling around it were black storm clouds that were feeding off the blood.
"Lome Elen," Tilaria whispered and looked at the mountain that rose above the canopy seriously.
Lome Elen was where Anar's base had been, and where Daris had told her to meet him tomorrow night. Wary suddenly, Tilaria narrowed her eyes. It seemed that Daris was up to something after all.
She hoped down below the canopy to her previous perch, and then began to jump from branch to branch, tree to tree, as she moved through the forest in the direction of the mountain. Although she was covering huge a huge distance with every jump there was no visible effort on her part. All Ljósálfr could travel through the forest like this, and she began to use her magic to lengthen her jumps and her speed. From time to time she teleported herself several acres forward.
Something was happening at Lome Elen, and she was certain that Daris was involved. She didn't know what was going on yet, but she wanted to and so she was going to find out.
Eragon is a very special child because as you just saw he has a unbelievable connection to Alfheim. Despite knowing that it will weaken its own lifeforce the realm will still protect Eragon as well as it can. He's one of the only people who the realms will allow him to use true magic with.
Hallien, if not Eragon, might be getting some reinforcements soon. Tilaria is moving through the forest like a shinobi from Naruto, that's how most Light Elves travel when they don't teleport or use portal gates.