Eragon pulled distractedly at the neck of his dress tunic, the one he always wore to banquets and festivals while in Ellesmera. He was worried about Ophelia. He had not heard a word from her since she had been whisked away this afternoon by the guards at the gates to the city and no matter whom he asked or how many times he repeated his queries, he could not ascertain where the elves had taken her, much to his chagrin.
Eragon replayed the guards' reaction to her over and over in his mind: How they had shown her the deference due only to the highest ranking members of the royal family, how they had called her by her mother's name, Evaria, and the looks of shock and awe on their faces when she had told them with extreme bewilderment that they had mistaken her for someone else, that Evaria was her mother's name, not hers. That was when they had taken her and Vanilor away from him despite her protests and said that he could not follow, that he and Saphira must go to their tree home and prepare for a banquet the queen was holding that night in honor of their arrival.
You know, you're going to ruin that shirt if you keep yanking on it like that…or choke yourself to death, Saphira observed from where she was curled up in her dragon bed as she watched him in all his agitated glory, pacing about the study like an idiot.
I can't help it, Saphira, he said, though he did release his now rumpled shirt.
Great. Now it looks like I have slept in my clothing, he groused as he did his best to put his shirt to rights.
Oh Eragon, relax. Saphira said soothingly. You need not worry about Vanilor and Ophelia. I am sure they will do just fine.
I do not doubt them, I just wish I could be with her—I mean them.
Uh-huh.
She has never met another elf before in her life, Saphira, aside from Arya, and tonight she is to be presented to an entire banquet hall full of them, Queen Islanzadi and others of great importance among them!
She? It sounds to me like you are more worried for Ophelia than Vanilor.
Eragon felt his face burn scarlet with embarrassment when he realized he had let himself be found out. Yes, well, Vanilor can—and will—behave however he wishes and no one will think twice about it because: one, he is the most revered of all magical creatures, a dragon; two, he's roughly the size of the Menoa tree; and three, he will rip anyone who dares to question his manners—or lack there of—into shreds with those silver knives he calls talons.
That isn't true, and you know it.
I'm sorry; you are right. The Menoa tree is not nearly as large as Vanilor.
Shut up, you ninny; you are starting to sound like a mother hen, Saphira scolded.
And I really wish you would not say such things of Vanilor, she continued on in a quieter voice. He is not nearly so bad as you make him out to be, and if you allowed yourself the chance to get to know him you would see what he is truly like.
Saphira, he hates me!
He does not hate you, Eragon.
Oh, so he only threatens the lives of those he likes? I suppose it is a miracle, then, that Ophelia has managed to survive this long!
Saphira shook her head at him, but he could see in her eyes and feel through their link that the things he had said about Vanilor, even though he had said them in jest (at least partially, anyway), had hurt her feelings. He knew that she desperately wished for him to like Vanilor as she liked Ophelia, but while Ophelia had not exactly been easy to get to know as a result of her admittedly natural suspicions about him and her secretive ways, Vanilor was about as friendly as a bear that had not eaten in several days.
I am sorry, he said, walking over to where she lay in the tear-drop shaped indention that served as her bed and placing a callused hand on her neck. Truly I am. When I get this on edge, I tend to say things that are senseless. Please forgive me.
There is nothing to forgive, she replied. Smiling, Eragon climbed onto the bed and curled up next to her.
We have a little while before we are expected—how about we take a much needed nap?
Saphira responded by sheltering him with the membrane of her velvety blue wing, her scaly body curling around his.
Eragon nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot while pretending to listen attentively to what an elfin lord of no menial rank had to say about the situation on the Burning Plains. The court had been assembled in the tree shaded banquet hall for almost half an hour and still the guests of honor, or at least the most interesting ones, had not yet appeared. He was so on edge that he was beginning to think of fantastically elaborate reasons for why Ophelia and Vanilor were conspicuously absent—that they had hatched a brilliant and foolproof escape plan the moment they were shown to their quarters and had managed to leave the elfin capital without anyone noticing, for example.
Yeah. Like that could ever happen.
So absorbed was Eragon in his own musings that he did not notice right away when the two he had been so anxiously awaiting had arrived. His head snapped around when everyone present fell completely and utterly silent. Looking quickly down the other end of the hall, he saw Vanilor and Ophelia slowly approaching where he stood with Queen Islanzadi and the many lords and ladies assembled behind her.
The sight of Ophelia made the breath die in his throat. He had never seen her look as she appeared this night. She resembled something out of the mystical fairy stories Brom told Eragon and the other village children of Carvahall in his youth.
She was clad in a flowing dress made of a whispery fabric, ebony in color, with intricate silver embroidery at the cuffs and hem. The neckline of the dress was several inches below her collarbone but not so low as to leave nothing to the imagination—if elves thought like that, which he was almost entirely certain they did not. The back of the dress, however, as Eragon saw once she had moved closer, dipped down to the small of her back, the raven colored fabric making a sharp contrast to the expanse of milky white skin that was revealed. The sleeves of the gown were fitted to the elbow, from which point they noticeably widened. The bodice of the dress clung to her slim torso, while the skirt was loose and the gossamer fine fabric floated down to the ground softly, ending in a train that was long but not obscenely so.
Her long, soft brown hair was pulled into some sort of elaborate knot at the back of her head except for a few shorter pieces left loose in the front to frame her angular face and a section of hair at the nape of her neck a few inches wide which had been left loose to tumble down the middle of her bare back, stopping only where her dress began again.
A sheer ebony veil with tiny star-bursts embroidered all over it in fine silver thread had been placed over her head, though through it Eragon could see that dark black kohl had been smudged around her eyes, increasing their resemblance to those of a cat, and her lips had been painted a pale beige color, giving her face a mono-chromatic look.
Eragon privately thought, much to his own confusion, that she looked lovely beyond all reason, and could barely take his eyes off her.
Your jaw is scraping the ground, Saphira remarked with a low rumble of laughter, clearly amused. You might want to pick it up before someone notices, or trips over it.
She looks different, Eragon returned defensively. That is all.
She said nothing more, though he had a feeling Saphira would have continued to tease him had they been anywhere else. For once he found himself extremely glad to be surrounded by more elves than he could count.
When Ophelia and Vanilor had traversed the long hallway and were standing directly before the elfin court, Eragon was quite surprised when all present aside from Queen Islanzadi sank into deep bows. The surreal situation did not end there; indeed, the queen of the elves, the most stately and dignified creature Eragon had ever beheld, brushed aside Ophelia's attempt at the formal elfish greeting and, ignoring the elfish rules of etiquette, rushed forward and embraced the young maiden with feeling. Pulling back and raising the sheer veil that covered Ophelia's face as though to see her the better, the queen cried, "You are the image of your mother, Ophelia Shur'tugal!"
Recovering herself momentarily, the queen tore her eyes away from Ophelia long enough to address Vanilor.
"I have not forgotten you, mighty skulblaka. What is your name?"
Vanilor, the black dragon said so all could hear, his powerful voice reverberating off the surrounding trees.
"You are a welcome guest in these troubled times, Vanilor," Islanzadi said. Vanilor merely inclined his handsome head in response, proving Eragon's earlier words to Saphira in their quarters (that Vanilor would treat this situation with the same stone-cold indifference as he did any other) entirely correct.
Completely perplexed and shocked into silence, Eragon could do nothing but watch dumbfounded as Queen Islanzadi, placing Ophelia's arm through the crook her own, led the young elfish maiden and her large dragon around, introducing them to elfin lords and ladies who seemed to consider Ophelia's attention the greatest of honors.
Eragon, tearing his eyes away from them, began looking round to the elf he had been speaking to before his traveling companion and friend, as he had come to think of her, had arrived.
"Ophelia svit-kona's mother must have been a lady of some importance among the elves the garner her daughter such an esteemed welcome," Eragon observed, trying to affect an air of unconcern, knowing that the only way in which to get answers from an elf was to beat around the bush until you became mad with impatience.
The lord raised his thin, impeccably groomed blonde eyebrows in surprise at Eragon's remark. "Indeed. Her mother, Lady Evaria, was the beloved sister of the late king, whose people shared his great affection for her."
Eragon did not know why this answer, so free of the teasingly roundabout speech of the elves, surprised him, but it did. Arya, in typical elfish fashion, had led him to believe she did not know the identity of the newly found Dragon Rider. But if Ophelia truly were the image of her mother, as the queen had professed her to be, Arya must have known that Ophelia was not only a fellow elf, but her cousin, the daughter of her father's sister, as well! However, upon further reflection, his indignation dissipated—he could not exactly blame Arya for not wishing to disclose the fact that not only was Ophelia a Dragon Rider, but the lost daughter of an elfin princess, on the Burning Plains, where unwelcome ears were prone to listen in on private conversations.
After some time of standing deep in thought, the movement of the elves assembled around him toward the long banquet tables covered in every imaginable vegetarian dish, for the elves ate no meat, was enough to force Eragon to abandon his ruminations. He was seated across from Ophelia, each of them having been given places of honor on either side of the queen.
Before the feasting began he managed to catch Ophelia's eye and give her a reassuring smile, which, much to his surprise, she returned with a rather shy one of her own, making his stomach drop to the vicinity of his feet. The queen, however, obviously had no intention of allowing Eragon to monopolize the attention of her niece, for the moment they were all seated Islanzadí kept up a steady commentary about the other elves of bearing up at their end of the table for her niece's benefit.
Not feeling much like talking, Eragon occupied himself with his meal before looking down the table to where Vanilor stood with Saphira, the two of them sharing some sort of large vegetable pie. The elves seated around the two dragons looked upon them with reverence and awe, showering them with kind words and compliments. Saphira seemed to be having the time of her life, as she always did when in the company of the elves who worshipped her as though a goddess, but the look on Vanilor's reptilian face was nothing short of comical. Used to seeing most creatures in somewhat human form cowering in fear of his awesome stature, he seemed to view the elves' behavior towards himself and Saphira as excessively odd and was obviously at a loss to how he should respond. He finally settled for ignoring them entirely and tending only to his dinner, which the elves did not seem to mind at all. In fact, his taciturn nature, in addition to his commanding presence, seemed only to increase their admiration.
Eragon, for his part, was extremely relieved that the topic of conversation at dinner never strayed to truly dangerous territory, such as Ophelia's past and what had happened to her after her mother's death or how she had come across Vanilor's egg. At least the well-born and high-ranking among the elves, unlike their human counterparts in the Varden, seemed to value discretion as more than just a noun in the dictionary. And while he himself was rather impatient to know the answer to all of those questions (and so much more) concerning Ophelia, he also understood that a celebratory feast was not the place for such information to be requested or revealed.
All will be revealed in the due course of time, I suppose, he said to himself, not particularly satisfied with even his own answer. He sighed inwardly.
When the feast was over and the earthenware plates and dishes had been cleared away, the soft and soothing music that had played all throughout dinner grew louder and changed into something more suitable for dancing, which is exactly what many of the elves began to do. Eragon, content to just watch, leaned back in his chair, though Queen Islanzadí seemed to have plans for him.
"There is no greater pleasure for one in my position than to watch my people enjoy themselves, especially in these troubled times. Come, Eragon," the queen said, addressing him, "do not sit there observing—there will be plenty of time for that when you are old and grey. Do not deprive me the pleasure of watching you—Ophelia may be your partner. If she is half as graceful as Evaria, she will be a magnificent sight to behold."
With that, the old queen placed Ophelia's thin, white hand in his own much larger one, leaving neither much choice but to oblige her wishes. Gently pulling Ophelia from her seat, Eragon led her to where the other young elves were dancing.
Seeming to recover from her shock, Ophelia said in a panicked whisper, "Eragon, I cannot do this! They seem to forget that I am not my mother—I will make a fool of myself trying to dance when I do not know how!"
"Shh, it will be all right, Ophelia," Eragon said in what he hoped was a soothing whisper, gently squeezing her hand reassuringly. Her grip tightened on his fingers, as though cutting off the circulation in his hand would save her from making a fool of herself in front of her kinsmen. Luckily the stars smiled down upon them, for at that moment the elves launched into a soft, almost sad melody on some sort of stringed instrument that closely resembled a violin in sound.
"Just follow my lead," he said quietly.
He pulled on her hand gently, bringing her around to face him, and moved one of his hands down to rest on her thin waist. He frowned when he felt the bone of her hip pressing firmly against his hand through the material of her dress; she needed to eat more. Her slight figure put the thinnest of the elfin ladies present to shame, which Eragon did not find a good thing at all. All thoughts of Ophelia's still slight figure, however, flew from Eragon's mind as they began to move in unison with the other pairs around them.
Despite Ophelia's obvious worry, it appeared as though Islanzadí had been quite correct when she guessed that Ophelia moved with remarkable grace even for one unacquainted with the movements of the dance. She kept her eyes locked on Eragon's the entire time, seeming to worry that if she were to break her gaze from his it would send her crashing to the ground.
To distract her from her nerves and himself from the odd feeling that being so near to her gave him, Eragon attempted to keep up a steady flow of conversation whilst they danced.
"You look stunning," he said without thinking and automatically wanted to kick himself. Out of all of the things he could have chosen to say, why on earth had that been it?
His annoyance quickly turned into confusion, however, when Ophelia's alabaster cheeks flushed pink and she quietly replied, "Thank you. You look very handsome as well."
Handsome? Eragon asked himself, feeling both pleased and uncertain. She thinks I'm handsome?
Of course you are handsome, Saphira, who was never far from Eragon's thoughts, replied indignantly, as though shocked he had any doubts to the pleasantness of his own appearance. Any woman who cannot see that is blind and stupid to boot.
And I suppose you are not biased at all in my favor? he teasingly replied before tuning Saphira out and turning his attention back to his partner.
"Your dress is lovely," he forged on. "I suppose the elves gave it to you—I mean—I doubt you have been carrying evening ware fit to be worn at the elfin court around with you for the past few weeks."
Ophelia managed a small smile.
"No, I cured myself of the habit of carrying around luxurious evening gowns on my travels long ago," she responded teasingly.
"When they led you away, where did they take you? I was worried for you being in a strange place by yourself, and no one would tell me where you were and they refused to allow me to see you."
"Yes, when Vanilor and I were so unceremoniously taken from you before, they led him to a large chamber that had been prepared especially for him to rest in before dragging me off to my mother's old apartments, which have been left untouched since her disappearance. There I was divested of my traveling clothes, and while they were preparing me for the banquet, Queen Islanzadí came to see me, for as soon as the guards handed me over to the ladies in waiting, they ran immediately to the queen to tell her of the identity off the new Dragon Rider. She thought it would be best, however, if we were to pretend to meet for the first time in front of the other lords and nobles. As a matter of fact, it was she who insisted I wear this dress and veil tonight, as it was my mother's brother the king's favorite gown to see her in, much to the vexation of those who had to alter the dress a bit to fit me."
The moment she finished speaking, the song ended, robbing Eragon of a chance to respond and forcing him to release her. Placing her hand in the crook of his arm, he began to lead her back to where the queen sat when a large raven, as white as Vanilor was black, swooped down upon their heads, screeching a word in the ancient language Eragon had not remembered hearing before, though it certainly was not his usual cry of wyrda, the word in the Ancient language that meant 'fate'. Eragon ducked his head, muttering a dwarfish curse as he pulled Ophelia against his chest to keep the silly bird from whacking her about the head with its snowy wings.
"Blagden!" the elf queen called out sharply, holding out her arm as a sign for the bird to stop harassing her guests and come to take his perch beside her.
"What on earth was that?" Ophelia demanded in a whisper as she stepped away from him.
Eragon looked around and noted with some embarrassment that every pair of eyes in the hall were now fixed on himself and Ophelia thanks to Blagden's attack. Deciding the best course of action would be to pretend like the incident had never occurred, Eragon took Ophelia's hand in his own and headed over to the queen once more, their assailant sitting on the monarch's right shoulder.
"Not 'what,' but 'who,'" Eragon remarked quietly, unable to keep his face from twisting into a wry expression. "That would be Blagden, the pet bird of the ruling family, having been so since he saved the life of your uncle many years ago. As a reward for his bravery, he was given the ability to speak and can predict the future as well. The magic is what turned his feathers white. It seems these days, though, his sole purpose in life is to make memorable scenes at banquets and speak in annoying riddles no living being can decipher."
Ophelia snorted with laughter at his last remark but was forced to immediately compose herself as they were back in hearing range of the queen. Eragon vaguely heard the monarch apologize for Blagden's rude behavior before commenting on how lovely Ophelia was and how well the two of them looked together. After continuing on in this manner for a while, Islanzadí suddenly exclaimed at the lateness of the hour and how exhausted they must be after their long journey. Eragon offered to escort Ophelia and Vanilor back to their quarters, which no one seemed to regard as amiss despite the fact that he did not know the way.
A/N: Some what of a cliffhanger, I know, but this chapter was getting too long and I had to cut it half. Hopefully it will not take me long to post the next chapter. Until then, enjoy, and if you like, review! I value all feedback I am given!
