I Who Should Not Be
Chapter 28
I can't feel anything.
I don't know how long I have been falling. It feels like forever, but I'm falling so fast that it could have been seconds. My head's all messed up. I can't think straight for very long before my mind jumps to something else.
My Same⦠My Cain. My beautiful mad brother. He said that the Tame that I was with would get me killed. He said that they were going to use me just as the Pack used me. But I said then that I didn't care. I still don't. I protected them.
No.
I protected him.
Murtagh was the one that I was protecting that day. The day the thing in the dark tunnels bit me and filled my blood with icy poison. I had told him to run. Then he came back. And he took me back to the city, where I held on for two more days.
I remember being in so much pain. I was always cold, but whenever somebody tried to warm me, however gently, I felt like I was being set aflame. The room was kept blessedly dim, and I could open my eyes and see the others. Faces weren't very clear, but I could still smell what they felt.
They tried so hard.
Arya tried to get me warmed. She chanted spells and put heated blankets over me. She even got under the blankets herself and lay with her belly to my back. It hurt. I think I bit her once or twice.
Eragon tried to figure out what poisoned me. I wanted to tell him about the creatures with spider bodies and elf faces, but I could hardly stand to move. Speaking hurt too. Twice I felt like I was falling asleep, then my mouth was moving on it's own. I knew what my voice was saying, but a distant part of my mind remembered that I could not speak the language that was passing my lips.
I knew I was dying then. The Guides are often used to give warnings. Spirits know when we are close to death, and use our voices to make themselves known to those who are blind and deaf to them. That is, in essence, our only purpose. To die and to allow the spirits a voice that mortal ears will hear.
Murtagh. He tried to get me to eat. To drink. To do anything, really. At first, I tried to eat the soft boiled grains that he gave me to please him. But when I tried to swallow that second painful bite, my throat closed and I could not. After that, I vomited out my agony, and from the smell of it, blood.
Murtagh had left to get some rest when it happened. I looked at Arya and felt suddenly like I was sinking into a warm bath. It didn't hurt, so I didn't fight it. The blurry room was darkening quickly. I thought I was falling asleep at first. Then I felt something tugging from inside me. Once, twice, three times. Then I felt myself release my body and drift.
I'm surprised I remember what I do. I have been thinking while I've been falling through the mist.
I think that I had a choice as to what would happen to me. I could go and live in the past, as another Wild spirit that protected the lands and creatures that it was so fond of in life. Or, I could live in the world that was slowly becoming my home, and protect all that had become so dear to me. I chose to protect my new home, my new family.
No.
I chose to protect him.
To protect Murtagh.
Not for the first time, I wonder what will happen. After I find the ground, will I have to walk to wherever it is that I am going? Or will I just fall into my home?
I make a face as I feel something jerk inside me. It isn't the gentle insistent tug that I felt when I died. It was a rough yank, like I was being pulled on by an angry spirit that I had previously ignored. I tried to push it away, thinking that I saw a few flashes of dark and light hair, and some green of vegetable gardens and grey of stone floors. I was almost there! I could smell them! I could even hear a few voices!
Then the jerking came again, harder this time. When I tried to fight it, it tied my insides into a knot and pulled harder. Then I heard a voice. It didn't come from below me, but rather from beside me, as if somebody was whispering in my ear.
"Open your eyes."
