Eka Taji Ono


At the very edge of the Ridge of Galdrí was a sword stuck fast to the stone. Its blade buried a quarter deep in the rock and an empty skull wedged over the handle. Bleached from the sun and smooth from the years, it sat unstaring over the city to the northeast, forlorn and forgotten. Once a golden crown had rested on the intricately crafted hilt, marking it the place where a great king had fallen, but Galbatorix had stolen that crown long ago. Unable to remove the sword, he'd taken the crown and melted it down; whispers said he'd used the gold to cast the coins that littered the land and lined the pockets of the rich. In place of the crown Galbatorix had cut the head off her father's corpse and thrust it over the handle, burying the jade stone pommel with rotting brains.

Arya had never had the courage to visit the death-spot before now. She'd grown up knowing of its existence – knowing how her father had stood where she stood now and made that fatal mistake of hesitating when it came to striking Galbatorix down. The Oath-Breaker had seized on the chance and slain the King; moving so fast, the stories said, that between one blink and the next, Galbatorix had plunged his sword through Evander's heart.

Eragon liked coming up here because he said the view of the surrounding lands was unhindered; he could study the terrain and plan his attacks and his war in uninterrupted peace and silence. Arya knew he'd brought her up here now so his army camped below didn't interrupt them … or hear them. His face had been bleak and stony ever since he'd marched out of the pavilion in the wake of Orik's admissions.

"I take it you heard what he said?"

Arya tore her eyes from her father's death-place to look at Eragon. For an instant another image flashed before her; a field of the lifeless, snow stained red, and a sapphire sword jutting sharply from the frozen ground.

Her voice fumbled slightly. "I can hear an ant crawl from fifty mile away."

"Don't exaggerate."

Arya clenched her jaw. Damn it all to the stars, why did he have to stare at her so? Like she was the only thing that mattered in the entire universe? She wanted to hit him. She wanted to kiss him. He'd had his hair cut since she'd last seen him – cropped short at the back and sides, and yet still long enough on the top for her to twist her fingers through it. The scar that marked the passage of Zar'roc when it severed the tip of Eragon's ear was unmissable now; a thin ropy line that ran from near enough the back of his head to the top of his cheek bone.

Eragon was waiting expectantly for her response.

"Yes I heard. Someone hired a knife for me." And because she knew it would irritate him, because this was not how she'd intended to spend her day with him, because she had been awake all through the dark hours unable to settle into sleep, she shrugged carelessly and added; "So what? People have been plotting against me my whole life. There's nothing new about it."

He laughed incredulously; "And – and that makes it alright?"

"I didn't say that!" Arya kicked savagely at a clump of snow and rolled her eyes. "Look. For what it's worth, I know who's behind it all. I know who supplied the gold – I also know how much gold –" not enough in Arya's opinion, "and I know the name of the man it was paid to. Some idiot currently wasting his new gold trying to drink himself a spine."

Eragon unfolded his arms and reached for her, "So tell me," he said, hands resting on her shoulders as he drew her close. "Tell me his name and I will deal with him! I'll deal with this whole thing."

She went cold.

Jerking out of his arms, she backed away. "I don't need you to deal with it!"

He shook his head incredulously, "So – so you're happy are you? Happy to just wonder around knowing there's a man out to kill you? Are you completely without sense?"

Touched to the quick, Arya lashed back. "I'm not the naive idiot who let Murtagh go out of some sense of pity!"

Something dark and cold flashed behind Eragon's eyes. "Are you sure you want to go there?"

"Are you sure you want to continue on the path you're treading?" she retorted.

Through gritted teeth he said; "Someone is planning to kill you … so I think yes. I think I'm going to stay on this path despite your unwarranted hostility about it."

Arya scoffed. Unwarranted hostility indeed. "They don't want me dead Eragon, they –"

"They." He interrupted. "Cahk wydra! Who are they?"

"Idiots that's who." It was a combined effort on the parts of The Reorder for Kelwien and Talaís Skulblaka, as well as a few other minor alliances, but Eragon wouldn't know who or what those groups meant – she wasn't even sure what they truly meant or wanted – and trying to explain would diverge the argument further afield altogether. "And they don't want to kill me outright, they just want to stop me from ever having a child."

"And the easiest way to do that is to kill you!" he countered, now visibly straining to smother his irritation. Arya knew he wasn't so much angry at her as he was afraid for her safety. Unfortunately she was too riddled with her own fears to give much thought on his. Why did he have to pick a fight now? Yes she was spoiling for one but not with him – not with him when she was half gone with the worry and fear that Lëyri had ensnared him back to her bed.

"The easiest way to do that is drive a dagger into my gut!" she snapped back; her eyes moist and a gaping abyss opening slowly in her belly.

Eragon laughed and shook his head again. "Oh, oh well then. That makes everything a thousand times better! I won't bother to worry for you then."

Arya closed her eyes and clenched her fist, holding back on the whirl of frustration that was swarming her. "I don't need this from you Eragon." She said through clenched teeth. Her body shivered but Arya didn't think it was from the cold. "Not when Orik is strutting about the place proclaiming me to be my mother. Or while Nasuada begs me to deal with the remains of Galbatorix government that lurk in her own entourage."

She opened her eyes, jaw stiff, eyes burning, and added, "Not to mention how Däthedr thinks I'm plotting to take the throne back from him, and how the elven court lords are either toying with me, humouring me, or informing me that I don't know what I'm doing! I don't need you to be an over protective prick when everything is already so damn stinking difficult!"

For the first time in a long time, Arya felt a stab of grief that sent her to her knees; she missed her mother terribly. After a long moment, warmth encircled her as she felt Eragon wrap his arms around her shoulders and pull her to him; he sat with a little grunt on the snow beside her and pressed his cold nose against her cheek.

"Talk to me," he whispered into her neck, rocking them both slightly, all hint of irritation gone.

What could she say? It was all her fault.

"I could have done something."

"Like what?"

"I could have tried!" She flung it out there across the horizon for all the world to hear if they wished to. "I could have at least tried when I had the chance … instead I just … I did what little I could get away with and … under my nose everyone became backstabbing lechers no better than the worms that festered in the Oath-Breaker's court."

Eragon held her tightly, his chest rising and falling against her back as they sat in the snow. "You told me once," he began quietly, his words careful and chosen, "that every word elves say, every choice they make, is but one part of a greater, more elaborate whole. A plot generations in the making. Is it really going to be so different in the other courts? All of what's happening is just that. People wait for the chance to seize more power, and the best way to seize it is when someone dies, or when war erupts. This is not your fault."

"It feels like it is," she told him, "Feels like everything is crumbling down around me and it's my fault because I could have done something years ago, but I was too selfish and self-centred to care or notice the foundations were crumbling. Everything is falling apart around us." Her words were bitter and echoed the loathing she felt at her choices. Umaroth had said it; had she tried things wouldn't be on the verge of toppling now. Had she tried, none of this would be happening.

But now she was trying, nothing seemed to be getting any better. Arya wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.

"Not everything," Eragon whispered. "Not us. Not Oromis. Not the dragons."

Arya wanted to laugh. "And where are they? Not here. Not helping. Everything is a big stinking pile of mess and …" she sighed and buried her face in her hands for a moment. "What did we do wrong?" It was a rhetorical question; she knew perfectly well what. But a furious righteousness swelled up in Eragon.

"Nothing!" He pressed. "We did everything that was asked of us and more – you being queen would not have changed their ambitions. It isn't your fault!"

Arya pushed him away and got her feet. His hold, while warm and comforting, was also stifling and unhelpful. Her agitation and frustration made it difficult to articulate what she wanted to say, made it hard for her to get the words out right so he could understand. He meant well, but their lack of communication was only serving to increase Arya's frustration, and in time she knew it would re-spark Eragon's too.

"So what? You say it's not my fault – yet I'm the one they want to fix it. I'm the one the people in the streets want in charge. It's my name they whisper. Mine and yours. But whatever we do – it's not enough! It won't ever be enough!"

Eragon was calm when he shrugged his shoulders and inclined his head in agreement. "Maybe. But I've come to wonder … perhaps true peace – the kind you dream of – perhaps it's just merely an abstract concept. Something that can only ever be dreamed. Maybe it's something we can never truly achieve and …" Eragon licked his lips and trailed off, staring absently at Evander's old sword.

"And?"

Eragon sat like a child with his legs spread apart. He jolted at Arya's edgy prompting and collected a handful of snow, patting and moulding it into a compact ball. "Maybe," he said to the snow, "Maybe we're not meant to, you and I."

Arya snorted, "Then who?" she demanded. "If not us, then who?"

He took care with his forming sphere of snow, his gloved thumb running over the surface to check the curve as he added more snow to the mound. Arya sighed impatiently, and stamped her feet in the cold; her hands jammed under her armpits in an attempt to keep them warm. Her nose felt numb and the tips of her ears were chilled red raw. After a long moment of glaring at him while he worked, Eragon glanced up at her and said, "Our son."

The breath seemed to whoosh out of her. Her lungs were stuck in the suspension of the moment between exhale and inhale. The world seemed to grind to a halt beneath her feet and everything – from the biting wind to the faint clamour of the arm camp below – fell into roaring silence.

They hadn't spoken of children; they hadn't had the time nor the need. Though Arya could now admit she'd loved him for years, this thing between them was still new. Still fresh and somewhat frail with uncertainty. Such talk was best left to a time not fraught with war and uncertainty. But with Lëyri's snide comments festering into doubt, and the proclamation from the Masters of Word about some messiah son she would carry, having a child of her own – having Eragon's child – was never far from her thoughts.

It's a shame, Lëyri had said, but then, if you couldn't give Fäolin one, what hope do you have of giving one to anyone else. Perhaps he knows that. Maybe that's why he's come back to me. I can give him a child. Can you? Has he even told you he loves you yet? Why would he … if he knows the truth …

Everything seemed suddenly to be directed inwards. She could feel the way her body had frozen tense, how she'd stooped slightly, as though curling in on herself to better protect her vulnerability. Her heart hammered loudly against her ribs, and her lungs seemed to have forgotten how to work; rather than a slow steady rhythm, quick shallow breaths were echoing loudly in her ears as a prickling behind her eyes brought her sharply out of the moment.

"Our son?" she repeated hoarsely. Of all the times to bring up … an uncontrollable urge to move overcame her, yet at the same time Arya felt that if she did move, she'd fall apart. The fingers of her left hand tapped repetitively against her right bicep as she forced herself to look at Eragon. His narrowed eyes did not fail to notice how she was brimming with nervous energy.

She had to tell him.

"A dream that will never happen."

He was up and standing before her quicker than she could blink. A hand on her arm, another under her chin lifting her head so she'd meet his eye. "What do you mean? Has something happened – Did Morzan or Murtagh or even Durza …?"

Arya wavered, her head resting on his chest for a second as she forced her lungs to function correctly, overcome with his concern for her wellbeing. She'd expected Eragon to walk away the instant he was made aware of her shortcoming. By the bright blue stars she loved him terribly. "No," she half gasped, half laughed, "Nothing like that I …" she fiddled absently with the fastenings of his jerkin and spoke to their feet and the trampled snow.

"As children we're blessed with gifts and spells – you saw Dusan and Alanna in Ellesméra, it's easier to see in the obviously young. They're still abound with those enchantments now … As am I." She dared a peek up at Eragon and found him watching her unblinkingly. But whereas in the years before his reactions and opinions had been easy to read from his expressions, he was now closed and straight-faced before her. Arya dropped her gaze again. "All the usual spiel and …"

"By the usual spiel you mean the enchantments woven in to protect from endangerment while yet not hampering exploration and learning?"

Arya nodded, "But because I was the king's first child I was … blessed with fertility." With a little snort of annoyance Arya added, "Apparently my father wanted a dynasty. Only … only that particular 'blessing' it didn't … it didn't work. I can't …"

She had spent hours and hours, which turned to days, trying to figure it all out. Trying to explain and justify how Lëyri could be wrong – and yet all she'd done was confirm that woman's words were the truth. Set aside the fact that until the woman had brought it up, Arya had never considered if she even wanted a child of her own. Knowing it wasn't possible was breaking her heart.

"You know this how?" Eragon asked somewhat abruptly.

Arya lifted her gaze to meet his, a needle of fear running down her spine from his tone. She licked her cold lips and dropped her sight to the top of her father's skull, coated in a white dusting of gentle snow. The empty eye sockets gaped at her in the same unyielding force that Eragon was now watching her with. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and smothered the rising panic.

"All the times Fäolin and I – I …" she took a shaking breath. Uncomfortably aware of how Eragon seemed to have stopped breathing, and of how he'd dropped his hands from her and backed away several steps. The prickling behind her eyes returned as she forced her self to finish. "Twenty years. Twenty years I was with him and – and nothing. Not ever. Not once."

Eragon rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Maybe the spells have conditions and limitations?" he shrugged. "Maybe you're wrong in your assumption. Aren't children meant to be the ultimate vow of love among your people?"

A fury rose within her; with two long strides she was close enough to Eragon to shove him. The stupid bastard was built like a stone wall however, and hardly budged despite all of Arya's strength going into the effort. "Are you saying my love for him wasn't true?" Because she had loved Fäolin, of course she'd loved him. "Bastard!" she cured and hit him again.

"I … there could be many reasons," Eragon said gruffly, "Maybe the fault wasn't with you but with him?" he added dismissively.

Had he –? Was he really …? Shaking her head in disbelief Arya turned her back on him and strode across to the other side of the ridge. Idiot. Utter, utter idiot. This was why she'd never told him what Fäolin had truly meant to her.

"I'm not jealous!" he called after her.

"No?" she snorted, whirling around.

"It was a valid point! Takes two people to make a child and I highly doubt your mother would allow a spell to be put on you they weren't sure would work and … look. Just –" Eragon shook his head and stamped heavily on a clump of snow. "Just … forget I said anything."

"So you are jealous?"

"No!"

She didn't believe him.

"I don't want to talk about a man I've never met, especially not one you spent two decades …" he cast about for the right word, and Arya maintained her glaring. "Two decades … cavorting with!" Eragon shook his head again and laughed. "Is there anything wrong with that? I have no opinion of him and I don't want to talk any more about it!"

Frustration gave way to indignant rage. "So I can't talk about cavorting with Fäolin, but you –" At this Arya marched all the way back over to him and jabbed him hard in the chest. "You can come back after sixteen years and parade around with the woman who started warming your bed the instant Alagaësia faded from view!"

Least he had the decency to splutter. "I don't … not about her! This has – you … you never – I thought you …"

"That I what?" the nervous energy thrumming through her had been turned to shaking anger. If she had been less forgone in the depths of her whirlpool of emotion, Arya would have seen how very close Eragon was nearing to his own fuse blowing. As it was she didn't care. It was oddly therapeutic, to shout and scream at him, to fight over something so stupid as his envy of Fäolin and hers of Lëyri. Because shouting at him like this was easier than dealing with what truly upset her.

"Oh it must have been so terrible for you, having her throw herself at you like that day and night! What was a young hero to do?"

That dark and cold something flashed in Eragon's again. His defensiveness turned to an aggressive attack in retaliation. "I made my position to her clear from the start! I told you everything, only to find now that you've been keeping things from me! Why bring her up? Now? I haven't thought of her in months – for all I know she's back in Ceris or wherever she comes from with that child of hers. Yet that's clearly not enough. Clearly she's not out of sight enough for you. Why does she bother you?"

"She doesn't bother me!"

"Clearly she does."

"No she doesn't!" It wasn't that he'd found someone else while he'd been away, Arya knew that wasn't it – it was the condition in which that woman had returned that tickled her nerves. A tickling that had turned to a glaring personal insult four days ago.

"Well she does or you'd never have brought her up! So either you're lying, or you're being petty. Which is it? See I think you're being petty. I think you accuse me of being jealous when it's you who has the problem. I think because you –"

"She was pregnant Eragon! She was fucking pregnant!"

Her words rang in the air between them.

And again everything turned inwards; shaking breaths echoing loudly in her ears; her heart stampeding so fast she felt she'd explode from it. She felt the blood pumping down her legs, along her arms. Through her fingers and across her palms. Arya could feel her organs vibrate with the energy and yet while her body was alive with rage and fear and hurt and love; she was still as a statue. Frozen in horror from what had just come out her mouth.

What had she done?

He stood there across from her, quietly shaking his head, mouth slightly agape and a look of surprise and incredulity upon his features. It looked as though someone had just slapped him round the face because he'd held the door open for them. And in some ways she supposed she had; rather than talk to him about how she felt about Lëyri when he'd first returned from the East, she'd said nothing. Any moment now, Arya was sure, he would turn on his heel and walk away. Away back to her. To that woman. The one who'd caused all this to happen in the first place.

Say something! She screamed at him silently. Unbidden the tears that had been hovering behind her eyes now fell one by one and Arya had not the courage to move in order to wipe them away. If she moved he might suddenly bolt – like a deer who senses its stalker among the brush, and so flees without thought and without warning. Such a stupid, stupid thing to say.

The cold wind whipped across the top of the ridge. Evander's skull rattled on the pommel of the dead king's sword, spinning wildly, its leering grin fixed like a maniac's as it spun and spun. Laughing at her for being so foolish. So childish. Arya blinked furiously in an attempt to stop the crying; her shoulders were now shaking as she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. What had she done?

"Not with my child." His words, calm and cold and emotionless, came from nowhere and she gasped back a choked sob. He hadn't stormed off yet.

But Arya seemed unable to prevent herself from opening her mouth yet again. "What difference does that make?" His closed expression hardened further and Arya wanted to throw herself into the pit opening in her stomach. "I still have to be there and listen to it all! Watch her with that child she still claims is yours. Listen to Líften and Narí gossip about the whispers from the streets saying you're still in her bed."

"Don't you know the difference between truth and lies anymore Dröttningu? Are you really as broken as you think you are?"

Arya looked away, cut to the core. He hadn't denied the rumours though. Her nose was running and her chest spazaming with supressed sobs; the view towards Ilirea was blurred and distorted. "Maybe. But I spent sixteen years waiting for you …"

Eragon cut across her sharply. "Perhaps you should have spent all those years taking heed of your court, rather than pining after me." He had to keep digging didn't he? Had to keep kicking when she was down. Bastard. Stinking bastard.

"Maybe if you'd never fled like a coward in the first place!"

"I had to go!"

"And I had to stay!"

Panting as though she'd just been chased through the Spine by Durza, Arya stared at Eragon as a memory came from the depths of her childhood.

There are two kinds of anger, her mother had told her calmly one evening, one is wet and the other is dry.

Shaking her mother's words away, Arya shuddered. "I had to stay and I had to wait for you to come back … There was no word - nothing, just waiting. Only when you did … you just … you …" a fresh wave of helpless sorrow crashed into her, making her double over with it all. "Why did it have to be her? Beautiful and stunning and charming Lëyri of Nädindel. Why her?"

In a voice cold with calm he repeated; "That child is not mine."

"So Oromis says!"

Like a tree that has been besieged by a tempest, it'll bend and creak and take a battering, swinging wildly but with its roots firmly holding fast to the earth. But when a certain point is reached, the tree will rip from the earth and crash to the ground in an almighty thunder that will shake the earth and rattle the roots of the forest around it. So it was with Eragon.

"So the whole damn world says! There is not a drop of the dragons in that boy. One look and any fool can see!" Even the wind seemed to pause in response to the power and fury that Eragon let loose. Arya trembled back a step from it, unsure if she was truly afraid of him, or if her own turmoil of emotion was affecting her judgment.

"Why did it have to be her?"

Eragon's eyes bulged. His face distorted into something akin to contempt as he shook his head at her yet again in disgust and disappointment. "Because she was there! Because she was there and she wanted me and you didn't!"

"That's no damn reason!"

"So no one has warmed your bed Arya?" he was stalking towards her now. A hunter with his prey cornered and defenceless. "Not a soul between me and Fäolin?" Heart in her throat, Arya looked away only for his voice to sear through her as rough hands jerked her head back round to his. "Look at me!"

The wind howled. Biting, snatching, grabbing at their clothes, slapping at their exposed skin. The bitter cold of winter however was unfelt for they burned brightly with a blaze of emotion that staved off the chill.

"Why bring this up?" Eragon demanded harshly, his fingers holding her face to his while his other hand wrapped firmly round her upper arm. "Why? I …" he panted and then deflated, the wind stopped and snow hung gently in the air around them. Eragon pressed his brow against hers, clinging to her so tightly she thought she'd break; it was as if he was afraid she'd vanish if he let go. His voice broke and looking up Arya saw the unshed tears in his own eyes to match the ones still streaming down her cheeks.

"The only one I have ever wanted is you … when I dream of children, those children are yours – ours. Anyone else is … I … eka taji ono."

Those words weren't magic, but they had more effect in stilling her mind and restoring her reason than any spell could. With a shudder Arya fell into him, letting her sobs wrack through her body as he held onto her with all the strength he could muster. Into her hair he murmured over and over, "Eka taji ono … eka taji ono … eka taji ono …"

I love you I love you I love you.


A / N : my apologies for taking so long. This chapter has essentially been the bane of my life; it's gone through so many versions and drafts. At one point it was over 9000 words long! Anyway. If I don't upload it now I'll never be happy with it so here you go. I think we can all agree that Lëyri should not have been given the time of day. If I had been more organised I would have written the Lëyri/Arya confrontation where in Arya has that revelation which then causes this argument. Oh well. Moving on! Hope you enjoyed it.