A/N This is a shorter one. The story arc is now fleshed out, and the ending is planned.
-X-
Eragon woke to feel rested and noticed a slight tugging to the wards he'd placed upon Arya and Fírnen. When he checked, five hours had elapsed. Good, he had intended for Arya to have more time than he'd given so that she would hurry. Eragon sat up from Saphira stomach and walked towards the clearing, noticing the frown of concentration and frustration in Arya's expression.
-X-
"You need not try, Arya. You will not be able to break the bind." Eragon said calmly.
After a short while of intense eye contact, Arya gave up her pride and conceded. He was undoubtedly more powerful than her. He held the contact when he slept! If he had used outside energy he wouldn't have been able to do that. She lowered her head in defeat. She had to accept this. As he had said, it was not that she had a choice. She felt the wards disappear and tumbled back, realizing she hadn't used her own body muscles to sit. She had been held by magic, his magic. She frowned and looked up from the ground. "Where is Lord Däthedr?" Silence greeted his question "No matter, I can contact him later, how did your conversation go? What deals and political advances have been made?" Eragon asked. After a fierce fight within herself, she answered as monotonous as she could. "Currently not much has changed, except the throne has been passed on to Däthedr-" at her mention of the new King so casually she interjected, "The first thing he ordered me to do as King of the Elves was that our relationship should stay casual and familiar." She explained, then he indicated she should continue "We arranged the support of some of the more neutral and less active houses, and created a foundation for Däthedr's rule. If I am honest, a more sturdy foundation than mine. Mine was created and made by sorrow and emotion, something we pride ourselves on setting aside for important duties. I ascended to fail." She said with more emotion in her voice and heart than she had spoken in 70 years. "I was angry yesterday and still am today, Eragon. You did something I swore would never happen to me. Something that also had been sworn to me. To never obey, to follow." She said, trying to convey the depth of her rage and fury. "You are not obeying Arya. You are following your own laws. Laws you swore when you ascended the throne to never defile. Your ascendancy to the throne was not only based on poor choice and emotion but illegal. By elven laws no less. Do not trouble yourself with who forced you to realise reality and who manipulated you into an illusion. Often you cannot expect people to behave rationally, and yes even the elves are guilty of this, so do not expect them to." Eragon said calmly. It felt like he'd thrown a log into her stomach then had Saphira balance on it. When had Eragon gained such a tongue? He should be nervous around her. Ready to her whim, not that she would dare utilise such an obsession. She would never… He had pointed out faults with her logic. Her logic. Something she trusted more than she trusted elves in general, and if she was honest, more than Fírnen. She gaped at him, completely lost for words.
"Well if you are done here, I will go contact King Däthedr. We will be leaving an hour after Fírnen returns." Eragon said and grabbed his mirror. As an afterthought, he shouted to her "Don't forget to oil the saddle".
-X-
Did we do the right thing? I feel as if I am forcing an outcome that fate has deemed unnecessary? I don't feel like Oromis. Calm, collected, wise and accepting. I feel like I am preparing for conflict. No, that I am preparing a conflict.
Eragon lay pondering. Däthedr as he had kindly ordered him to refer to, had agreed that Arya's ascendancy was illegitimate but something the right elves would mourn. He'd emphasised the right elves, subtly acknowledging the problem with some of the more influential and radical thinking houses.
Before the ritual and the completion of the journey. I felt as if the elves were the right thinking and scarily logical. Now its all muddled and political. If they are a fraction as bad as they used to be, then I need Arya to complete her journey fast, preferably Murtagh too.
At that moment one of Eragon's alert wards triggered. He sprinted into camp, to see that Fírnen had arrived. "When did you arrive Fírnen?!" Eragon said indicating that now was not the time for imprecise answers. When Fírnen' answers indicated that he wasn't the one who triggered the wards, Eragon cast a forgotten spell. A spell shared only within the highest members of the rider order. As had become custom, if he needed to maintain his cover of slight ignorance, he cast with practised eased the spell without using the ancient language.
Another rider secret was the true nature of spell casting. Seeing a worried and determined expression on Eragon's face, Arya asked "What's wrong? Do you sense something? I'll admit haven't been checking it doesn't feel like there is anything." Saving the shock that Arya openly admitted to a fault or lapse of judgement, Eragon countered.
"My wards. It feels like we have company. They detect something." Eragon kept staring in the direction, where he'd first felt the incursion. Slowly the forested area began to light up, but no creature or person appeared. An eye-burning light soon appeared with a spirit.
Eragon waved slightly with his left when he felt Arya and Fírnen stirring, and fighting his bind. Then everything went eerily quiet. Every sound disappeared. The birds chirping, ceased. Saphira and Fírnen' breath grew silent. The spirit circled the tree crowns and flew around seemingly without a purpose. Then suddenly it bolted for Eragon.
Immediately fear crept into his being before his training kicked in. A spirit does not have a limit to its potential power. No matter what wards and defences Eragon puts up, the spirit will tear it down and kill him. If it so desired. There is no stopping a spirit. With a million thoughts thought in a fraction of a second, he accepted whatever was about to happen. If he died, then he died. If he lived then he lived. There was no opportunity for a fight, so might as well not try. The spirit stopped in front of Eragon. It waited a few moments then entered his being. At first, Eragon felt pain. He had instinctually tried to fight the spirit's presence. A grunt could be heard in the clearing.
Eragon was up against something he'd hoped he would never experience. The wrath of a spirit. To accept a lesson as the truth and wisdom is one thing. To put it into practice is an entirely different matter. He was fighting with his entire will power, to not fight. His fight was to relax, and let the things are going to happen, happen. Then suddenly, as Eragon was fighting with himself, the spirit stopped whatever it was doing and exited through his stomach, where it had entered. Again it stayed for mere moments, before disappearing in all haste. The spirit had given Eragon an almighty headache.
He staggered back to the campfire, where Arya was still sitting, sweating profusely. Eragon snapped his right hand, and she fell forward, breathing heavily, though Eragon still could not hear anything. He could see that Arya was asking all kinds of questions, talking to him, and he could feel Saphira trying to do the same. Eragon raised his right palm, while he fell to sit next to the campfire. Slowly a high pitch noise, Eragon hadn't noticed disappeared and he could once again hear the breathing of the dragons and the crackling of the fire. He lowered his hand.
"I'm sorry for binding you, Arya. Fírnen. I'm sorry for making you relatively invisible. Lastly, I'm sorry for the many secrets I now carry. There is much I have to tell, but there is even more, I have to keep. I tell you this to ask of you, don't push me, Arya. I loved you, even if you dismissed it. I loved you, and to be honest I still do. But you being a rider complicates things. I now have to be your teacher. There is no one else to teach you the ways, rules and secret perks of being a rider. So don't ask me something I tell you I cant deliver. Trust me when I say no. Trust me, even more, to wait, because there comes a time when I can tell you." Eragon said. A weight the was infinitely big and small lifted from his scarred heart, and breathing became that much easier. The now not so difficult mask Arya always erected was back in place. "I trust you Eragon." She said simply, Fírnen sending his agreement. "Then we break camp at midnight, and head for Ilirea. There is much to discuss before we can set out to train."