Thank you to all reviewers! Looks like I was indeed able to squeeze out on more chapter before holiday chaos consumes my life.
Eragon stared long and hard at the pebble sitting in his naked palm. He inhaled deeply, casting his mind back to those first fateful lessons under Brom.
Saphira watched him intently. She was in no direct danger. They had already each uttered several practice senses in the ancient language, without any magical intent behind them. No oaths had tugged at their souls. Neither had dropped dead from sheer audacity.
"Stenr reisa."
It was among the earliest spells Eragon had ever learned, brilliant in its simplicity. Levitating a pebble had first taught him to call up his magic. Controlling its height had taught him precision. Extended levitation had prolonged his stamina. Now it hopefully served as the gauge to test his Rider magic without ripping him apart at the seams.
The pebble sat there. Eragon carefully searched his mind for any signs of the spell slowly draining him dry. Nothing happened. It was as if he had spouted nonsense words instead of a spell of power.
Furiously he Willed the pebble up instead. It erupted from his palm, struck the ceiling, and ricocheted off Saphira's horn. She growled indignantly.
"Sorry, Saphira." He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to deflate his temper at his worst fear confirmed. "I suppose I am no longer a Rider. So why the seven fucking hells should I still have their magic? The one thing that really stood between us and Galbatorix."
She paused thoughtfully. Oaths in it can't bind you anymore, aye?
"Aye."
Perhaps its effects on you also fall short elsewhere. She shrugged her wings. Perhaps shape-shifters react differently or it changed your true name. Gods know. I did not study magic with Glaedr like you did under Oromis.
"It's not like there are any magicians here to test our theories with." He frowned at the early morning light, the remnants of a breakfast brought in and hastily devoured. "But it's beyond time we pressed for more answers."
Oisin was well-versed in the history of the daonna-arach. It was his damn duty as royal poet. Brede and Ciar were trained guards. They were perhaps too young to have fought Riders themselves but still had training in how to nullify magicians. They had proved that in their ambush. As loyal retainers of the clan they were honor-bound to obey its members.
Instead someone knocked at their door first. Eragon's nostrils flared at the unfamiliar scent. Not Oisin, smelling of ink and parchment. Not Brede, all smoke and leather. Not even Caedmon, for all she was thick with his scent.
Uneasily he defaulted back to his scales. This form gave him height and the ability to better hide his emotions. Eragon was glad he did so when he Willed the stone door away to reveal Myrna Ruadhluan. She loomed shorter than her mate, but loomed all the same. Damn dragons and their height.
"Good morning, nephew," she greeted warmly. Warm copper eyes gazed past him. "And to you, Saphira."
"Good morning, aunt," he answered in bemusement. The title did not ache as 'uncle' first had. Aunt Marian had died when he was but a boy of five.
"Caedmon and I were about to sit down for tea," Myrna offered easily. "We would be honored to have you join us."
Privately they considered it. The invitation into another's intimate chambers was as close to a white flag they could be offered. It was a platform for open dialogue, one free of Oisin's blustering lessons or Brede's careful dancing around unpleasant truths. In the end they accepted.
Myrna led them but a few doors down, the stone thinning for them. The chambers of the heir apparent were of course even grander than their own. The room was a wide solar open to the sea but Willed off from the cold breeze coming off it this morning. Beyond were more archways that must have led to a bed chamber and bathing facilities.
Caedmon greeted them politely. They returned the civility. Eragon pretended not to notice the heaviness to his eyelids. Saphira did gawk at the great, battle-scarred prince nursing a dragon-sized cup of steaming tea. They and Myrna settled around a table that comfortably accommodated even four dragons. Eragon scrutinized his aunt as she calmly pinched leaves from a common plate into her cup, filling it with boiling water from a common kettle. His bristling hackles eased.
"Nettle tea is our morning custom," Myrna said neutrally. "If you'd prefer another type I have several others available."
"Thank you, but nettle is fine." Eragon was no stranger to nettle tea. In Carvahall it was prescribed by Gertrude the healer as treatment for various ailments. Oromis had poured him a more pungent variety in Ellesmera simply as a daily ritual.
Dragons having tea, Saphira snorted privately.
No less absurd to me than dragons loving beer, Eragon retorted impishly.
She rolled her eyes but prepared a cup regardless. Even her lack of an opposable thumb did not hinder her. The cup fit easily in her claws. Her tongue flicked out tentatively. Then she downed it, leaves and all.
...Saphira? You're supposed to let the leaves steep first. Then savor it.
The she-dragon twitched. Myrna did not look her way and instead addressed her mate over the autumn season fresh upon them. He nodded intently to her every word. His chest heaved with something that might have easily have been a suppressed cough. After eyeing him suspiciously Saphira prepared her second up, mirroring Eragon's every move.
Once the water had taken on a warm hue Eragon sampled weredragon tea. Aye, it was nettle. Nettle that as if set on fire, hot as the boiling water, on his tongue and down his throat. To a dragon the sensation was near delightful as the flavor.
"Different than what we have in the south," he remarked carefully, if only to bring cool air over his tongue. He went for another sip anyway.
Myrna's eyes crinkled. "Stinging nettle is a milder variety, but the burning nettle wakes you up in the morning. It's a nice little spark for our first full day of autumn."
Caedmon twitched his tail and said nothing. Silence dragged on. Myrna slanted dangerous eyes at her mate. His gaze slid away, out to sea. Saphira's eyes flicked to Eragon as they wondered over the silent debate that raged between them.
"Had the Righ not the foresight to bind my magic, how dangerous would I have been that first day?"
His uncle startled from his malaise. "A nuisance easily exterminated. Doubtless your first spell would have been to try kill or bind the guards closest to you, because you would not have been creative in your attack. That would have proven you an enemy. You'd have been dead on the floor before you got it through your thick head the Fae tongue has no power on daonna-arach." Myrna's eyes narrowed. Caedmon rolled his own and slugged back his tea. "Please, love. He is the sort to attack a foe head-on. I know his brand of idiocy because I saw it in myself thirty-five years ago."
Eragon's hand tightened around his cup. The enchantments in it were impressive. His claws didn't even scratch the glaze. "If I had... oh, let's say shattered the floor around me into arrows of stone."
"Perhaps you catch those closest to you before they have a time to raise their Wills back. If not then it is a battle of resolve, shield against spell." Caedmon smirked. "Even your old energy reserves would have drowned in ours." Graveness stole his glee as he considered the one true dragon among them. "You still never would have overpowered the Righ, much less an entire castle of defenders. Your spell might have dragged down Saphira to, if you could not break it fast enough."
He exhaled smoke through his nostrils. If Galbatorix could not simply snap his neck with a word... "Could I have scryed for help?"
Gold eyes burned over him. "Do you even yet know where the Isles lie in relation to the mainland?"
"Northwest of Alagaesia," he answered bluntly. "North of Vroengard. We were..." He remembered the fateful dream that had brought them among weredragons to begin with. Any in Alagaesia but Saphira might have thought him mad for it. Among weredragons he knew not how they might take such claims.
"Our Isles are thick in us," Myrna murmured quietly, swirling her own cup. "And we lie under protections woven over us since Queen Macha, under the eyes of the Lord Moon and Lady Dawn. I do not think such a connection could have gone through regardless."
Caedmon was not to be deterred. His eyes narrowed on Eragon. "What under Father Sky brought you to that accursed isle in the first place? Aside from the occasional smuggler suicidal enough to plunder from it in the summer months it has been empty of sentient souls since the Dragon-Killer. If one does not count the husks he left behind." He twisted a claw to his heart and when flicked it away, as if casting off bad luck with it.
Saphira stared expectantly at him. I was not the one driven to this place, Eragon.
Eragon's hackles rose. "A dream," he answered flippantly.
"Did guilt finally compel a Rider to lay their bones to rest?" Eragon bared his teeth and said nothing. Caedmon's eyes slanted further. "Who sent the dream?"
"One of yours!"
Myrna's jaw dropped in a mute gasp. Caedmon stared flatly back. Eragon shoved himself violently back from the table, one claw raking at his horns. Sparks flew with every vehement breath.
"Every. Fucking. Full moon. She never let me sleep as a child! Always she urged me up, to... to do things little boys can't do. Then she finally shut up. I got my peace. I needed peace in dreams, if nowhere else!" Blazing blue eyes snapped up. "Then, after years and years, she comes to me again. Every fucking night. Until I near drowned on dry land on a full moon." He snarled, slashing at the solid stone wall. "I-I thought there was still a dragon on Vroengard, calling for help. How was I supposed to know all that lay past it? But this must have been what that bitch must have wanted of me. She hasn't troubled me since I became your fucking prisoner."
"Was there a fire?"
Three startled dragons turned to stare at Myrna. Her gaze was only for Eragon.
"Did she stand before a fire?" she repeated calmly.
"It was all I ever saw of her," he answered grudgingly. "I drowned every time I tried to swim for her." The anger drained from him as he turned to Saphira. "Until I had the wings to fly for it."
"Lorelei," she breathed reverently.
...What? Saphira drawled, lowering her barriers at long last.
"The Hearth-keeper," Myrna surmised. "She lights the fires of dawn and dusk to welcome the Lord Moon and Father Sky home and see them off once more. No child of hers is ever lost under her light. Not in the age when daonna-arach still dared to venture far beyond our Isles. Not in the very rare cases those with the Spark were beckoned home." Her gaze glittered. "I imagine you were on the cusp of adolescence when she stopped her Call. By then you firm in your form and your family. Lorelei is a mother first and foremost. She does not rip away humans, even those with the Spark, that have grown up accustomed in the Earth-Mother."
"The human queen from the myth?" Eragon choked out at last. "She died millennia ago!"
"The Lord Moon carried her alive into the horizon. They dwell there still." She paused. "Save for the one night a month the Lord Moon must sleep away his mortal weakness, and Lorelei stand guard over him."
Why the seven hells would she have Called out to my Rider again?
Myrna's knowing gaze settled on her mate. He snarled furiously, the table splintering beneath his claws. "I did not pray to her!"
"She is the Lord Moon's mate," she intoned. "His wife. A prayer to him invokes them both."
"I did not ask for this, for them." Eragon and Saphira lurched away when Caedmon flipped over the entire table, drawing protectively together as even enchanted glasses shattered. "He-He is worse than ever with that... that bastard here! I prayed for peace. And now my grandfather has one more thorn digging its way into his heart!"
Eragon's furious bellow that he had never wanted to be here either fell on deaf ears. The golden dragon had already stormed off to his balcony, hurling himself off from the edge without unfurling his wings first. Myrna sighed after him but made no attempt to follow.
Is it his fault we are all in this hell? Saphira hissed venomously.
Myrna flashed her fangs in warning. "My mate certainly never asked for a Rider and his bonded to be dropped on his doorstep. Whatever he prayed for, the gods answer as they please, and do not even heed princes. He reached out for what he could obtain on his own. You two chose to follow a dream. Just as you surely hatched for a Rider with dragon in his veins and he chose not to kill you for all the threat you posed his family."
They stalked for the door. Myrna's iron voice stopped them a final time.
"Lord Torin Standa has extended his cordial invitations to you both, as distant relations returned at long-last. Perhaps it is time to put your new privileges to use."
Within an hour they flew for Standa lands, once their meager belongings had been thrown together and Brede had called together a decent escort. They were an honor guard more than anything. The Lords of the East were long allies of the royal clan, and blood to Eragon.
Eragon's heart soared even higher than his wings as Crown Isle and all its misery disappeared on the horizon. Soon they would do the same for all the Isles.
"Master?"
Galbatorix's mouth curved into a pleasant smile. "Ah, Murtagh. Do you recall where we left off the other day?"
As if they had last seen each other two days ago and not over a damn week. Murtagh carefully weighed tact with honesty. "I do not recall much of anything, master."
"Of course not. Calling you that day was an impulse made in the heat of the moment, one that proved... near disastrous. But cooler heads have prevailed now, Murtagh." The king smiled serenely even as Shruikan billowed smoke behind him. "Today, on the other hand, is a good day. A very good day. It is time for the tide to change."
Murtagh absently tried to recall if the day after the autumn equinox was a holiday, Imperial or otherwise. The date had no special significance to him. However he did heighten with concentration on Galbatorix's last comments. Thorn's connection to him also sharpened. For all he was not often permitted before their master directly he sure as hell eavesdropped on every last summons.
"The rebels have largely withdrawn from their camps to fortify the border towns," Murtagh reported dutifully. For all his oaths kept him confined to Urubaen the Black Hand and their agents still had a vested interested in the rebellion's downfall. And had declared Murtagh their most dependable link to their king after Durza's demise. "Without their Rider and a clear plan of attack their leadership is still in disarray."
"Of course it is," Galbatorix sneered. Shruikan bared yellowed fangs. "They are flies buzzing in my ear."
"Flies easily crushed without a Rider."
Black brows drew sharply down. "Good gods, Murtagh, are you as thick as your sire? Have you never tried to swat a fly without a Rider's speed before? For every one you strike another ten maggots mature. I will not waste any more time on pest control. They are but a symptom of a deeper problem. I have been digging to its roots for well over a century now."
Because you're the disease? Thorn muttered from behind thick mental shields their master might shred like paper if he so wished. Murtagh kept his face expressionless and tried the dragon from his mind. The dragon pushed right back. Gods damn their bond.
"I do as you will," Murtagh recited dutifully.
He was bound to do nothing else. But a humble reminder sometimes kept his king from keeping him a captive audience to his earnest, aimless ramblings. He supposed Galbatorix sometimes needed more of a mind than Shruikan to partake in his brilliance.
"Aye," Galbatorix hissed as his mood turned once more. "That is what you and your beast are good for. Should you outlive your usefulness, it is only Thorn's heart of hearts I need. But perhaps I'll lock you in there with him, so you might serve in death as you never could in life."
Murtagh cast his head down, sinking fully to the stone floor. It was clammy beneath his hands. "We are your humble servants, my lord, forever and always."
He bowed until his back ache and he shivered on freezing stone. An eternity later Shruikan's irate rumbling finally died down.
"Tell me, Murtagh, have you ever had a song stuck in your head? One from long ago that you can't quite fully recall?"
"...Not in a very long time, my lord."
"A melody that means the world to you, that is the answer to everything... only there's just too much damned noise around you. And, no matter how hard you try and try, nothing ever quite shuts it up."
Sweat pooled down his back. "N-No, my lord."
Galbatorix sighed, fingers tapping against his throne. Murtagh dared not look up. "Perhaps you do not meant to be, Murtagh, but you and Thorn grate me all te same. To bend you just right to the song is to admit you're no longer of use to me. And I can't quite do that just yet. Nor can I risk you to those damned rebels. I've lost too many good Riders to them as it is. Drive myself mad with your presence, when I need my mind clear, or drive myself mad over fear of losing you. Damned if I do, damned if I don't."
Murtagh held his breath. And waited. Perhaps today was the day the Mad King's whims killed the last of his ambition.
"Busy work. Aye, that will suffice. Something quick and harmless. If you get yourselves assassinated doing it yet you've only yourselves to blame." Hi master paused. "Murtagh. You can do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye."
Murtagh inhaled deeply and did so. Galbatorix's face was not unpleasant to gaze upon. It was comfortably mundane, the face that might belong to a dozen middle-aged stangers passed in a busy street. His eyes could be called black. But that was not true, anymore than a dragon could be derided as a winged lizard. There were no whites, no pupils, no irises. They were two voids in his sockets that drank up the light and color around them.
"A tour, if you will. From Kuasta to Therinsford. Ceunon let Du Weldenvarden creep too damn close to be bothered with. Visit my lords and pay them pleasantries. Inspire the Urgal tribes left to us our side is only way forward, as your father swore to them a century ago when they declared for me. Burn what little sedition you should find. Ensure my people the worst shall soon be all behind us. Forever." The king arched a brow. "You can handle that, aye?"
"Aye, master."
"Good." Galbatorix leaned back in his throne, his dread dragon shifting behind him. "Carry on then. And go away."
Murtagh went away. He ascended the steps to the dragon-hold with unmatched speed. He always kept a pack ready. Gods knew when his master would demand something last minute of them. Or they'd require a last minute escape to the verges of their current oath if their king once more devolved into a dark mood, whispering to shadows and cursing out the moon.
Thorn launched himself off the edge before his Rider was properly settled. He flew west as if Shruikan himself was their heels. Good gods. Any idea what set him off this time?
Murtagh laughed wanly. "He has his epithet for good reason, doesn't he?"
Mistaking Murtagh for his sire was only the least of it. The Mad King speaking to shadows and ghosts long dead was one thing. His sudden fits of pique, when servants or even valued Black Hands were killed by a spell made in anger gnashed between Shruikan's yellowed fangs, was something else entirely.
Galbatorix had long ago tired of Thorn's profanity. His current oaths prevented him from even swearing across his intimate connection to Murtagh, so the red dragon snorted emphatically instead. You're right on that.
Rider and dragon sighed in profound relief when Urubaen and all its misery disappeared on the horizon. Whatever awaited them in the west was infinitely preferable to slinking anxiously beneath a mad master.
A waxing moon rose cold and clear over Carvahall. Only, there was no longer a Carvahall. Its buildings were ash and charred foundations. Their fields and gardens had been choked by a harvest of weeds. Gone were its people, swallowed by the dark forces enthralled to the King or else scattered to the four winds.
Therinsford had abandoned the land to the beasts and the was tainted ground, spoiled by the King's cruelty and the unceremonious exile of its they need pass down the ruined road that joined their villages they walked quickly, keeping their eyes fixated on their destination and not allowing themselves to be distracted by the desolation. The wise remembered the prayers or little turns of the hand that warded off the misfortune that clung to the roadside. This was not their home. It was unwise to tarry long.
On the first true night of autumn, when the veil between worlds thinned, they avoided it entirely. No matter how much blood they had shared with Carvahall over the generations they were not truly of the village. They did not know the proper prayers to assuage their dead. This was the first year the village was entirely abandoned, their ancestors left to rot in their graves forgotten. What might arise from their death was no evil Therinsford wished to invite upon itself.
In truth Therinsford had little to fear. The people of Carvahall were earth and iron, steady and dependable as the land they'd tilled. Their spirits were naturally inclined to slumber peacefully and not waste energy in tormenting the living.
More importantly, their families had been dutiful to their dead. Very few were buried without the proper rituals. The black pebbles over their eyes, always from a riverbed, kept their eyelids eternally closed. The sprigs of poison hemlock stilled the restless twitching of their early death. The silver amulets on their necks consecrated their corpses and kept ill forces from nesting there. Only at burial were the amulets retrieved, carefully cleansed to serve the next soul seeking rest.
Even as the moon ascended the dead of Carvahall slumbered on. Hundreds of miles away, prayers were still murmured by the pious, to their ancestors and the great gods who watched over them in death. Even if Carvahall could not be there directly, there was still power in their words, in the offerings poured upon empty earth rather than where their children and parents and ancestors rested.
But she had not been born to Carvahall. For all she had taken a man to wed, had borne the village children, she had been marked apart as outsider all her life there. In death that truth endured.
For ten long years, she had dreamed dark and deep. In the years after there had been her husband and son, then later her grandsons, to lull her back into uneasy rest for another year. For all Garrow despised the rituals of the village he had always made one exception. Marian had deserved her peace. So had his parents and grandparents. So had Selena, wherever her soul might rest now.
This autumn dawned without a family to keep her rooted where she lay. Even Roran had forsaken the land his paternal ancestors had tilled for untold generations.
Her spirit turned restlessly, straining against those slumbering peacefully beside her and the very hold of the earth.
Still she did not wake.
Not yet.
The Lord Moon was not yet at his full strength. Neither was she.
Don't worry, Eragon. All the restless dead in your family are totally taken care of. On the Standa side. And the human side. Beline is neither. Dragons burn too bright to stick around as ghosts when the sky's right there. Human ghosts aren't strong enough to do more than curdle milk or haunt someone through bad dreams if especially pissed. Weredragons... aren't as chill.
In old lore ghosts don't haunt for the hell of it. They're tied to lack of proper respect toward the dead, impending doom in a family, or from the domains of the living and the dead mixing too closely for the ghosts to start getting... jealous of the living. So Paolini's canon rituals for the dead have purpose. Hemlock paralyzes in small doses and suffocates in larger. It keeps the dead still in their graves. Stones over the eyes keep them from opening again after death, because rigor mortis does all sorts of fun things to the body. Amulets expressively provide protection, while talismans or charms may offer good luck or other things that aren't direct defense. Silver is historically a 'cleansing' metal in many belief systems but also expensive enough a farming village won't be burying its dead in them - just use them during the pre-burial period, when a corpse is at its most vulnerable.
Due to the the unholy hybridization of different forces that went into making the daonna-arach, they No-Sell direct spells of the ancient language. They can't even try casting it. That does not stop a magician from getting creative with their surroundings.
Remember that little origin story I gave for the weredragons? It ain't the moon driving people crazy into trying to bring them home. Lorelei usually the decency to stop when a soul with a Spark grows up too much in another culture to easily adapt to complete upheaval. Remember how we first met Caedmon praying, right around when Eragon was totally being driven nuts by that drowning dream? Yeah. Completely intentional.