"You know, I keep coming back to you bedridden and covered in bandages, that's a terrible habit, I'd recommend that you stop." Angela quipped, knitting a pair of wool mittens.

"Nice to see you too Angela." Faris croaked. After a few seconds, he tentatively asked, "how is…?"

"How is she, she's sleeping right now, the poor girl needs it, it's a good thing you had been by her house." Angela peers at her. "Why did you come by her house anyway?"

Faris turned red, "W-well, I…"

Angela chuckled, "You don't need to talk about it." She frowns. "About the woman, Anya, who attacked_"

'She's one of the remnants of Black Hand" Faris interrupted, staring at the ceiling. "I, I got it from her mind"

"Before you destroyed it." Angela stared hard at Faris for a bit, before asking. "How old were you before you died Faris?"

"Sixteen" Faris replied.

Her face softened a bit. "Here, 16 is the age of adulthood. But that is still very much the age of a child. Are… how are you?"

"Well enough" Faris began bitterly. "Well enough for a fool and a murderer." He turned to face the wall.

"But you didn't kill her." Angela began.

Faris sat up quickly. "I sure as heck basically did! I destroyed her mind! I-I could have captured her, made her swear in the ancient language to surrender, I had her under my power… yet I…" Tears began to well up in his face.

"Faris… you saved Venka's life, and you made the brave and tactical decision of moving away from the rest of the villagers, Anya brought it on herself, the Black Hand remnants are a nasty group, they partnered with the remaining priests of Helgrind, the reason I left you in the Urgal village was because I began to hear telling of towns being taken over by them, townspeople becoming deranged Cultists. The fact one of their members was able to seamlessly pass into the State Mage society is troubling, and exactly why I had problems with the thing in the first place." Angela lets out a disgruntled huff. "Honestly this is too much sometimes."

Faris remained silent, Angela's words of comfort had helped a bit, but he was more concerned over what she said about the Black Hand and Helgrind worshipers combining. He closed his eyes, and went over the strongest memories he had taken from Anya.

Her breath was ragged as she and five other companions ran in the darkness of the night, the sound of footsteps and shouting was hot on their heels as they ran for their lives. Galbatorix had been their king, their god, their teacher, their father, and he had been slain. The murderer supposedly had the ability to remove from them their most binding oaths to their hallowed king. But forever they would spurn him, choosing instead to plot this kingdom's downfall, and take as many with them as possible to the grave, as a memorial to their king.

They made it out of Teirm safely, too easily in fact, and their fears were realized when they found themselves face to face with over 20 Spell Casters from the former Varden, led by Trianna, the appointed head of the State Mage organization. How Anya hated her, she had been responsible for the death of her brother, Samson, and she dearly wished it had just been them alone, she would have made short work of her.

"Surrender yourselves to the Broddring Kingdom." Trianna declared haughtily.

"Never!" Another Black Hand member hissed back before casting a wide area fire spell. As the spell went off 3 of the State Mages perished, another 2 fainted from the use of wards to protect themselves. Almost as instantly as the State Mages collapsed did the offending Black Hand member begin to experience his limbs rotting away slowly, he began to scream out for help but to no avail he melted into a pile of black sludge.

"Attack!" Trianna declared, taking out a sword, another seven of the mages took out various melee weapons.

In counter the 4 remaining Black Hand Members took out a collection of daggers, short swords, whips, and staffs. As their bodies clashed so too did their minds. The Mages who couldn't fight were in the back, doubling their efforts to weed away at the Black Hand Member's might. But this group was different, the other sparse groups the Varden encountered were disorganized and disoriented, these men and women had a combined purpose and combined will, they in fact held their own in extreme fashion, both in combat and in the mental duel. Anya felt joy amongst her fellows, glad that together they would destroy this unit. As they fought, she allowed Trianna to stab her in the stomach, she had already prepared the spell deadening her nerves. Smiling, she moved to decapitate the leader of the State Mages when another State Mage stepped in, dying in her stead. This created a trend, the Black Hand began taking the lead, the tempo was in their favor as the Du Vrangr Gata began losing one member after another, until it became a 3 on 4 fight, in the Black Hand's favor, the other members dead or injured. Trianna was bleeding from her left arm, which she had used to shoulder a dagger wound, and was likely beginning to feel the effects of its Paralytic poison. Another mage had a bleeding stump where his left hand used to be, a sword laced in Seither Oil was the culprit. Anya smiled viciously, this was the first step in their comeback. At least it was until he came.

It was a blur of black hair, flashing eyes and brilliant swordplay as an elf wielding a simple yet elegant broad sword waltzed into the battle field, in a single blow he cut through the blade of one Black Hand member before the blade continued its course offing the man's head. A second flick of the wrist sent the tip of the blade into the shoulder of another member, who was forced to drop his dagger. Anya and her last remaining partner Yauzon backed away. They were filled with hate, envy, and dread as they stared down the elf that had been the bane on the existences of any Black Hand members trying to survive alone.

"Elf Ambassador Vanir" Trianna began, curtsying slightly. "Thank you for coming to our aid, though you do not need too."

"Nonsense" Vanir stated while smiling, "My predecessor our current queen Arya helped you in your fight against the mad king, I at the very least should be capable of helping cleaning up his leavings."

Anya felt an impotent rage, they had barely slipped past his guard before, only escaping because of an emergency elsewhere. Yet this time they were doomed, with no escape.

"Anya…." Yauzon began before handing her an orb. "GO!"

A flash of red light furled around Anya as she was teleported to a dark room, several figures surrounded her, some dressed in similar attire, others in outlandish religious finery, while also missing various limbs. A man, who was little more than a portly head and torso stated somberly, "I welcome you to our base of operations, the means by which you got here means that Yauzon has been lost." He smiled, but of course, he'd only sacrifice if he considered you a more valuable asset than he had been. And even then…" He gestured to a figure sitting in the darkness. The figure opened their eyes, revealing scarlet eyes that glowed cruelly, moving forward to revealed long hair just as red and skin as pail as moonlight.

Anya felt a chill as the Shade brought herself closer. She was unnaturally beautiful, and insanely powerful. Anya had worked with Durza and recognized the repugnant evil of the magic, yet this being was even greater, likely stronger than Durza at the same scale to which Durza was stronger than her or any other human mage. She felt chills up her spine as she looked at the Shade, these chills were mixed with hope and a desperate victory. The Shadeslayer, for all his power, couldn't possibly face her, she was a power comparable to the mad king himself. This would be their conqueror, their Valkyrie, their avenger.

The shade inspected Anya for a moment more, before smiling charmingly, a movement that disarmed Anya, who a split second later began to scream in pain as the shade broke her arm. The shade cocked her head, listening to the screams with an air of disinterest.

"Hmmm, that's no fun, you had cast a spell removing your pain, I wondered whether it could stop me. Too bad…" She sighed despondently. Anya, despite her pain, felt an even greater sadness, despairing that her spell had not been to the woman's satisfaction. She began to wonder why she suddenly cared so much about what the Shade thought, then dismissed it.

"My lady, I am sorry my body was too weak for you."

"No… it is alright." The Shade smiles again. "We can always try again, and again, and again, would you like that?"

"Yes! Yes!" Anya spoke, tears in her eyes, all of a sudden it seemed like everything in her life revolved around giving in to the Shade's whims.

The Shade smiled even wider, filling Anya's heart with joy, even as her arm continued to throb.

"Tell me your name, I swear that we shall avenge Galbatorix"

Who? Anya thought, before answering to her queen. "My lord, I am Anya"

"Thank you, welcome to the Scarlett Heart Anya, we are Jahat"

(Woo this one was kind of a dozy huh? Anyways if you wanna know, Jahat means evil in Javanese, that has nothing to do with what race I am. Anyways, a Shade's power is based on the amount of spirits within itself, the power of the host body, and the strength of will of whoever the host had been. If the host had been extremely powerful or willful, the combined shade will be more powerful. Durza had three spirits, Varaug had over a dozen spirits, and was able to overpower Eragon, Arya, and Saphira, while mentally fighting all three, and physically overwhelming them, his only weakness being the spirits were still vying for dominance and unable to cohesively work together. For this Shade, she has over one hundred spirits combined, put into an exceptionally powerful mage with an exceptional body through an extremely powerful experiment done, the details of which you might find interesting, if you want a hint, let's just say Oromis and Glaedr's bodies were never recovered, and some of Shruikan's bones had been collected instead of buried. And the Razaac corpse had been left to rot instead of burned.)