Disclaimer: I do not own Eragon or Eldest. Nor do I own Christopher Paolini. Nor AM I Christopher Paolini. The plot of the fic is MOSTLY mine, though, of course, based on CPao's.

: )

For further disclaimers, see Chapter 1. I probably own anything I don't name in the first chapter disclaimer.

Author's Note: Well, hi again. If you're still here, you probably have accepted this story picks and chooses what of canon it retains. : )

For this chapter, I decided to try screwing around with different POVs. You see, my normal strategy in fics is to have things kept a secret, and have the main characters constantly wondering what this person is hiding (while, meanwhile, said person is nearly driven insane by trying to keep her secret). The problem with this is that I obviously know the secret ( ;) ), so my mind gets taken over with developing the secret, showing glimpses of the secret to the main characters, and, because the secrecy is so fascinating, eventually having the secret take over the plot. The main characters become far less interesting to me than the person with the secret. XD So, through these multiple POVs, I'm going to try showing parts of the "secrets", and thus keep the "secrets" from taking over the plot. –heh- Onto the fic!

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Chapter 2: Mornings After

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"Elf. Get to your knees."

The elf lay on the floor, not wanting to move. No matter how hard she tried to resist, the thoughts kept coming back. She had failed. All these years, she could have been living a peaceful life in Ellesméra, not caring for the lesser races, frittering her time away on whatever whim struck her fancy – dying slowly, like the rest of her people – and instead she had chosen to try to help the lesser races, and this was her reward. Her mother had been right, curse her. She'd been right.

"Did you not hear me? I gave you an order."

She wondered who her captor was. Whoever it was, she – for the voice was a woman's – was too cold to be Urgal or Dwarf, and human women usually – exceptions always existed, of course – were trained not to be harsh and emotionless. And she would have sworn on her father's grave that this was no elf. Something was very wrong.

Without warning, her captor's foot lashed out and caught her in the ribs. She cried out in pain, shocked both by the blow and that she was affected by it. Elves, despite their slender frames, were made of strong stuff, as the humans would grunt. This woman carried enough strength behind her kick to – well, it hadn't broken a rib, but the elf had the sick feeling that she had deliberately held back just enough to avoid breaking bones.

Her thoughts lurched, and she remembered – though she had been attempting to repress it – a few of the fine details of last night.

A forest turned against them, controlled to – It had been controlled. Yes. It had. She had to believe that. The alternative was accepting what she had felt, what they had felt, and known to be wrong and horrifying, and that was impossible. Spirits were the elves' to control by right. Superior beings had the right to control lesser beings. Thus why humans and elves alike had once enslaved Urgals, why the elves had slowly manipulated their treaty with the dragons to favor themselves until the dragons, once equals, served the elves and survived only under the dominion of elves, why, in the glorious days of the Riders, elves had kept humans in their rightful place… Lesser beings wanted to serve. Sometimes, they denied it due to corrupt upbringings confusing their small minds, but when raised properly, only the worst deviants would rebel. They knew they were better off serving beings greater than they, that this was their purpose, what they had come into existence for. To serve. That was the greatest ambition of lesser beings.

So it was completely impossible that, as one, the spirits had turned against their masters. Yes, the group had been only at the very edge of Ellesméra, where the spirits would naturally be at their most unmonitored and thus most wild and depraved. And they had long ago voluntarily exiled themselves from elvenkind, so perhaps the spirits were even less bound to them. But even so, the elf could only conclude that – that the ambushers must have sent compulsion along with the power they gave to the spirits. The spirits would not, could not have decided on their own that, the instant they had enough power to do so, they would break free from their masters. No matter how many times she thought about it, it did not make sen-

"I am giving you one last warning."

Numb, the elf tried to force herself to her knees. Yesterday, before the attack, she could have lifted a grown human over her head and still be able to sprint faster than almost any human. But now, she had difficulty even lifting her own light body a few inches off the ground. Part of it was physical exhaustion – What happened last night? No, no, best not to think about it – and pain. Another part was despair and resignation. What could her captor do to her, really? All had already been lost.

Her captor nudged her to her knees, and she wanted to cry You have no right! I am an elf! You have no right to force me to- to – But she couldn't. What importance was whether or not some mysterious savage forced her to her knees when she had lost her charge, the hope of the human rebels and the elven people? If luck had been with her – if the ambushers had not seduced the spirits in the Spine as well, if they who were charged with the protection of that one had managed to somehow correctly perform the spell, never meant to be used across such absurdly long distances –, her charge was somewhere in… the very backwoods of human civilization, literally. Brom would have seen. Good old Brom. Verily, it was one of the greatest pities many elves had ever known that he was born into a human body. After the fall of the Riders, it had been rather convenient, though.

If Brom had found that one, all would be well. He would know what to do. Yes. But only if Brom did so. The sheer horror of what might happen otherwise made her almost hysterically giggle, quite unbefitting an elf. Imagine! The hope of the elves and humans, in the hands of a hedge witch! Or a troubadour! Or, worst of all, a farmboy! That thought forced a crazed smile onto her face. They were doomed. All doomed. And all because of her.

"Must you elves always laugh in the face of danger?" her captor asked, looking down at her from under the hood of a black cloak. "What do you believe you gain from it? The impression that you are not afraid? Are you trying to preserve your reputation as the laughing folk, even though it is no time to be merry? What is it?"

"Have you never been in a situation so hopeless that you had to laugh at the absurdity of your previous conviction that your actions – that your actions mattered?" the elf asked, trying to restrain herself from bursting into a fit of hysterical laughter. Beyond annoying her captor, she wasn't sure that if she let go, her sanity would never return. And it was a tempting thought.

"No. Never." After a long pause, her captor added, "I do not find despair amusing." A knock sounded outside, and the woman looked over her shoulder. "No rations as of yet. Interrogations have not yet begun."

Interrogations? Must she be left with no dignity whatsoever? "I will never betray the Varden," the elf said, clenching her teeth. "Do what you will. No torture will cause me to turn traitor." Despite her brave façade, fear skittered through corners of her mind. She had never been physically tortured – her exile from elvenkind had been a torture in and of itself, but one she had chosen –, and her mind rebelled against the very thought. She who had once been so high, now fallen so low… It made her almost gag. But then again, she had failed. Perhaps she deserved to lose everything.

"How interesting," the woman said, her gaze moving to the ceiling. "I once said almost those exact words – to elves. The Varden, of course, had not even been created at the time, but there have always been those who would fight against their oppressors."

"We were never oppressors," the elf said reflexively. "Our reign was a time of glory and wonder. Had it not been for Galbatorix, all –"

"Do not parrot your propaganda to me," her captor said, rage rumbling in her voice. "I was a victim of the purge your kind undertook to keep your glorious rule from ever being threatened. But all that was pointless in the end, wasn't it? Galbatorix drove you out, attempted to scour the stain of elvenkind from the land as they had destroyed countless others, and –"

"You must understand!" the elf cried, not even attempting to disguise her fear anymore. The only type of beings that were purged were the vicious and brutal deviants in every race, violent rebels who disrupted the grand order the elves created for the sake of satisfying their own twisted desires and impulses. To be in the custody of one – By Alalëa! Death would be a mercy! "We did it to keep civilization from degenerating into mindless chaos, to preserve – Galbatorix is – I – we –" She gave up trying to make coherent sentences; her fear was too great, and the expression on her captor's face too implacable. In the end, she settled for trying to learn who her captor was. "Which purge?"

Her captor made a noise of utter disgust in the back of her throat. "You had multiple ones?"

Realizing she had made a very bad mistake, the elf cringed, then recoiled from her own action. An elf? Cringing? Especially her? Her mother would have disowned her on the spot for that. Then again, her mother wasn't here to watch. Did her mother still ask how her daughter was? Did she worry about her at night? Or did she not care at all? Most likely the latter. At least, that way, she would not be disgusted by her daughter's disgrace.

After a while, her captor elaborated, "The grand one. The one that you now blame on Galbatorix, who, for all the foul deeds he has done, could never even have contemplated that horror."

Unfortunately, that still didn't give enough information to determine which purge it was, but she now knew better than to tell her captor that. "You are not fond of Galbatorix?" Well, she had not seen Galbatorix's twisting flame emblem anywhere on the night of the ambush or in this cell, but…

"He is a despicable man, one who has violated the most fundamental laws of nature," her captor said, then added, "Though he knew better. I… I no longer have anything to do with him."

"But then, who do you work for?" the elf asked.

The woman's voice, when it came, was slow and dangerous. "Why… my dear elf… perhaps I do not have a master. Perhaps I am the master."

The words surprised her so that she could barely comprehend them. A third power in Alagaësia? One the Varden had no knowledge of? It was impossible. They would have known! And who did she command? The dwarves and elves were mostly aligned with the Varden, and between Galbatorix and the Varden, all humans were accounted for. Who could –

Her mind flashed back to the ambush. The Urgals. Yes. Yes, it would fit. Reports had mentioned Urgal movements into civilized areas, but everyone had thought Galbatorix was behind it. Obviously, they couldn't ask Galbatorix, and not even Galbatorix would advertise use of Urgals, so it hadn't been confirmed, but –

A master of the Urgals. The nonexistent gods of the human and dwarves help them all.

The woman snorted and walked towards the cell door. She barked out some foul syllables – undoubtedly the Urgal language – and received a similarly rancid-sounding response. If the way the response sounded compared to the initial order was any indication, the woman spoke Urgal fluently. She grunted and opened the door.

An Urgal lumbered in, snarling at the sight of the elf. He jabbered at the woman, and the woman jabbered back. The elf, meanwhile, found the strength to crawl backwards, towards the opposite wall; anything to get away from that stench. The creature smelled like rotten meat.

The woman, glancing at the elf, saw her expression and said, "May I add that they find the scent of pine trees equally foul."

Another Urgal began to edge in the door, carrying some sort of burden; to tell from his expression, he would have found it more pleasant to carry a cart-full of festering corpses and manure. Or perhaps, being an Urgal, he would have found that pleasant. So much for that metaphor. He grunted at the woman, and she sighed, gave him a sympathetic look, and growled a few more syllables. Then, he dragged his burden all the way into the room, and the elf cried aloud. "Faolin!"

He had survived! But – well, he did look worse for wear. That was to be expected after his horse fell on him. "Arya?" he whispered, trying to force a carefree smile. "Are you all right? I – only a flesh wound, truly."

"Arya?" her captor asked. "The stray elven princess? How interesting."

"You won't be able to blackmail my mother!" Arya snapped.

Before she could say anything more, the woman said, "I know." The words, though they really shouldn't have been surprising, hit her like a kick to the face. "I was thinking of something else. But now, allow me to inform the two of you how this interrogation will be done. You two are companions, yes? Friends? Concerned for each other's welfare?"

"Of course," Faolin said slowly.

"You may be able to endure your own torture, but what about the torture of each other?"

The room fell silent, save for the rough breathing of the Urgals. "You wouldn't," Arya whispered. "That's – that's too cruel."

"Oh?" the woman said. "The elves have done worse."

"It's all right, Arya," Faolin said, giving her a desperate smile, "I can endure this – really, I can – I'm a guard by trade, I can resist any pain –"

"A quaint thought," the woman said, looking at him, "But I too have magic. I can devise tortures beyond your imagining –"

Magic! Yes, she had magic. Of course, she thought, remembering the events of the ambush, the woman, too, had magic. Quite strong magic, at that. And enough power to help – to make – the spirits break free of elven control. But surely, the woman would not be expecting magic now. Yes?

But when she reached for the spirits, she found them hostile and mocking. Disdain flowed through them – that and disgust. She perceived they were loyal to the Urgals, and had been for decades. The prison was located in Urgal territory, then. Keeping in mind that piece of information, she reached out harder, using her magic to dominate, to command –

And cried out as her efforts were viciously slapped down. "Did you think you were subtle?" the woman asked, looking down at her with disdain. "You may be mighty, but I am mightier."

"Scum," Faolin spat.

"I, scum?" The woman turned to Arya. "Your father taunted me once, saying that my lover would be killed in the most exquisitely painful way imaginable, and that my children would be captured and either killed and used for food or eternally enslaved, their free wills annihilated with elven magic." She paused. "I tore him to shreds for that, and some of his companions as well. And I have never regretted it."

"No. No, that's impossible," Arya said, her mind grinding towards a conclusion she could not accept. "My father was killed by a rogue –"

"Indeed he was," the woman said, and a feral expression, half-grin half-snarl, spread across her face. She leaned closer to Arya, and the elf gasped. The woman's teeth resembled fangs, her eyes showed slitted pupils, and her ears sharpened into points in a way that even the elves' did not; all of her features, in fact, had a bestial cast, as if some creature had tried to make itself an elf, but had not managed to transform itself perfectly.

The former princess's mouth moved, forming at first a three-syllable elven word, and then its two-syllable human equivalent. "Yes," the woman said, straightening. "You would be correct." Arya nodded slowly, a stupid smile spreading across her face, and promptly fainted.

"Your Lordship, your Lordship!" The messenger dashed into the throne room, panting, and then blinked. The throne was empty. "Your Lordship?"

"Is this important, or is it just a matter of Teirm rioting again and the governor blubbering for aid?" The messenger turned around, and saw the King of all Alagaësia sitting in a plain wooden chair, leaning on a table reinforced with metal and arcane designs. The king drummed the fingers of one hand on the table, dipping his pen in an inkwell with the other.

"You asked that you be informed of all Urgal sightings, your Lordship, as well as any knowledge of the path the escort group took," the messenger said, bowing at the waist.

"Indeed I did. You have knowledge of both?"

"Sire, the escort group was sighted near the edge of the elven forest – according to your chart, in the region directly west of Osilon –, but the troop could not pursue… for reasons known to you."

The king nodded. "Accursed elves. Go on."

The messenger cleared his throat. "This… You must understand, sire, much might have been lost in the process of transmitting thoughts along the mage report chain…"

"I'm the one who invented the blasted thing. I know that very well."

The messenger swallowed. "Well… Urgals were sighted soon afterwards… apparently tracking the escort group. They paused at the edge of the forest, and according to the reports, there was a… a woman with them, and she stood there at the edge for a short time, and then the elves started screaming, as if something horrible had happened to them, and –"

The king scowled and slumped back in his seat. "Her. Curses. I should have known she would do this." He slicked back his hair with one hand, a known nervous gesture of his. "Urgals, though? Well, she favored humans, back in the day. I suppose she needs her pets to never be able to match her intellect and power."

The messenger blinked. "You… know of her, sire?"

"All too well." He snorted. "Let me continue your message. The woman and the Urgals entered without difficulty, and the troop was able to pursue them. However, they defeated the elves and took the prize, and, after a dignified warning from the woman, incapacitated the troop with inhuman ease. Am I correct?"

"In… in all but one detail, sire," the messenger said, unsure of whether the correction would be cause for rejoicing or cause to kill the one who brought ill news to the king. "The elves performed some sort of ritual, and after a green flash of light… the, ah, prize had vanished. The troop was not able to find it – neither were the Urgals, to tell from the lengthy stream of profanities the troop heard coming from them."

The king was still, and then he sighed. "Is that so." He slicked back his hair again. "Interesting. Now, the elves would never have destroyed their hope, even to keep it out of the hands of others. That leaves… she would have found it if it remained, because the escorts were mere children compared to her power. Therefore, it still exists, but it is not in that location. And…" He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration. Finally, he sat up and began to bark out orders. "All those loyal to the Empire are to be on the lookout for a young woman with dark hair, unusual blue eyes, and sharp teeth. She will likely be unconscious – if she is found awake, guards are advised to be exceedingly wary. Her magical strength is exceptional. She is to be taken ALIVE at any cost. Alive. In fact, letting her go is preferable to killing her. Do you understand? Oh, never mind. I'll personally transmit the order to all mage report stations. You may inform… everyone of any importance in Uru'baen. What are you waiting for? Go."

But what does this have to do with the "prize", sire? the messenger wondered, but possessed enough intelligence to keep silent. "Yes, sire," he said, bowing, and departed the throne room as quickly as he could.

Alone, the king slumped in his chair and sighed. Urgals. It still amazed him. Then again, perhaps it was not so far from her past behavior. He had been uncharitable. She always sided with those struggling to survive, the uncivilized in need – and that fit Urgals better than humans at the moment. His lips curled in a fond smirk. One had to respect devotion to principles, even if said devotion happened to be massively inconvenient.

Of course, he knew that, though she would walk on knives before admitting it even to herself, a good part of it was desiring a nation full of her pets. He felt the soothing company of the spirits, and realized that he didn't need to add an "of course" at all. It made sense. She only aided the hapless out of desire for their worship. Any sympathy was merely pretense.

But then, why… Old memories flashed through his mind, but the spirits calmed him, dismissed the memories with but a flick of their will. He had been young then, and years had undoubtedly distorted his memories. Perhaps she hadn't been what he had thought she was. After all, hadn't all he received for helping her all those years later been ingratitude? And after he killed all those people, enslaved all those lesser spirits, to help her, too. Yes.

A wave of sadness came over him. It was true, wasn't it. No one was truly his friend – they were all only sycophants or those wanting his affection. None of them would ever regard him as an equal, hard as he strove to be great. It had always been that way. He had even seen in retrospect that the dragon who gave him his gedwëy ignasia, dear Miolan, had been bound to him by magic, and had no choice but to be his ever-loyal companion.

But even before he had become a Rider, when he was a grubby weakling unable to do much labor, these spirits had been his friends. They'd kept him company when the other children sneered at him, when the elven Riders called out that humans didn't even deserve to be Riders, after Miolan had died, after those he cared about were dead and gone, after the Forsworn had followed the rest of the Riders to the grave… and they'd taken him back even after those years of denying them. How many other "friends" would do that? "Friends" from any living race would have made snide remarks about why shouldn't they reject him after he rejected them, about how he owed them, about him taking them for granted… but the spirits he knew had taken him back with nary a snarl or snicker, reassuring him that they felt only happy that he had come to his senses at long last. And he could hardly feel angry at them for that. His so-called friends had called the spirits he associated with "dark", "foul", "corrupting", and a dozen other insults, and after a while, he had let them do so, even let himself be persuaded that was true and parrot the nasty words, and blithered about how he was glad to see the truth… how many friends would have accepted a man back after he said such horrible things about them? None but the spirits. None but the spirits.

He sighed, feeling strangely lonely, and stood up to go. The mages wouldn't inform themselves.

Far away from both the commander of the Urgals and the King of all Alagaësia, the hope of the human rebels and the elven people slept in a village shaman's hut. Somewhere in her hazy and exhausted mind, she was aware that he'd saved her; as she dreamt, she wondered why.

He had known the spirits feared her, yet he sounded as if he had no wish to use her. That alone was confounding; she knew that people wished to destroy that which they feared and turn what others feared against them. He had no knowledge of her use, what possession of her would grant to a human or elf.

In a way, that alone made him more tempting than any of the humans or elves either side had presented to her over the years. In her dreams, the memories of the past clashed and spun into nonsensical tales and pictures, but they carried the essence of it all rather well enough; only those who had not been given to the treaty survived with their wills intact.

She had once not been given to the treaty. No. She hadn't. And her memories spiraled off in a different direction, and she was back amongst her kind again; she knew herself to be as old as she was in the present, but she had some ridiculous excuse as to why she could be with them, and did not feel in the mood to question it.

On a whim, she decided to brush against the shaman's mind; it could hardly hurt. His name was Eragon; as might be expected, he found the events of last night unnerving and bewildering; he cared for his uncle and cousin deeply, although his cousin annoyed him at times; he was talented in what most humans and elves would call sorcery, but unlike many sorcerers, respected the spirits and would not even think of forcing them to do his bidding; finally, he was concerned for her well-being. She considered what she had learned.

Well, he had enough innate magical talent to qualify. The well-treatment of spirits was rare amongst humans and elves, and a point in his favor. He was good-natured and friendly, if awkward and sometimes short-tempered; the flaws, hopefully, would fade as he gained maturity. He was still young as of yet, even in human terms. And he had helped her. And his opinion of Riders was poor rather than worshipful. Two more points in his favor.

She would wait another day or two and see if any others in the region would be a better choice. But she would choose by then – truth be told, she had to choose or she would go mad. When that elf – the one whose nam began with "Ar" – had partially awoken her so that she could add her own power to the teleportation spell… she had realized how long she had been waiting in this endless sleep, and she could take it no longer. The time was now.

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Author's Note: -looks at the end of Arya's section- Well, call me Paolini! XD …I seem to have an unholy tendency to end sections with unconsciousness. At least it isn't Eragon doing it. XD

And I was horribly tempted to end Galbatorix's section with him nodding off. Oo …Eep.

Also, I know you may be thinking "Wait, the news just got to Galbatorix? The woman and her Urgals managed to drag Arya to a prison in the time that news passing along a magical relay took to get to Galbatorix?" …Look, the troop took a bit of time to recover, all right? And then they had to return to the mage report station. And then the messenger had to get to Galbatorix, because the castle and the capital are shielded against telepathic communications in or out. So the time adds up. :P Impractical? Yes, but you may have noticed the cards in Galbatorix's deck are kind of marked up and dark spirit-influenced. :P I might end up giving more detail in-fic in the distant future, but I wanted you guys to know so you didn't have to complain. ;)

…After the end of Arya's section, I had to go to a social occasion (-grumble-), so the writing probably got rather clunkier. Sorry. And Saphira's section… :P That was unplanned – I was planning to write Eragon's POV instead, but I figured hey, why the heck not? XD (Don't worry, you'll get Eragon's POV NEXT chapter. XD)

I'm really enjoying writing this fic. : ) I developed some of the characters in an AU of another canon (ah, Fire Emblem / Fire Emblem 7, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…), but I'm getting details out of the process of writing. :D In particular, I finally figured out why Galbatorix is so addicted to dark magic, and… it's kind of sad. I do feel sorry for the poor guy (even if he's rather scummy about it sometimes). Makes sense, though – as soon as I "realized" that the spirits of the darkness would also be sentient, it made sense that someone as friendless and antisocial as he was would become reliant on them for contact with other sentient beings. Poor guy. –sigh- (Sometimes he deserves what he gets, though. I'll give more detail if I ever actually get to flashbacks of his past or whatnot, but he wasn't exactly the nicest kid and young man.)

EDIT: A thank-you to my reviewer! :D Due to your comment, I ended up thinking about Shades, and… basically, Galbatorix being who he is in this fic, more Shades will appear. Yay. Durza will ALSO appear! (He just won't have the role he had in canon.) : )

Methinks Shades in general will get powered down, though. The basic plan is that the power of a Shade is almost always proportional to the power of the sorcerer/shaman at the time he or she ended up getting subsumed, as the strength of the spirits summoned has to be within the abilities of the shaman TO summon, right? Right. :P

I'd also like to make an important note:

"Sorcerers use their magical strength to control spirits and the spirits' powers. Shades, however, relinquish that control in their search for greater power and allow their bodies to be controlled by spirits. Unfortunately, only the evilest spirits seek to possess humans, and once ensconced they never leave."

-Angela, page 437 of Eragon, paperback edition

I think that leaves room for spirit-sensitives of enough power to take spirits into their bodies but not utterly relinquish control as a sort of bait-and-switch gambit. "Hey, free body! …WHOOPS, sorry! Turns out I want control after all! Heh heh heh…" :P Of course, this would only be possible if the spirit-sensitive was ridiculously powerful to begin with (and thus the "strongest spirit" in the body), and hence why there aren't more of that type. Also, it leaves room for spirits to be forced into bodies (even if they would NOT normally possess anything). Yep, that allows for the types of Shades I'll have. : ) Hooray!