–The following section is one which was hard to write even after all the years that have passed since it occurred. What follows is the tale of Brom's physical recovery and mental anguish after the lost of his beloved companion, Saphira. It astounds me how my actions then affected the future so much. If I had allowed Brom to die as he had begged me to, many of the Forsworn would still live, Galbatorix would never have lost an egg, Eragon would never have been born, and the resistance against Galbatorix would never have existed. So here it is at last. Anyway, it is time to continue with my story.–

I woke up half an hour later, though it seemed only seconds. The sun was shining down on me as if the horror that had just occurred never had been. But the devastation remained. Trees and bushes smoldered with dying flames. Corpses littered the ground. The snow was stained a vibrant red. I blinked, raising a hand to shield my eyes from the dazzling light, but winced as I felt something in my chest pull. Gathering my strength, I pushed myself into a sitting position and turned toward Brom. He was unconscious but breathing steadily. His skin was wan and his brow beaded with sweat. The body of his dragon lay beside him, cold. There was no denying that as soon as he woke the madness would take a hold of him. It always did when a rider lost their dragon. How cruel was fate that he wasn't even allowed to share his partner's last moments? Instead, he had laid asleep only feet from his dying dragon, unable to ease the pain of her final breaths or provide any sort of comfort. Saphira had died alone.

I forced myself to get to my feet, gasping as I realized that I must have landed badly on my leg. The knee was purple and swollen, easily visible through a tear in my clothes. I ignored it, knowing my needs were irrelevant at the time. My wounds pained me, but Brom was soaked in blood. Looking around, my eyes fell on a cabin several hundred feet away. It was the cabin of a hired hand that had waited on the riders. It would have to do. Gritting my teeth, I dragged Brom over and opened the door, freezing with horror at what I saw.

A man lay on the ground, his hand frozen in a claw like grip, reaching for the door. His face, or what remained, hung from his skull as if it had melted. Fighting the urge to be sick, I realized exactly what would have befallen me if I had been a second slower with the shield.

I was still maintaining the shield, but though I could not feel that it was doing anything, the grotesque form of the man scared me enough not to take the shield down. Using magic to remove the corpse, I carried Brom in and put him on the single cot. I had to clean his wound several times before the dried blood and battle grime was gone. Then I started on spells for deep healing.

After I had done all I could, I decided to survey the carnage, looking for survivors. There was one dragon that might have survived until the energy wave, but all was still. All were dead. Brom and I were the only living beings in the area. Even the bugs and plants in the area surrounding the shockwave seemed to have died. I walked farther, finding that there was life as I went farther from the battlefield. I took their energy as I walked, not even caring that I was leaving behind empty husks of plants. The wake of death behind me could not trouble my mind after the number of riders and dragons I had just seen killed. At the base of a larger tree, I gave into my pain and healed my wounded knee before surveying the damage to my chest. I had a single broken rib. Fixing it with a quick spell, I began to walk again, gathering herbs and digging for roots. I would need everything I could find.

When I returned to the cabin, I considered Brom for a while before taking some of the Elderwort root I had gathered. Steeped in water, it would make a strong magical suppressant. I had learned that at least among the elves when Gwendolyn had begun to teach me the basics of magical healing. A magic user not in their right mind could be dangerous, and I had no doubt that Brom would be entirely unbalanced when he woke. I tore my cloak into strips and bound him to the bed, making sure that he would not be able to get up if he woke. There was no doubt in my mind that if allowed, Brom would join his dragon in death.

Then I released my spell and allowed Brom to wake. A heart wrenching scream ripped from his throat and he fought violently against my restraints, straining them near their limit. "Saphira!" he cried out, confirming that what I had done was torture, but I sat there without moving, thinking. Was there truly a reason for what I was doing? If keeping alive was condemning him to a life of suffering, should I? I tried to block his voice from my ears as he screamed. I walked over and poured a spoonful of a potion I had set to steep into his mouth. A sedative. He fought it for a long while before he lay still, unknowing.

Shaken deeply, I went back to the battlefield and went about preserving Saphira's corpse and also beginning to clear a massive grave. If Brom ever was to keep going, he would not leave his dragon's decaying corpse for the birds and animals to feast on. I gave up quickly on moving the dirt. In my weakened state I was able to do little, and I knew that it would be a long time, if ever, before Brom was recovered to even the point where he could think rationally. I returned to the cabin and quickly gave in to an uneasy and nightmare-filled sleep.

It was Brom's screams that woke me sometime the next morning and I silenced him with magic before I set to work, hardening my heart against his pain as I treated his wounds again. It was for the greater good. Or at least that was what I told myself.

–In time I believe Brom agreed as well, but that took years, decades even.–

On the third day, Brom's fever broke, and with it, the tortured screaming ceased. Now aware, he would sit for hours staring at the wall, unmoving as he let himself be drowned in his grief. I knew that, if anything, his withdrawn silence was worse than the screams.

Over the next few days, Brom's body healed, but not once did he speak nor move nor react. With a heavy sigh I sat on the bed beside him and rested my hand on his forehead, providing what limited comfort I could, knowing it was like trying to dry the ocean with a single cloth.

Then he spoke.

"Let me die." The hoarse whisper startled me and I turned to look at him, meeting clouded eyes. "I need to join her."

I bit my lip and shook my head slightly, unsure of myself. "I will not."

He did not speak for another day, and then it was no better. He fought against his bonds. He yelled at me, cursed at me, and cried. He begged me to kill him or at least to let him kill himself, but I refused to give in. But as he continued, my resolve slowly weakened. It was a week after the battle that I had exhausted the supply of edible plants in the vicinity, and I was forced to consider a different food supply.

That was how I found myself staring at a large white rabbit, a dagger in my hand. It hopped a foot closer, nose twitching, took a bite of grass and hopped another foot. The dagger felt like fire in my hand, thirsty for blood. I bit into my lip, breaking the skin as I made my decision. Closing my mind to the bright spark of energy that was the rabbit's existence, I prepared myself. The rabbit chewed another mouthful of grass, blissfully unaware of my presence only five yards downwind. Before I could talk myself out of it, I sent the dagger flying from my hand, and watched it pierce the snow white coat of the rabbit. For the briefest moment, panic and pain, mixed with confusion, emanated from him, but then the light left his eyes and the rabbit went still.

I fought the urge to become sick as I removed the dripping blade of the dagger from the rabbit's warm flesh. The white fur of the rabbit became stained with red, and I closed my eyes. I had given up the last of my childlike innocence. I had killed an innocent being in cold blood. Sickened, I sliced strips of meat from the carcass. Finally, with my hands stained red, I carried it back to the cabin and dropped it into boiling water to cook.

As it cooked, I went outside and washed my hands repeatedly, trying to cleanse the guilt of my deed from my hands. By the time I returned, I was done. I cut the meat into pieces and carried a plate to Brom.

"If I untied your arms, will you try to kill yourself?" I asked bluntly, looking at him. He gave me a dark, hateful glare. "If I did, you took my magic. It wouldn't make a difference." I nodded and decided he was right. Unbinding his hands and arms, I handed him a plate and watched as he pushed the food around. "You killed." He stated in an emotionless voice. His tone sounded uninterested, but I could feel the barb, provoking me, tormenting me.

"I killed for you." I responded in a tone nearly as flat as his. "And if you do not eat that, I will force you to. I killed, but I will not let it be in vain.

He growled and swallowed down the meal without even seeming to taste it. I didn't care. So long as he ate, I couldn't care less if he tried to rebel or resist me in that way. In fact, if it showed that he was at least allowing a portion of his mind to stray from thoughts of Saphira for even a brief time, it was worth it. I knew Brom would never be the same. I was no fool. But I could hope his life meant more than what he intended, that is, a single slash of a knife or a word whispered of magic.

I decided then that it was time for Brom to see Saphira's body. He obviously was not healing, and I doubted he ever would, but he needed to see her with his own eyes. It was utterly heartbreaking to see him completely break down, cradling her head on his lap. I understood even more upon seeing that how terrible what I was doing was to him. It was hours before he moved, but I could not leave him for fear of him taking his own life. And when he moved, it was only at my command.

I felt terrible about it, but I forced him to see the truth that she needed to be buried. I knew I did not have the power to lift a full grown dragon, and it took all my ingenuity to create a way to move her body, but I found a way. I manipulated the dirt to move in a circular motion, not unlike the waves in the sea. Gently I moved the body to rest in the grave. Brom was on his knees, sobbing, as I replaced the dirt over the body. I placed a flat white stone that I had found over the mound and looked at Brom. "When I let you use magic again, you should inscribe it." He didn't respond.

–That time was the most wearying in my life, but it is interesting to see how much difference a single decision can make. If I had given in, as I was so often tempted, to letting Brom relinquish his life and join Saphira in death, we would have had no hope of success now as we fight the king. That makes me think more than anything else that there is truly such a thing as fate.–

When he managed to return from the silence and sullenness Saphira's burial had put him into, Brom took to watching me. I was sitting across the room, making myself a pair of boots from the skins of the animals I was killing to feed the two of us, and trying to ignore Brom's gave.

"Why?" he spoke silently.

I looked up at him, confused. Why what…? Then, when I met his eyes, I knew. Why was I keeping him alive to suffer? "Because it is right." I said simply. "Life has meaning. To throw it away is wrong, no matter how much you want to give up." He was listening, but his eyes were dull and cold. To him, life had no more meaning.

"Why?" He asked again.

I shifted on my seat. "By killing yourself, you would abandon everyone else. We are losing, of that there is no doubt no matter how much we deny it, but to give up is a coward's move. Saphira gave her life for the cause we are fighting for. You would ignore her sacrifice?" He flinched as if I had hit him. "You will be reunited with her one day in death, but I believe that you still have a purpose. Avenge her death." He was staring at me. My voice softened. "Before she died, while you were unconscious, Saphira spoke to me." I had his full attention. There was need in his eyes. I could see him waiting anxiously to hear his dragon's final words. "She told me that if I lived and if you lived, that I should tell you to keep fighting." I touched his mind and waited for him to acknowledge me before I gave him the memory.

If he lives and if you live, tell him to keep fighting. Tell him…

I left the cabin for a while, allowing him to grieve in peace. I had not restrained him, but after hearing the last words of his dragon, I doubted strongly that he would deny her death wish, at least, not immediately.

The next morning, there was something in Brom's eyes that had not been there since before Saphira's death. Purpose. I considered him awhile before speaking. "If you will promise that you will not attempt to kill yourself, I will let you have your magic and not tie you."

"I promise." He whispered in the Ancient Language, binding himself to the promise. I raised my eyebrows and he closed his eyes. "I could not deny her last request." He said in a grief filled voice. "Even if it the last thing I want to do." I nodded.

Later that day I found Brom outside; he was standing before her grave with tears running freely down his face. He knelt in front of the white stone and began to carve into it. When he left an hour later, I went to read his inscription.

Here lies my beloved Saphira, the partner of my heart, a faithful friend and companion. May she rest in peace always and know that to the end of days, she will never be forgotten.

I closed my eyes as I felt a tear escape. Then I cast a spell on the grave marker, making sure it would never weather or be moved. When I finished, I went about searching for a way off the island without a dragon.

The answer came a few days later as I was exploring. In a bay sheltered from the sea, there were several fishermen's boats. They were designed to whether the sea, but also were intended to be driven my more than two people. I sighed. With magic, it could be done.

And that was how, several days later, after we had gathered feed for the trip that Brom and I found ourselves being tossed about on a violent sea. The waves were easily the size of our boat and often crashed over the side. Brom remarked once that for being so insistent that he not kill himself, that I was pretty bent on killing the both of us. It didn't surprise me that he didn't seem very worried about dying. In fact, I am rather inclined to think he was hoping I let the ship capsize.

–Perhaps with a competent sailor it would not be as bad, but I feel I would rather crawl a thousand miles on my hands and knees than spend a single night on a ship.–

Brom seemed to take a perverse pleasure in watching me suffer from sea sickness as the boat rolled on the waves. I refused to snap at his comments, however, as I knew that being sick was nothing compared to what I had put him through.

It was with a bit of surprise, then, when we found ourselves on solid ground again. I believe it was pure luck more than any amount of skill that had kept us alive out on the sea. But there we were on the white sand of an isolated beach, safe from the cool, gray water that had threatened to swallow us for so long. We stared up at the Spine from the far side of the mountains for a long while, neither of us having had a plan more concrete that getting off Doru Araeba.

Brom spoke first, but he didn't once take his eyes of the trees that seemed to stretch up endlessly. "The Spine is a wild place, and danger waits around every turn. Though I have never before been this far north in the Spine, I know it from when I was young." I looked at him for a minute and nodded. He continued. "If we cross, perhaps we can find Therinsford. From there, I will find Morzan and kill him." His eyes flashed with a combination of grief and pain. The iron-like cold in his voice made me shiver, and I knew Brom would fight to his death to make pay those whom he found at fault for Saphira's death.

I nodded, unsure of what else to do, and considered my own path, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I would do. It was the same as I always had. I would go wherever my feet decided to carry me. For every time I had made my own plans, fate had carried me where she pleased.

There you go! I know it was long in coming, but with the end of the school year and AP testing, my time needs to be prioritized. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought. Love it? Hate it? Tell me.