Chapter 4

Arya seemed amused by his words for a slim smile appeared on her face.

This could work, a voice in the back of her head said. She forced it away with images of Faolin. Her smile vanished.

"What is it you want, Eragon?" she insisted. More pain? Less pain? No pain? Why not leave instead of torture yourself? Instead of torturing me? She was shocked at her own selfishness.

"You know I don't regard Nasuada's plan as safe, nor clever, what is it you need?"

"It's possible though, isn't it?" Finally Eragon looked up, and when he did, Arya read in his eyes, something she did not expect to find; excitement.

It was hidden beneath, misery, regret, fear, hope, love and an unbelievable amount of emotions Arya would never dare display, but it was there.

Brom, she remembered, he's excited because he's following in his footsteps.

"Yes" she snapped. Why was he excited! He was going to die! He was going to get injured, cursed or killed! Arya looked at Eragon for a second and then crossed her arms across her stomach.

"I think it's best you leave now."

~O~

Elva passed the tent of the injured Warriors. Once she got to the end she turned around and walked passed it again.

There was a man who had had his leg amputated and was writhing in pain, a man with only one eye, a fighter with horrible burn wounds, a cut on his right knee and a broken nose, and number of other less major injuries on other men.

Elva tried once more to push all the pain into the back of her mind. She was good now. She could ignore cuts, bruises, broken bones, missing limbs, most outer damage. She could not ignore inner pain. She could feel one of Orrin's soldiers lunges filling with blood because a broken rib had punctured it, she could feel the stomach ache of a man who had eaten a poison fungi…

She tried once more to rid herself of their pain, but the pain stayed and was topped by an upcoming headache. Elva walked away and into the woods where she clambered onto a tree and watched the final rays of the sun sink behind the hills. There was another kind of pain she could not ignore. A pain that Arya had cursed her with. The pain of Eragon's love that felt like a burning, red hot iron snake twist around her heart and tried to crush all life out of it. She knew the snake was not really there, and that the pain was not real either, for as soon as Eragon passed it stopped without a trace, not a sting, or an ache or anything lasting. She did not understand why Eragon's sorrow or rather love life was counted within the fields of 'misfortune'. No doubt it had been a disaster for Eragon's pride, but surely that did not count?

That would make every gone-wrong dinner, every terrible council, every failure a misfortune. Elva shook her head. That can't be. What then?

~O~

Eragon sat on his cot running his finger up and down the flat edge of Brisingr. Up and down. Up and Down. From afar it may have looked rather odd, a boy sitting on a cot stroking his sword with glazed over eyes staring into the distance. It made perfect sense to Eragon however. He was experimenting.

Multitasking. He was reaching out for consciences while doing something in his own body-stroking the sword.

Eragon's mind, partly crawling on the floor in the head of a beetle, was also contemplating the advantages of being able to be in multiple bodies at once and still move his own as if he was still there, in the tent, on his cot stroking the sword. This is disturbing, he thought making his own body laugh while paying full attention to the odd grey sphere the beetle had found on the ground.

Welldone, you're six legged friend has found a pebble, Saphira's voice flowed through his mind, pulling him away from the beetle and to his ever loyal, ever faithful companion.

Saphira snorted, letting smoke escape from her nostrils. Eragon rubbed his eyes and waited until they had adjusted to the darkness. Then he tiptoed to her and sat next to her.

"Eragon?" The voice made him shiver, even when he did not see the body. The person laughed.

"Hello Elva" Eragon replied. Elva hesitated, then she slunk towards where Eragon was sitting and stared at him. Her eyes reflected the light of the moon, turning it into two violet orbs. She had grown again. Her body looked at least 8. "Have you not stopped growing?"

She shook her head. "I can't" she whispered, "but that is irrelevant, I am here to warn you, Eragon Shadeslayer,"

Eragon listened intently, though he did not need to, since the Agaetí Blödhren.

"Do not participate, do not ride the dragon and do not go near the tunnels, if you however, go against my will, beware the elf girl and the greenest secret"

"What makes you say that?" Eragon uttered, irritated. No one knew about where they were going, only Arya, Nasuada and Saphira knew, and they would not tell Elva! Who knows what went on in that girls head, she was not trusted by anyone, no owned by anyone, no commanded. For a second Eragon felt a pang of envy.

"I spoke with a spirit" A childish glee sprang into her voice. "It came to me and trusted me with a message to you, and a message to Angela and the werecat" feeling she had said to much already, she leapt away and dashed away with three last words upo her lips "It was purple"