For all the reviewers and messengers who responded about the fourth book update for the last chapter, I want to say this. I KNOW, RIGHT? For the past four years I've spent my spare time planning strategic attacks on CP's home if he doesn't hurry up!

mjplanet: I know exactly what you're talking about. When Brisingr came out I wouldn't have known about it unless I saw some random stranger reading it on the subway.

Aiedail94: Yeah, I decided to just go onto Google and type in inheritance book 4 and this news update came up and it said, "Christopher Paolini sets a release date for the fourth book of the best-selling series; set to be released November 8th." I was in tears.

Valkyrie-chick: :) Yeah face. Me too. :) I spent, probably, three hours trying to get that down, simply because I had no premise but a small section in Brisingr to go off of for Galbatorix. :) IIIIII dddddoooooonnnnn''''''ttttt kkkkknnnnnooooowwww. (In case you can't read that it's says I don't know.) Guess you'll just have to wait to find out. I did say they have an unhappy ending, but I also said that that ending didn't involve adultery. What could this mean? Again, :), you'll just have to keep reading.

Owltalon: :) Yeah, but my ability in explicit material don't extended to blood and guts. I don't know; I have severe Hemophobia and so battle scenes don't play out well with me.

Oblit1519: I just really hate blood and gore stuff. Makes me just shiver thinking of the word.

Daxxx: :) I've subscribed to them since CP or however made the site made it.

Galbatorix looked down at the destruction wrought on his men. Even with the colossal loss of numbers, Galbatorix had drawn all his men to him, and thus still had a very large number. His black eyes met Eragon's. "Well, Rider Eragon; it seems I have underestimated you. I still have the Eldunari. So even without Futurestar, I can easily dispose of this miserable rebellion."

"For the moment only, Galbatorix. Soon they shall be freed of you."

An insane laugh burst from Galbatorix. "Free of me? They are my slaves and they shall remain as such for the rest of time! And so shall Saphira and the green egg!" Eragon thought of Katelyn and just as he did, he groped after the thought, willing it to return, but it was too late. Galbatorix's eyes widened and his smirk stretched across his mouth. "The daughter of Roran Stronghammer! I might have known!" With a blast of wind and flame, Shruikan dipped up and around and flew down to Uru'baen.

"After them!" Eragon shouted.

"No," Aesire said.

"What? He's going after Roran!"

"Yes, he is. Which means his attention will be distracted from his Eldunari. Now is our chance to free them!"

Eragon yearned to go and defend his cousin, but the logic of what Aesire said was impregnable. With disgust he said, "Where do you think he's hiding them?"

"He has to have them so close that he can reach them and suck power from them at any given time..."

"You obviously don't understand the range of a spell caster, especially Galbatorix. That idea could encompass all of Uru'baen and far beyond."

"You didn't let me finish. I'm convinced that he wouldn't allow mere servants to handle them, for fear of treachery. Therefore, since Murtagh is dead and the third egg couldn't have hatched, he would only trust himself to defend them. They must be close to where he spends most of his time."

"His throne room," Eragon said, completing his thought. Saphira, he said. Before he could say any more, Saphira opened her jaws and let loose a great roar and plummeted to the castle.

"His throne room would be near the top of the castle," Aesire said, tightening his grip around Eragon as Saphira sped up the speed of her dive. "He would post many men between him and the entrance on every level so no one could get up there without his wanting it. Stop!" He shouted as Saphira pulled up past one of the first black spirals. He stood up in the saddle and activated his Lunarmist.

"What are you doing?"

"Eyes of the King. Very few things can be hidden from them. I can see through most anything." He scanned the walls for a moment before he said, "There," pointing down to a raised section of the castle. Saphira flapped down to it and Eragon looked at Aren.

Don't suppose at time will ever come when the energy Brom gave me will be more greatly needed. He pointed the ring at the wall and intoned, "Jierda du grind!" With a grinding sound, the magic took affect. As soon as it touched the walls, it was blocked by numerous spells. However, Eragon persisted. After nearly a minute with Eragon's spell having ever-increasing amounts of energy poured into it, the walls cracked. Eragon locked in on the split, putting enough pressure to crush a bolder onto the crack until more and more lined the walls. Finally, the walls collapsed, sending rubble falling to the streets below. Saphira flew through the gap and landed on the floor inside.

Galbatorix's black throne stood on the opposite side of the room, beyond the reach of any light, with black rugs as thick as Eragon's leg for Shruikan to rest upon. Eragon closed his eyes and opened his mind. As soon as he did, a confused yammer of thousands of voices filled his mind to the point of paralyzing him. He opened his eyes and said, "Jierda."

With a snap of his fingers, a section of the floor exploded. Eragon stepped up to the hole and looked down. A room of grey concrete lay below the floor, beneath several inches of steel. Eragon jumped down into it and gasped. Black shelves lined the walls and filled the center of the room. On each shelf rested Eldunari of every size and color, ranging from ones no bigger than a pebble to ones so large Eragon wondered how the shelf supported its weight. However, these Eldunari were not like Glaedr's. Instead of flashing with random sparks of light as if a fire was lit inside, the Eldunaris' flashing lights were as dim as a candle lit a mile away and as infrequent as they were short. No more than a small flicker came from the very largest of Eldunari and the smaller ones seemed all but extinguished.

"Galbatorix needed Futurestar," Eragon said as Aesire jumped down into the room with him.

"Why?"

"He's sucked the life out these Eldunari. They're barely alive." He stepped up and laid a hand on a green Eldunari. He felt no life force from it. "He's sucked them dry."

"How is that possible? I thought Eldunari drew their energy from something around them."

"That's never been proven; it's only a theory. Whatever happened, Galbatorix drained these Eldunari before they had a chance to recover strength."

"How long can he last with the ones that remain?"

"Optimistically? Another year. He wants to bring back the Rider's for more reasons than to rule Alagaesia. He wants, needs more Eldunari to fuel his body. As it is, his strength must be failing even now."

"But there's thousands of these," Aesire said, seeming confused.

"To be able to kill off hundreds of thousands of Riders almost single handedly, Galbatorix must have been using all the Eldunari available to him and his power has only increased over the past hundred years. Therefore, he has only been drawing more from these Eldunari, not less. Many of these," Eragon said, feeling as though he were about to cry at the fate of the dragons, "seem to be dead. In addition, the ones that are alive do not seem strong enough to fuel even a man's finger; much less his body."

"Eragon," Aesire said delicately. "We must go."

"And leave them all here?" Eragon said furiously.

"Eragon, you yourself just said many of them are dead and that Galbatorix cannot be drawing enough energy to fuel himself. Therefore, the Eldunari are no longer our concern. We must go back and fight him."

"What did they do to deserve this, Aesire?" he asked, looking out at all of them. "What justice could this possible be?"

"I don't believe in justice," he said gently, but adamantly. "What I believe in is logic; pure and clear rational thinking. It will never betray your trust. Now, we must go."

"Is this the fate of all dragons- to be set on a shelf and have the life sucked out of until they are no more?"

"Eragon!" Aesire said sharply. "This will be their fate if you let Galbatorix's twisted reasoning invade your mind!"

"I wanted to go back to Carvahall," he said, almost to himself. "I would have just left them here."

Aesire eyes narrowed. "You think this is your fault?"

Eragon met his gaze. "Isn't it?"

Aesire reached forward and gripped his shoulder, pulling to turn him around. "Listen to me, you fool. How is this in any way your fault? How is any of this your fault? Your mother's mother was not even conceived when Galbatorix dragged his worthless carcass out of the Spine. Are you tired of fighting him?" he asked criticizingly. He slipped the tie of a hunting knife out of his belt and pulled it out of his sheath. "Here, use mine. I'd hate for you magnificent weapon to have some blood on it." He stepped forward closer until his face was directly in front of his. He pushed the knife into Eragon's hand, forcing his finger to wrap around the hilt. "Are you tired of all of this; the fighting, the death, the evil? End it. Just raise that knife to your neck and end it. You blame yourself for these dragons' fate? The worst you can be blamed for is being born at the wrong time in the wrong place! So go ahead; put that knife to your neck and bring your self-pitying to fruition! End your discomfort by knowing that Galbatorix will shroud everyone you care about in a cloak of misery that will have an end when the heavens come crashing down!" He let go of Eragon's hand and stepped back. The knife clattered against the ground. "No?" His voice softened. "Eragon; how can you possible blame yourself for what Galbatorix has done? How can you take what that mad man has done for a hundred years and place it on yourself? Such a weight will destroy you!"

"What is not my fault, Aesire? It is my fault Oromis, Ajihad, Hrothgar, Murtagh, Brom, Garrow, and countless others are dead. If I had not been here, they never would have died. Now I've taken away Arya's throne and her standing with her mother."

Aesire stepped forward and delivered a powerful punch to Eragon's gut. Eragon bent over and moaned. When he stood up Aesire said, "When words will not go through a man's ear, you make another way in." When Eragon said nothing, Aesire breathed deeply through his nostrils. "Very well then. My one condition for fighting the Empire with you." That caught Eragon's attention. He lifted his eyes from the floor and met Aesire's gaze. "As promised it will do only good for you. When we vanquish Galbatorix you will step up to take his place on the throne."

"What!" Eragon gasped out.

"And not just over the Empire. No. Over all of Alagaesia. From Doru Araeba you will rule over all the land."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Eragon burst out. "The Dwarfs will never agree to allow me to rule them and the Queen said neither I nor Arya nor can any descendants we will have ever rule the Elves!"

Aesire smiled. "There. That's better. Back to your self doubting ways." He closed his eyes and said, "How will you do it? I'm not sure of that. All I know is that it shall come to pass with or without your cooperation."

"Are you congratulating me for having self doubt?"

Aesire scoffed and reopened his eyes. "Better to have a man who is wary of his limitations than a man who is drunk on his own inadequacy.

M'kay, so since I mentioned my bad Hemophobia in the chapter responses, I thought I'd throw in one of the most ridicules fears I found on a phobia site. I swear to God, if you go to the site it will be there.

Because of Fanfiction's awsome number limit for words, I'm forced to type this out with a space seperating each letter so that it won't pick it up as one word and block it.

H i p p o p o t o m o n s t r o s e s q u i p e d a l i o p h o b i a: That is a real word. Now, without using any search engine try and guess what phobia it is. This is a good faith author/reader interaction thing. Feel free to cheat if that's your fancy, however. What ever gets you out of bed in the morning. :) Fair warning, this site includes such phobias as the fear of ideas, the fear of rooms, fear of words, and the fear of moths. So, your chances are slim of guessing correctly. I'll let you know if any body got it right next time I update.

(AN: Yes, I know. Grind means gate, or gates for some of you more literal folk, but I could not for the life of me find the word for walls. So I was forced to compromise.)

Last finally note; you're going to want to pay attention to this.

My original estimate for the completion of my current story/stories of three books is turning up to be a tad bit inaccurate. So, not to copy CP and what I mean by that is that I did not do this purposefully, the story will be extended to include a fourth book. What happened there is I had to insert a story in between the second and third, not put a fourth onto the end. Just thought I'd clear that up.