Chapter 10: "There's Only One Thing Left To Try"

(A/N: To all my wonderful reviewers: Thank you all so much! Keep going, my goal is to have 25 reviews by the end of this story! That means I need...at least two reviews per each of the last 5 chapters! Please help me out!)

It was two o'clock in the morning. Ialana was there, on the mountaintop, as promised. She had managed - at the cost of most of her energy - to craft a spell to bring herself back from the nonmaterial realm. But that came at a downside - if she was attacked before her magic was allowed to replenish, she would have no defense.

Flap-clap, flap-clap. Saphira. Eragon climbed off his dragon's back and walked towards Ialana. "I'm here."

"Yes, you are, Master Eragon. What is it you wish to speak of?"

"Well, I think there's only one thing left to try."

"What?"

"There's another poem, the Osatho Dramur - the Sage Dream...I don't know what that means either - and it contains talk of a spell which it says will cure possesion. I can attempt it...but Nasuada has forbidden me any contact with you, if you were alive she said, which you are, so we had to come up here."

"Alright. Begin?"

"I will begin." Eragon was quiet for about seven seconds with his hands together as if he were meditating. Then, in a soft, but firm voice, "Ialana, eka lonsa fra onr sunduvar." Ialana, I release you from the shadows. Ialana noticed at the back of her mind that Eragon often used the word sundavr when talking of her. Sunduvar. Shadows. Because shadows are dark, foreboding, and at the same time beautiful.

"Aa-ah!" Eragon let out a small cry. The flow of magic stopped. "That...that should have worked..."

"No," said Ialana, in a voice so human it surprised even her, "it should not have."

"Meaning?"

"I have read the Osatho Dramur. The words in question only work if spoken to one...one whom you...whom you love."

"What? If you knew this, why did you not tell me?"

"Because I thought perhaps you-" Ialana stopped, and merely looked straight into his eyes.

"Wait." Eragon suddenly seemed to understand. "No. No, no, no, you are not really saying..."

But she was. Ialana had finally admitted what she had never had the courage to tell even herself - she was in love with Eragon Shadeslayer.

After months of wandering, she finally finds a city in which she can take refuge. Standing at the gates, as though waiting for her, is a woman with a hood over her face. "Who are you?" The woman flips her hood back, revealing flowing dark hair and pointed ears. An elf. "I am Arya", the elf-woman says. "I have heard of you. I have some advice to give you." "Yes?" "Seek out my friend Eragon Shadeslayer. He is Shurtugal Argetlam, a Silver-Handed-DragonRider. He is perhaps more powerful a magician than any other in Alagaesia, in Surda, in all the Empire. He may be able to help you."

"Ialana." Eragon sounded confused, like he didn't know what to say to her. "I'm really sorry", he said, reaching out and touching her face, "I don't want to make things any harder on you. But you have to let go of these feelings. My heart belongs to another. I cannot give you...what you desire."

Ialana was silent, absorbing his words, trying to heed them. "I...understand, Master Argetlam." No longer Eragon. Simply Master Argetlam. He is willing to say "Let me help", but unwilling to say "I love you". The thought nagged her, At least he is not like Durza, willing to say "I love you", but unwilling to mean "I love you."

Ialana's dark side grew silently stronger as, on a mountaintop in a starry purple-skyed morning, her heart was broken again.

(A/N: A slight LotR reference in here. If no one gets it, I'll explain in the next chapter.)