An extra chapter since I'm feeling so good.

The sky reminded her of a rider. The days when she would look up during her time with the Varden and just spend hours staring as both dragon and rider conquered the open air every day. Even in Ellesméra, the two of them would hardly been seen without the other unless during training. And then back with the Varden. During the battles for freedom. The battles for justice. All of these moments seemed so distant. As if they had never happened. How she wished to spend just one hour, if not one day, with the rider she had grown to care so much about. The forests and the sky had lost their meaning. Her duties as a queen were in no way more difficult than parting with him. The nightmares would just get worse. They started out with him just leaving, but soon, as months passed by, those images during the night had turned to violent torture scenes that would haunt her throughout daylight hours and revisit her while she slept. Every second was agonising. Every tear useless. She should have allowed what the two of them so desperately desired. To be together…

Snowflakes began to fall in large numbers as the biting frost died away giving permission for the softer incarnation of itself to take over the landscape. The winters on Edoc'sil Deloi were harsh and unforgiving. An issue with this new habitat of the dragons was that during the winter, the cold would penetrate the brightest flame but during the summers, no reserve of water was cool enough for anyone to take comfort in without using magic.

The emptiness of his room was beginning to play games with his head. Bringing back the memories of when he had left Alagaësia for the riders' cause, to ensure they had a brighter future than the one fate had planned for them so long ago before the reign of tyranny. No number of fairths had been able to soothe the aching pain of regret that had engraved itself into his heart. No amount of scrying had made the situation any easier. Instead he felt inhuman, trying to force himself to believe that they could have a future together.

Eragon sighed and turned over inside the sheets of his bed. On the side of his mattress sat Rya, comforting Selena who had perhaps been crying or growing restless. Rya was the only family he had now, besides Selena. Whatever the necromancers had done to Arya had a deep-rooted effect, completely blocking him out. She was beginning to remember certain things, but everything she recalled was without him involved. Was he being wiped from history?

Selena started to wail once again, whilst Rya continued to rock her back and forth saying, 'there, there.'

Eragon wished it was that easy to soothe the pain he was feeling as well. A tear fell from his eyes and he quickly turned away before Rya could see. He didn't want his niece thinking of him as weak. That would not be good for morale, if his own student believed he was cracking under Arya's absence. Eragon knew that by now the whole of Alagaësia had been conquered by Oathbreaker. He needed to be prepared for when the tyrant would attack his island. He needed to be prepared for anything.

He slid out his bed adorned himself with a few spells to keep the cold at bay and left the room letting Rya know he'd be gone for a while. Something about Rya told him that the girl wasn't someone ordinary. She was special, but what destiny had in store for her, they would have to wait to find out. Eragon strolled through the forests blanketed in snow. As the flakes fell, he admired how beautiful they appeared to be. He had a good hour or so before his training with Du Dröttningu would begin so he seized this opportunity to the fullest by taking in all of the beauty around him. Only one thought disturbed him, Arya. That elf had captivated him from the second he had seen her in his dream before reaching Gil'ead. Her beauty had taken over his whole mind, even while she slept. Tears flowed from his eyes again creating a silver river across his face. He clenched his eyes shut as tight as he could, forcing himself to fight his destroyed heart. He had broken before because of Arya during the Agaetí Blödhren when she had rejected his plea to be with her. He had been broken once again when he left Alagaësia and she had refused to come with him, and now he felt as if he was about to break again due to the suffering he was undergoing. The necromancers had done more damage to him this way than if they had killed him. They had shattered the whole hierarchy of his understanding of the world. The only things keeping him from joining Brom in the void was his new hope that Murtagh was alive and the two family members he had in the palace, Rya and Selena.

Through a watery frown the destroyed rider approached a cliff. He walked right to the edge of it and gave his legs a rest, dangling them off the huge rock. Eragon had given up fighting the tears. He had lost so many of his friends and family in the first war and now was he to lose another? But not by death. This one was by estrangement. He looked up at the cloudy sky and felt the aching of his heart slightly alleviate. Looking back down at the lake at the bottom of the cliff, he saw only ice. Something, he thought, that characterised his emotions in his current state. A flicker of movement suddenly caught his attention. Down near the frozen water, leaning against a tree, sat an elf with raven black hair and, seemingly glinting, green eyes. He shuddered at the same time as he sighed and looked away.

But how could he? The difficulty of being so distant from her made it difficult not to look back again. Arya seemed to be studying the gedwëy ignasia on her palm.

Firnen is dead, he thought. She must be quite confused as to where that mark had come from.

As he thought, Saphira landed beside him with a thud. She prodded at his mind and he reluctantly let down his mental barriers.

He could feel Saphira's whole mind filled with sympathy and couldn't contain himself. He let loose a torrent of tears that threatened to wet all of his clothes. Saphira pulled him closer to her and covered him with her wing. The snow didn't seem to disturb her at all, even without any wards.

Little one please, cheer up. All you do these days is think, cry and train. It pains me to see you like this. It reminds me of the days when we first arrived here. Please do not make us both go through this again.

Eragon didn't reply. He simply held onto Saphira's flank and wept. If anything could ever console him it was his dragon, but right now, even she wasn't successful.

Saphira's sorrow flowed through their link and they simply sat in that position for an hour or so. The ferocity of the weather increased and Eragon decided it was time to go to Du Dröttningu. Before leaving the cliff he took one last glance at the one he loved before turning away.

Eragon didn't hold anything back while training. It helped him get his mind off the elf and was what he used to do back with Oromis. Oromis had given him the advice to just be patient and to 'see how things turned out' but so far, nothing had happened except more heartache for Eragon. Occasionally he would receive visions from Murtagh who he could tell wasn't facing the best of times but he knew that there was nothing they could do. The only thing Murtagh could do was to endure whatever hardships were being thrown his way until Eragon had completed all of his training. He had tried to scry his brother but that had resulted in nothing but a blank puddle of water and a grey mirror. The two of them had met once in a dream where they had exchanged what had transpired around them and Eragon had expressed his grief for Murtagh who insisted it wasn't much he was experiencing and that the hunger was the most difficult part.

He finished off the Rimgar in an ice cold flowing river and walked out without a shudder. Du Dröttningu handed him a towel which he used to dry off the upper half of his body. He sat down on a small boulder and clothed his upper half with a dark tunic. He could feel the dark gaze of Du Dröttningu on the back of his neck but couldn't care less. Given the temperature of his body, he supposed that she was worried as to why he wasn't shivering and the reason for that was that the temperature he was experiencing internally had finally reached an equilibrium with his outer self. A hand rested on his right shoulder as Du Dröttningu knelt beside Eragon. She simply stared at his face for a minute before using her left hand to hold his face towards hers. Examining his face closely she pulled him into a sudden embrace.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm putting you through so much even after everything you have experienced. If you so desire, we can continue your training sometime in the future. I understand what you are going through right now. I cannot imagine how it must be for you, but I do understand. Just know this, I will always be here for you through the hardest of times, just as my father was and is. He cared for you Eragon and I have also grown to care for you. If Glaedr Elda entrusted his gem to you then surely my father must have thought quite highly of you. And now Du Ebrithil's dragon revealed himself to you. Du Ebrithil also cares very much for you. We all do Eragon. Never feel as though you are alone.'

She gave his shoulder a light squeeze before leaving him to his thoughts. He buried his face in his hands and let his emotions take over once again.

He didn't know how long he had spent there. Maybe an hour, two even? His hands were completely soaked from tears whilst his throat pleaded for hydration. Eragon couldn't care less. Just as fate cared so little for him.

A small hand stroked his back from the base of his spine all the way up to his nape. Not looking up he continued to cry. Whoever it was could wait. He felt the hand tugging at the side of his face pulling it in the direction its owner was coming from. There, still clothed in black, stood Arya, the splendid queen of the elves.

Her eyes were drenched. She awoke to find herself on a large tree near Tialdari Hall. Little time did she spend with her subordinates. She had lost count of the number of times she had considered handing over the crown to someone else but had been stopped by the memory of her mother. Her mother who she had despised through every waking moment of her life was now gone. Oromis who had treated her like a father was gone. Glaedr Elda who had advised her through several situations in life was also gone. And now her dearest friend Eragon. Four decades had passed and still she had received no message from him. Nothing. She found it quite appalling, her situation, she was a lost cause – weeping over a mere boy. But he wasn't just a boy. She knew that as well as he did. But why was she crying like this? Did she have some connection with him that she wasn't willing to admit? Or was there something she wanted from him or wanted to give him? She screamed into the air before punching the ground as hard as she could. When would this all end…