In his mind echoed a voice of fire: Our gift so you may do what you must.
The dragon bent his neck and, with his snout, touched the heart of Eragon's gedwëy ignasia. A spark jumped between them, and Eragon went rigid as incandescent heat poured through his body, consuming his insides. His vision flashed red and black, and the scar on his back burned as if branded. Fleeing to safety, he fell deep within himself, where darkness grasped him and he had not the strength to resist it. At the edge of his consciousness he glimpsed Arya's face above him, filled with concern.
She looks beautiful, thought Eragon. Then then fire consumed his body.
Last, he again heard the voice of fire say, Our gift to you.
….
Eragon was alone when he woke.
He opened his eyes to stare at the carved ceiling in the tree house he and Saphira shared. Outside, night still reigned and the sounds of the elves' revels drifted from the glittering city below.
Before he noticed more than that, Saphira leaped into his mind, radiating concern and anxiety. An image passed to him of her standing beside Islanzadí at the Menoa tree, then she asked, How are you?
I feel … good. Better than I've felt in a long time. A little different but better. How long have I—
Only an hour. I would have stayed with you, but they needed Oromis, Glaedr, and me to complete the ceremony. You should have seen the elves' reaction when you fainted. Nothing like this has occurred before.
Did you cause this, Saphira?
It was not my work alone, nor Glaedr's. Eragon felt a sudden wave of anxiety come over her. The memories of our race, which were given form and substance by the elves' magic, anointed you with what skill we dragons possess, for you are our best hope to avoid extinction. But … you know how magic wrought by dragons works. It is unpredicatable, there were side effects.
I don't understand.
Look in a mirror, she suggested, worry still coloring Saphira's thoughts. But please understand what happened was out of our control. Rest and recover and I shall rejoin you at dawn. Be careful little one.
She left, and Eragon got to his feet and stretched, amazed by the sense of well-being that pervaded him. However as he stood up another set of feelings stopped him dead in his tracks. He looked down at the loose elven tunic he'd been wearing. Or rather, formerly loose tunic. Rushing to the wash closet, he retrieved the mirror he used for shaving and brought it into the light of a nearby lantern and froze with surprise.
It was as if the numerous physical changes that, over time, alter the appearance of a human Rider—and which Eragon had already begun to experience since bonding with Saphira—had been completed while he was unconscious. His face was now as smooth and angled as an elf's, with ears tapered like theirs and eyes slanted like theirs, and his skin was as pale as alabaster and seemed to emit a faint glow, as if with the sheen of magic. However that was not the most noticable difference.
The most notable difference was Eragon now had the face of a woman.
In a haste he ripped off his tunic and leggings and looked with a mixture of awe, horror, and amazement at his new body. Or rather her new body.
Eragon had never seen a woman unclothed before. Carvahall was hardly a prudish community but it did have its modesty laws and regardless, Garrow would've beaten her or Roran senseless if they'd been caught acting with such recklessness. As a result all she could do was she stare at the mirror trying to find her thoughts.
Eventually she regained enough focus to cast a spell to levitate the mirror and Eragon actually took in what she had become. Though she was no less muscular, Eragon could tell right away she was smaller. Not by much but a couple of inches. However where previously her legs had extended straight down, they now very shapely curved at the thighs, rounding out at her hips which were much wider than before. Traveling up her body curved into a narrow waist and a narrower ribcage before coming to two of the biggest changes. Eragon felt her breasts, noting that even by her poor knowledge of women they were large, certainly much larger than most of the women she'd grown up with in Carvahall.
That struck Eragon as odd as to her observation most elf women were quite built lithely. They certainly looked far more like male elves than human women did men. In fact the more she studied herself she realized while she had taken on many elflike properties, she was still partially human. That comforted her.
With that in mind Eragon studied her face again, this time in more detail. The more she looked the more she realized while many of the changes were due to being made more elf-like and a woman, she could still see her face underneath. Or at least, a resemblence to her face. If Eragon had had a sister she imagined this is what she would've liked like.
I wonder if I look like Mother. Garrow had always said growing up she'd looked just like Selena.
Well if it's any help, said Saphira. I think you look very comely. Certainly moreso than any of the human woman I've seen.
But … why? Asked Eragon, confusion rushing back to the front of her mind.
Turn around.
Eragon suddenly gleaned what Saphira was hinting at and with the cautious hope of a beggar invited to a king's feast, turn so her back faced the mirror.
With trembling fingers, Eragon reached around the nape of her neck in search of her scar.
She felt nothing.
It was as smooth as it had been before the battle of Farthen Dûr. Tears sprang to Eragon's eyes as she slid her hand over the place where Durza had maimed her. She knew that her back would never trouble her again.
Not only was the savage blight she had elected to keep gone, but every other scar and blemish had vanished from her body, leaving her as unmarked as a newborn babe. Eragon traced a line upon her wrist where she had cut himself while sharpening Garrow's scythe. No evidence of the wound remained. The blotchy scars on the insides of her thighs, remnants from her first flight with Saphira, had also disappeared. For a moment, she missed them as a record of her life, but her regret was short-lived as she realized that the damage from every injury she had ever suffered, no matter how small, had been repaired.
Suddenly all her confusion was gone, replaced with gratitude and calm.
If this is the price, then so be it. She thought firmly. Growing up as a poor farmer she'd learned young that no gift came free, and if a new body was the cost for being given the tools to fulfill her duty, then she would accept it.
You have grown mature.
It was about time wasn't it?
Eragon still sensed concern from Saphira but she was glad that there was at least a tone of humor after that comment. Taking a deep breath she readied herself to go back outside.
Eragon Shadeslayer, reborn tonight.
I have become what I was meant to be, she thought, and took a deep breath of the intoxicating air. She dropped the mirror on the bed and garbed herself in her finest clothes: a crimson tunic stitched with gold thread; a belt studded with white jade; warm, felted leggings; a pair of the cloth boots favored by the elves; and upon her forearms, leather vambraces the dwarves had given her. The tunic and leggings were especially tight around her new body, having been tailored for a human man. Luckily the vambraces were adjustable and they still fit perfectly, for Eragon would've been loathe to part with them.
One of the few things that hadn't changed at all was her hair, which still lay in shaggy waves down to just above her shoulder. Eragon briefly considered casting a spell to lengthen it but then reconsidered. With its current length she looked powerful, like many of the heroes she'd read about in her studies with Oromis.
No, that stays the same.
Descending from the tree, Eragon wandered the shadows of Ellesméra and observed the elves carousing in the fever of the night. None of them recognized her, though they greeted her as one of their own and invited her to share in their saturnalias. Eragon floated in a state of heightened awareness, her senses thrumming with the multitude of new sights, sounds, smells, and feelings that assailed her. She could see in darkness that would have blinded her before. She could touch a leaf and, by touch alone, count the individual hairs that grew upon it. She could identify the odors wafting about her as well as a wolf or a dragon. And she could hear the patter of mice in the underbrush and the noise a flake of bark makes as it falls to earth; the beating of her heart was as a drum to her.
Moreover her body moved differently. Its center of gravity had shifted lower and she could feel her hips swaying more as she walked. Her chest also moved in unexpected ways, bouncing annoyingly, though a quick 'Letta!' fixed that. On more than one occasion an elf came up and asked for a dance, complimenting her figure. Eragon that unlike what she expected from human society her courters were equally male and female elves.
Her aimless path led her past the Menoa tree, where she paused to watch Saphira among the festivities, though she did not reveal herself to those in the glade.
Where go you, little one? she asked.
She saw Arya rise from her mother's side, make her way through the gathered elves, and then, like a forest sprite, glide underneath the trees beyond.
I walk between the candle and the dark, she replied, and followed Arya.
Eragon tracked Arya by her delicate scent of crushed pine needles, by the feathery touch of her foot upon the ground, and by the disturbance of her wake in the air. She found her standing alone on the edge of a clearing, poised like a wild creature as she watched the constellations turn in the sky above. As Eragon emerged in the open, Arya looked at her, and she felt as if she saw her for the first time. Her eyes widened, and she whispered, "Is that you, Eragon?"