Queen Islanzadi was an imposing figure. At first, Eragon's impression was colored by her apparent youth. She was just as beautiful and youthful as every other elf he'd seen. He was not fooled for long.
The moment their party came before her in her audience hall, her gaze fell upon Saphira, then Arya and Harry. Her eyes were intense and experienced. There was something else there too, a tension in her posture. Anger.
The Queen's expression cleared into controlled geniality. Eragon remembered Arya's lessons and bowed, twisting his fingers over his lips.
"Atra esterni ono thelduin," he said firmly, confident in his practiced pronunciation.
Islanzadi approved, her demeanor shifting ever so slightly in his favor. "Atra du evarínya ono varda," she replied."
"Un atra mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr," Eragon finished. "Well met, your majesty."
"Well met," the Queen replied, the ghost of a smile touching the corner of her red lips. "My daughter has taught you well."
It took Eragon several long seconds to piece together Queen Islanzadi's implication. He goggled for only a second before regaining his composure.
"She is a good teacher," Eragon managed to keep his voice level. He saw the family resemblance now; the eyes and the cheekbones were nearly the same.
"I am well informed as to the feats that preceded your arrival," Queen Islanzadi went on. "And you have traveled swiftly. Another feat. I imagine we ought to celebrate."
And that was that.
There was indeed a feast and merrymaking in their honor. In contrast to the dwarves, Eragon received little attention, and of no great accolades. What attention Harry received was even sourer. Saphira was the focus of the evening and of every elf. Finally, here was a group of people who all recognized her personhood without her having to assert herself. Not only that, Saphira reveled in the flattering attention and lavish praise heaped upon her by the elves.
They sang songs and composed poems about her strength, her beauty, the brilliance of her scales, the gleam of her teeth, every part of Saphira was waxed upon eloquently. Her good mood rubbed off on Eragon, who enjoyed the feast quietly.
It served him well enough not to have to speak – every introduction was a chance to put his foot in his mouth and waste a portion of the respect he'd earned greeting Islanzadi properly.
Her daughter had prepared him that much at least.
He couldn't get over that. Eragon had a certain set of notions as to what a princess would be like. Arya fit none of them, except perhaps intelligence and beauty. And to think that they had been traveling together all this time, unknowingly!
Yet even as she slipped into the role of princess, there was tension in her. She sent wary glances towards her mother during the duration of the feast, and Eragon was reminded that Harry's punishment had not yet been given.
Even after the feast, Islanzadi made no mention of Harry. She nearly pretended he did not exist at all; no honors were given, his name was never mentioned except in polite conversation by those seated next to him. When her gaze did ghost over him, the Queen's expression was that of extreme dislike bordering on hate.
Just what had Harry done to earn her ire? Eragon worried briefly that the wizard was in danger before Saphira dissuaded him.
Much like you and I, little one, he is too important to kill. Saphira managed to briefly tear her basking focus from the cavalcade of exuberant admiration.
Maybe, Eragon replied, but death is not the only harm worth fearing.
Soon after the feast ended, the Queen directed most of their party to follow one of her aides, an elf named Majaia. The Queen herself instructed only Saphira and Eragon to follow her.
Ellesmera was breathtaking. On the short walk, every few steps felt like tearing his gaze away from a masterwork of art. Eragon struggled to get his fill of the views while keeping up with the Queen. Islanzadi walked ahead, alone and without guards. He hurried on after her.
The seamless fusion of civilization and wilderness awed Eragon. Ellesmera was not a city in a forest, it was a city and a forest. Wildlife lived among the elves without fear, normally skittish deer crossing footpaths with the calm gait of an animal under no threat, even brushing past elves on their way.
It seemed like an impossible contradiction to have wilderness and the heart of a civilization in such perfect coexistence, yet here among the trees as wide as cathedrals, neither the elves nor the animals were interlopers.
Eragon immediately grasped why hunting here would be sacrilege.
"This shall be your home, as long as you are here," the Queen announced, coming to a stop. She looked to Saphira first before Eragon, a pattern he had noticed among the other elves.
'This' was a magnificent pine tree, its heavy boughs stretching for a dozen yards in every direction.
Inside was just as grand. Queen Islanzadi directed Saphira to a landing point halfway up the trunk on the right side, then led Eragon into the foyer. A statue of intertwined yet not touching hands reached out from a living wooden podium at the center of the foyer. There was not much else on the ground level, the room's design all seemed to lead his eyes towards a staircase that spiraled around the edge of the tree trunk.
It amazed Eragon that the tree could yet live while so much of its interior was hollowed out to make room for living space.
Before she made to leave, Eragon was prompted by Saphira into remembering what he had for her.
"Lady Nasuada gave me a missive for you."
"Ajihad's daughter?" Islanzadi asked, accepting the proffered scroll. Eragon nodded.
She broke the seal with an easy motion of her finger, expression impassive as her eyes drifted across the missive, darting back and forth faster than Eragon could ever imagine himself reading.
"Thank you, Shadeslayer, Brightscales. Much is changing, yet Lady Nasuada describes your ability to adapt favorably. I hope you both find Ellesmera pleasant. Good night."
Islanzadi bade him farewell then and stalked out of the tree with an expression that did not bode well for Harry. Eragon tried fruitlessly to put his mind off Harry's fate and explore the rest of his new home. Whatever happened, Eragon could not influence.
#
"Daughter."
Arya searched for a heartbeat for an excuse not to have this conversation. None presented themselves. Orik, Brom, and Harry already had their apartments in Tialdari Hall, and Eragn and Saphira were surely set in Vrael's old home.
"Mother."
Islanzadi stood at the door to her quarters in Tialdari Hall. It was difficult to evade one's mother in the best of times, let alone when living in the same hall, let alone when she was the Queen.
"I would speak with you. Come."
Arya steeled herself for an exhausting conversation and followed Islanzadi. Her mother swept through the halls, a splash of crimson among the green. Islanzadi held open the door to her quarters and beckoned Arya in.
It had been…decades since she'd been in these rooms. The memories she had here were hard. Her father had died when she was just old enough to miss him, yet far too young to understand why, or why her mother had changed so much afterwards.
She let her sneakers tap across the glossy wooden floor of the circular living room, ring upon ring upon ring circling the center. One for each year since the tree first sprouted, Arya used to count them and imagine which ring it had been when she was born, when her father was born, when the room had been sang from the tree, when it had first been found by elves, all the way back to a time that must have been prehistoric, when Du Weldenvarden was no forest but a field of saplings, waiting to grow into the majesty it would one day reach under the custodianship of the elves.
Islanzadi gestured to a seat, a floral patterned chair Arya used to sit in when she was In Trouble. From the look on her mother's face, she was indeed In Trouble.
She sat opposite her mother, who was silent for a long while, looking at Arya as if the impending excoriation was a difficult move to approach in a complicated midgame of Runes.
"Daughter o' mine, blood of my blood, light of my life, my only remaining family." Islanzadi perched regally on the edge of her seat.
"103 years I have known and loved and cherished you, starling. I was and am imperfect and made many mistakes, yet still I must ask you what among all the stars in the sky have I done to deserve what you have done to me?"
Arya slouched into the floral armchair like a liquid, limbs spilling bonelessly across the chair. "I do not want to fight with you, mother, but I stand by my decisions. All of them. And I told you why."
"A letter is insufficient!" She cried. Islanzadi scooped a worn piece of paper from her desk and held it in front of her. "Entirely insufficient for the act of tearing out my heart!"
So melodramatic. Arya felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered penning the letter justifying her treason. Knowing her mother had struggled so much thinking her dead, Arya had known it was cruel to leave so quickly against her wishes.
Islanzadi's regal demeanor melted as she sank, exhausted, into her own seat. "That human has transformed you, daughter. Even now you wear clothes in his style, cleave to him over your mother and your liege, and my scouts tell me you live with him. Shall I expect to be a grandmother soon?"
Arya's brows darkened, offense surging up her throat in a scathing retort. "Harry is in many ways the opposite of you," she shot back. "He supports my job as ambassador, respects boundaries I set, and respects my abilities regardless of his feelings."
"He also encouraged you to commit treason, facilitate his flight from Ellesmera with critically secret information, withhold critical information of your own, and all the while, foment sedition in two of my top lieutenants," Islanzadi said coldly.
"He would not have done so if you had not–"
"Was what I asked of him unreasonable?" Islanzadi cut across Arya, eyes fiery. "It is no less than I shall demand of Eragon, Orik, or any other person I might make privy to secrets of such peril."
"Mother," Arya warned.
Islanzadi tapped her finger hard against the arm of her chair, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Arya, is it so unreasonable to wonder why you have abandoned any pretense of responsibility to your duties?"
Arya snorted. The irony was disgusting.
"I thought you better than to leap to the most basal conclusion."
"I thought nothing would cause you to betray me so."
"Betray you?" Arya demanded. "You have been betrayed? You were forbidden from getting critical intelligence of an invasion to the Varden? You withheld critical aid from the Varden. You left our allies alone to die!"
With each accusation, Islanzadi flinched.
"Yes," she said, pained. "I was irrational and my authority strained, and you chose to shatter it. I had thought you dead, Arya." Her eyes glistened.
Arya looked away, down at the rings on the floor. Thousands at least. The tree felt nothing for its inhabitants. Even Galbatorix was but a sour season.
"You may thank Harry that I am not."
Islanzadi fell back into her chair, all the fire fled from her.
"Then where does that leave us?" she murmured.
Arya thought then that perhaps it was Islanzadi who should be sitting in the In Trouble chair, for she looked very unsure of herself, and not a little bit guilty.
"What do you intend to do to punish Harry?" Arya asked levelly.
Islanzadi touched her brow, sinking deeper into her chair. "What can I do?" She sounded bitter. "Execute him? He is too valuable to the cause. Imprison him? For you to release him again? He is too useful to punish meaningfully. I would forbid you from speaking to him, or him to you, if I did not suspect I would be ignored."
"You intend to do nothing?" Arya asked.
Islanzadi rubbed her forehead. "For want of a better course of action, I have no choice. If he looks to defy me again, you may tell him that if he truly is on our side, he will not willfully break my authority and will swallow his tongue next time he thinks to ignore my commands."
The shouting match concluded, Arya agreed to counsel Harry about the situation he was in. Briefly, Arya reported on what had happened beneath Farthen Dur, but her heart was not in the recitation of a detailed post-battle accounting.
"Ask me again later," Arya sighed. "The night is late."
"Aye." Islanzadi agreed. "Too late for tales of violence. If we are still close enough to speak on more pleasant subjects, I would hear how you have been." She was tentative and a bit awkward, but Arya understood the olive branch being offered.
"Good," she said, and found herself meaning it. The corners of her lips pulled up of their own accord, eyes focused on nothing in particular as she brought forth memories to retell. "Harry is entertaining to travel with, and as much as he loathes idle hands, he is very adept at keeping his own busy. I did not tell you previously, but now that the secret is out, I can give you more details."
Late into the night, Arya spoke with her mother. She told him mostly of Harry, the soft-hearted wizard with magic unlike any other. She talked about his inventions, his skills, his team of workers, and their trip across Alagaesia at impossible speeds. She told her mother about Harry's poorly hidden crush (and explained what that word meant in Harry's lexicon) as well as his chivalrous restraint in refusing to make advances without Arya making the first move. She told Islanzadi more about their first time together before she'd made it back to Ellesmera to be cured of Skilna Bragh, the poison Durza had given her.
Islanzadi brought out a bottle of faelnirv from a cabinet in the other room and poured them both glasses. "Daughter, are you sure you do not reciprocate his – crush?"
Arya hid her blush behind the glass. "Maybe I do. But now is not the time."
"You are too much like me," Islanzadi sighed. "I hope that does not offend you. I wish you had not taken the Yawe, Arya. You are too young to be forsaking the indulgences of irresponsibility for our people. Let anyone else do the job."
"Who else?" Arya reminded her gently. "If I am like you, then you will know what it is to take pride in your work, and confidence that you are the best at it."
"My confidence has been shaken," Islanzadi admitted, drinking. "But pride, we two well understand. Would that Evandar had given you his humility."
"Would that he had survived to teach me himself."
"Would that fortune saw fit to let Galbatorix slip on a banana peel and break his neck as a child, and spare all the world the trouble," her mother sighed. "Will you be staying this time, or are you to disappear with your mate once more?"
Arya finished her glass and forestalled a refill. Islanzadi corked the bottle and set it aside, standing. "The Varden will have need of me again, but not for some time. I shall be here for a while, mother. Will that make you happy?"
Islanzadi's eyes glistened as she rose to embrace Arya.
"Very much so, starling," she whispered in her ear, hugging her tight. "Very much so."
#
AN: I'm really busy these days, but classes end soon and I haven't heard back from the job I had last summer yet, so maybe I'll have a whole lot of extra time instead of just enough. No predictions on when the next chapters will be, it could be a week or a month depending on finals and such.
I'm hoping to get through Eldest rather quickly, especially compared to how long it took me to finish Eragon, but we'll have to see how long Roran's journey takes. It wasn't my cup of tea to read in canon, and I know I'm not alone in thinking that, but hopefully the changes I've thought up will make it worth reading through. All I'll say is that the castle is going to play a big part in it. I promise to do my best to cut out the slog.
Finals are coming up, so I'd be surprised if I'm done with the next chapters within the next few weeks. Again, come summertime, I'll have free time again and hopefully make some decent progress.