Arya moaned. Of course, she had known the plan would be crazy, but she hadn't thought even Eragon would manage to spot an obvious flaw.

"Arya, it's a good idea, and if Murtagh ISN'T in Belatona, then it might work. But if he IS, then it won't." Eragon pointed out. "Us two may or may not be able to create a distraction and take out ordinary soldiers, even the odd magician, but Murtagh is stronger than both of us! And besides, you might get hurt – oh, sorry." At this last, the elf princess had thrown a poisonous stare at him.

Eragon, I am NOT a human girl! Arya admonished him with her mind.

I know, sorry! Fidgeting, Eragon tried and failed to hide his reddening face.

Good.

Little ones, stop fighting. Saphira joined. Thorn has lost half of his tail, his flight will be off. He will be vulnerable. I agree to the plan.

Something to hope for indeed. Arya thought, trying not to look smug.

You know, Saphira may have just provided us with the answer to the problem I found.

I found. The blue dragon protested.

"Yes, now Arya's plan is much more likely to work." Nasuada agreed, and Arya realized that Saphira had opened the conversation to everyone in the room. "However, I refuse to let the pair of you go without your guard. You have to bring Blodgharm." A small, disturbing part of Arya was mutinous. She realized that she had wanted time to talk with her friend. But overall, she was glad, glad that she didn't have to face him alone and risk him doing something she would be forced by her duty to regret. So she hid her face under a mask of indifference and simply smiled a polite smile.

Eragon was worse at hiding HIS emotions. His face betrayed disappointment, but he made no complaint, instead nodding curtly and leaving the second he was dismissed. It caused Arya pain to see him so upset, which, she told herself, was natural. Still, she knew it was necessary for him to be kept from seeing her alone, as anything else would distract him from his duty. And, if she was perfectly honest with herself, her fear of being banished again was stronger than her confused feelings for Eragon. Looking at the sky, she cursed. She had completely forgotten to scry her mother. So much for avoiding Islanzadi's anger. She rushed to her tent and found her enchanted mirror.

"Draumr Kopa."

"Mother, I will be fine." Arya sighed. After telling her mother her plan, she had spent the last five minutes trying to convince her that she would not be killed or captured. To no avail.

"No, my daughter, you will not. I agree with Eragon here, it's too dangerous!" The queen refused to waver.

"Mother, Eragon and his guard will be with me, and Thorn is disabled through his tail!" Arya pleaded. She saw the queen waver. "And besides, as told your Rider a few dozen times before, I am not a weak human woman. Why do you worry so now? Before, you barely glanced through this mirror!" Arya's eyes widened in horror at the blatant rudeness that she had let tarnish her reputation, but her mother only sighed.

"It seems, my daughter, that you have been spending too much time among the rash human race and need to have the importance of safety and manners impressed on your young mind once again." She murmured softly. Arya, who knew what was coming, felt the horror build up inside her.

"Yes, that might do it," her mother spoke more to herself than her daughter. Straightening up to face her daughter again, she announced in a proudly regal voice, "My daughter and successor to my throne, it seems that you are putting yourself unnecessarily at risk. Therefore, I will send a guard of three younger elves to protect you and one older Fair One to refresh your memories of our race."

Fighting to keep a straight face while her anger boiled inside, Arya took one last look at her mother's face, royal, proud, beautiful with pale skin, ebony hair and eyes like transparent grass, and imitated her mother's voice. "I do not deem these precautions necessary, my queen, but I will accept them gladly if you wish." She let go of the spell and let out a long, tired sigh.

Eragon's POV

Eragon cast around for an enemy magician, but found only du vrangr gata's magicians and other warriors of the Varden. Strange, he thought, I could have sworn to feeling an attack on my mind. He checked again, but received the same message. He felt the strange presence again and realized that it was coming from his tent. He focused his attention there and found one strange, sad presence. It was alien, but somehow familiar, like a face e couldn't put a name to. There was only one thing for it, her decided, and strolled over to his tent, wishing he hadn't forgotten Brisingr. As he opened the flap, crushing loneliness hit him, and what disturbed him was that it felt the same way he imagined he himself would if Saphira died. That was when it struck him that the presence felt a little like Saphira's. So it's a dragon, he thought.

But the room was empty of any kind of creature except maybe an ant. On an impulse, he checked with his mind. No ant, only that strange, almost–familiar presence.

Arya's POV

Arya lay on her cot for a while, debating whether to talk to Eragon or not.

You know it's the right thing to do.

No, I don't. I might raise his hopes.

So? He's your FRIEND, Arya. He'll try to help, and probably have more success than you – he knows you better than anyone.

Because he spends his days watching me!

Admit it, this is about your feelings too. You're afraid.

I am not afraid of myself, only of hurting Eragon so soon after his…loss.

The loss of the elven world, Arya.

Oromis ethibril…Glaedr…

Arya broke into tears. She did not know how long she lay curled on her cot, weeping, but eventually, she pulled herself together and strode outside, indifferent expression back in place. She was determined not to let even Eragon find out that something was wrong or about her argument with herself.

The sun was setting when she arrived at the secluded clearing in the forest, the sky a brilliant shade of gold. The colour of Glaedr's scales. Trying not to think of the deceased dragon, she searched of subtleties in the heavens. Orange was there, and so was a stripe of pink. Arya detected a hint of red behind that cloud. The sky was beriddled with optical crevices and slight swirls of other colours, just like Glaedr's Eldunari.

In the instant that she thought of Glaedr again, the crushing weight of loss overpowered her again for around ten minutes, and when she recovered, her decision was made. Arya decided to talk to Eragon.

Eragon's POV

Eragon searched frantically through his memories, desperate to find the mind that was…calling to him? He remembered seeing Arya for the first time… No, it wasn't a mind in that memory. Sifting forward, remembered Brom's death. The scene almost brought him to tears, so he moved on. He had the feeling that he had felt the mind in Ellesmera, during his training with Oromis and Glaedr.

Of course! He thought. Glaedr! Saphira, Glaedr wants to speak to us! He called with his mind.

I'm coming. Saphira sent Eragon an image of her hurtling through the forest, easily outpacing an elf.

Show-off, Eragon muttered with his mind.

He grabbed inside his bag and pulled out the pouch containing the huge golden dragon's heart of hearts, careful not to touch it unless told to by Glaedr himself.

Take me out, rumbled a deep voice that Eragon, through Saphira, instantly recognised as the dead dragon's.

Yes, master, both Eragon and his sapphire dragon replied, trying very hard not to let their grief augment their master's own. Eragon lifted the orb out of the small bag.

Grief. Anger. Hatred. Cunning. Death wishes. OROMIS! GONE! Oromis, the partner of his essence, dead and buried with his own dragon body. Losing him was like losing half of himself, as if somebody had split him it two and cut off another limb, but more painful. Oh so much more. Oromis, the wise one, dead!

Finally, the mighty dragon, now reduced to a small orb, was capable of coherent thought again. I want to help you, he thought. I want to avenge the death of my partner of my heart and mind. Only then do I wish to be smashed.

Eragon blinked. For five seconds, nobody said or thought anything. Then Glaedr murmured, Eragon, small one, do you wish to know how it feels to lose half of you?

Eragon nodded hesitantly. I wish to be prepared.

Glaedr shot out a tendril of thought towards Eragon. The younger Rider screamed.

NO! Losing everything was just a petty, useless figure of speech compared to this. If you had nothing to lose, you could gain everything. But this way the most you could do was slip into madness as you saw even the unshakeable fall and crumble. Imagine your soul being ripped in half, most of your essence being stolen away. Now magnify that by around a million, and the feeling is close. A sense of loss so crushing it's almost literal, grief so strong you might want to die – you would want die if there weren't the hatred – hatred which was more possessive than love, a loathing which filled the heart leaving only one goal in life – to kill the person or people who did this to your soul. A pain which only those who have suffered that way can imagine. But for Eragon, because the half was a sentient being, because of his elven instincts, that suffering, the burning ICE in his heart was so much worse. It was all he could do to endure .In this, there was not survival. No success. Only endurance.

Arya POV

Arya sprinted to Eragon's tent the second her decision was made. Inside, it was eerily quiet. Not a single sound pierced her sharp ears, not even a rustle. She knocked on the pole softly to make sure not to surprise him and hurt him again, and pushed the flap open.

Eragon was sitting on his cot, head bowed over something he could not see, and a shadow behind the tent told Arya that Saphira was there too. For a few minutes, the Rider sat silent and unmoving, looking for all the world as if he were made of ice. However, slowly, slowly but surely, his face melted into a mask of pure anguish. A few seconds more slipped past.

The younger Rider screamed. Arya knew, then, as her heart broke once more, that although she had hidden it from herself for such a long time, she loved Eragon. The only question left in her head as she fled from the sound of yet another love in agony was: could she possibly love him more than she had loved Faolin? And, if so, which barriers could she place to ensure her duty was done? Could she bear to cause Eragon yet more pain? Tremors racked her body and she realised that elves could cry. Something inside of her snapped and suddenly, her ill-fated love could no longer be stopped. She loved Eragon, and he loved her. He was desperate, tortured by the mere possibility that she had left in his mind that Arya did not care for him like he needed her to. The more she tried to save him, the more she caused him pain. She could no longer bear it and it was all she could do to stop her affections from robbing her of her fragile sanity.

I'm not fit to rule the elven race.

On the other hand, Arya had loved Faolin and he had loved her. The very thought of betraying the friend and lover who not only would but did die for her sent her back into a black – flecked spiral of misery. The more she tried to stop thinking about him, the less she could help it, and the more she thought about him, the more melancholy and depressed she became. In her heart, she felt that her beloved Faolin, after whom she had thought never to love again, wanted her to move on and be happy again, but in her mind, Arya still believed that he could never wish for her to betray him. He died for her.

Arya strode through the Varden camp, barely managing to keep her masquerade up, and once back in her own living area, she did the one thing that nobody had ever pictured her doing. She took a deep breath and burst into tears.

Eragon's POV

Eragon couldn't bear it any longer. He pushed all of his emotions towards the consciousness emitting the pain he felt and threw barriers up around his mind the second the power weakened. Through the protection, he felt Glaedr's raw horror and realized with a shock where he was. Glaedr stopped throwing images.

Small one, you may put me down, he thought, still devastated about what he had just done, just felt. Eragon's elven senses detected the quaver and pictured the strong dragon as he was before – or was the said companion of loneliness sending it to him?

He saw Glaedr, his teacher, standing alone on the rocky outcrop that Eragon himself used to sit, head raised to the full moon. Eragon heard the keening, terrible cry of a werecat on the prowl, and he thought there was a certain quality to it that made it fit to the lonely scene. He felt the dragon's lament like a great tidal wave. A tear the size of Eragon's fist fell to the ground, splashing onto everything around him and killing a young mouse, but for once, nobody cared. Glaedr lowered his gaze to the dead creature, and his misery shook his entire world. Oromis was gone, far beyond the reach of help, just as the mouse was. He had failed. He had fail Oromis as his dragon, and he had failed the world as its strongest hope. With a crushing sense of finality, he raised his head to the moon again and howled, long and clearly a call of devastation. For one small, gratifying moment, it felt as though the world howled with him, acknowledging the loss of the whole universe.

Eragon jolted back to his senses and slipped the Eldunari in his hand back into the pouch on the bed. He sniffed, and as he did so, he detected…pine cones? The realization hit him – Arya had been here.

'Arya! Arya!' Eragon called. There was no reply.

Arya's POV

Arya cried deep into the night, venting her confused feelings. She may be beautiful, but she was by no means the most beautiful elf. In fact, most of her suitors only aspired to rule, though, being of polite elven society, they never showed it. Arya knew only through their minds, for they were weak spellcasters. Faolin had been the first to love Arya because she was Arya, a little cheekier than other elves and more of an individual. Since his death, no-one had seen that side of her again.

He died for me.

Arya loved Faolin still, but she had weakened towards Eragon. She had weakened so, so much.

He died for me.

Faolin had been the only companion she had, excepting Glenwig.