eased, and the presence of his fallen enemies no longer seemed quite so tangible... The wolves howled again, and after an initial burst of trepidation, he listened without fear, for their baying had lost the power to unsettle him. “Thank you,” he said. Arya responded with a gracious tilt of her chin.
Silence reigned for a quarter of an hour until Eragon said, “Urgals.” He let the statement stand for a while, a verbal monolith of ambivalence. “What do you think about Nasuada allowing them to join the Varden?”
Arya picked up a twig by the edge of her splayed dress and rolled it between her aquiline fingers, studying the crooked piece of wood as if it contained a secret. “It was a courageous decision, and I admire her for it. She always acts in the best interests of the Varden, no matter what the cost may be.”
“She upset many of the Varden when she accepted Nar Garzhvog’s offer of support.”
“And she won back their loyalty with the Trial of the Long Knives. Nasuada is very clever when it comes to maintaining her position.” Arya flicked the twig into the fire. “I have no love for Urgals, but neither do I hate them. Unlike the Ra’zac, they are not inherently evil, merely overfond of war. It is an important distinction, even if it can provide no consolation to the families of their victims. We elves have treated with Urgals before, and we shall again when the need arises. It is a futile prospect, however.”
She did not have to explain why. Many of the scrolls Oromis had assigned Eragon to read were devoted to the subject of Urgals, and one in particular,
“How is it,” he asked, “that Durza was able to ambush you, Glenwing, and Faolin with Urgals? Didn’t you have wards to protect yourself against physical attacks?”
“The arrows were enchanted.”
“Were the Urgals spellcasters, then?”
Closing her eyes, Arya sighed and shook her head. “No. It was some dark magic of Durza’s invention. He gloated about it when I was in Gil’ead.”
“I don’t know how you managed to resist him for so long. I saw what he did to you.”
“It... it was not easy. I viewed the torments he inflicted on me as a test of my commitment, as a chance to demonstrate that I had not made a mistake and I was indeed worthy of the yawe symbol. As such, I welcomed the ordeal.”
“But still, even elves are not immune to pain. It’s amazing you could keep the location of Ellesmera hidden from him all those months.”
A touch of pride colored her voice. “Not just the location of Ellesmera but also where I had sent Saphira’s egg, my vocabulary in the ancient language, and everything else that might be of use to Galbatorix.”
The conversation lapsed, and then Eragon said, “Do you think about it much, what you went through in Gil’ead?” When she did not respond, he added, “You never talk about it. You recount the facts of your imprisonment readily enough, but you never mention what it was like for you, nor how you feel about it now.”
“Pain is pain,” she said. “It needs no description.”
“True, but ignoring it can cause more harm than the original injury... No one can live through something like that and escape unscathed. Not on the inside, at least.”
“Why do you assume I have not already confided in someone?”
“Who?”
“Does it matter? Ajihad, my mother, a friend in Ellesmera.”
“Perhaps I am wrong,” he said, “but you do not seem that close to anyone. Where you walk, you walk alone, even among your own people.”
Arya’s countenance remained impassive. Her lack of expression was so complete, Eragon began to wonder if she would deign to respond, a doubt that had just transformed into conviction when she whispered, “It was not always so.”
Alert, Eragon waited without moving, afraid that whatever he might do would stop her from saying more.
“Once, I had someone to talk to, someone who understood what I was and where I came from. Once... He was older than I, but we were kindred spirits, both curious about the world outside our forest, eager to explore and eager to strike against Galbatorix. Neither of us could bear to stay in Du Weldenvarden — studying, working magic, pursuing our own personal projects — when we knew the Dragon Killer, the bane of the Riders, was searching for a way to conquer our race. He came to that conclusion later than I — decades after I assumed my position as ambassador and a few years before Hefring stole Saphira’s egg — but the moment he did, he volunteered to accompany me wherever Islanzadi’s orders might take me.” She blinked, and her throat convulsed. “I wasn’t going to let him, but the queen liked the idea, and he was so very convincing... ” She pursed her lips and blinked again, her eyes brighter than normal.
As gently as he could, Eragon asked, “Was it Faolin?”
“Yes,” she said, releasing the confirmation almost as a gasp.
“Did you love him?”
Casting back her head, Arya gazed up at the twinkling sky, her long neck gold with firelight, her face pale with the radiance of the heavens. “Do you ask out of friendly concern or your own selfinterest?” She gave an abrupt, choked laugh, the sound of water falling over cold rocks. “Never mind. The night air has addled me. It has undone my sense of courtesy and left me free to say the most spiteful things that occur to me.”
“No matter.”
“It does matter, because I regret it, and I shall not tolerate it. Did I love Faolin? How would you define love? For over twenty years, we traveled together, the only immortals to walk among the short-lived races. We were companions... and friends.”
A pang of jealousy afflicted Eragon. He wrestled with it, subdued it, and tried to eliminate it but was not altogether successful. A slight remnant of the feeling continued to aggravate him, like a splinter burrowing underneath his skin.
“Over twenty years,” repeated Arya. Persisting in her survey of the constellations, she rocked back and forth, seemingly oblivious to Eragon. “And then in a single instant, Durza tore that away from me. Faolin and Glenwing were the first elves to die in combat for nearly a century. When I saw Faolin fall, I understood then that the true agony of war isn’t being wounded yourself, it’s having to watch those you care about being hurt. It was a lesson I thought I had already learned during my time with the Varden when, one after another, the men and women I had come to respect died from swords, arrows, poison, accidents, and old age. The loss had never been so personal, however, and when it happened, I thought, ‘Now I must surely die as well.’ For whatever danger we had encountered before, Faolin and I had always survived it together, and if he could not escape, then why should I?”
Eragon realized she was crying, thick tears rolling from the outer corners of her eyes, down her temples, and into her hair. By the stars, her tears appeared like rivers of silvered glass. The intensity of her distress startled him. He had not thought it was possible to elicit such a reaction from her, nor had he intended to.
“Then Gil’ead,” she said. “Those days were the longest of my life. Faolin was gone, I did not know whether Saphira’s egg was safe or if I had inadvertently returned her to Galbatorix, and Durza... Durza sated the bloodlust of the spirits that controlled him by doing the most horrible things he could imagine to me. Sometimes, if he went too far, he would heal me so he could begin anew the following morning. If he had given me a chance to collect my wits, I might have been able to fool my jailer, as you did, and avoid consuming the drug that kept me from using magic, but I never had more than a few hours’ respite.
“Durza needed sleep no more than you or I, and he kept at me whenever I was conscious and his other duties permitted. While he worked on me, every second was an hour, every hour a week, and every day an eternity. He was careful not to drive me mad — Galbatorix would have been displeased with that — but he came close. He came very, very close. I began to hear birdsong where no birds could fly and to see things that could not exist. Once, when I was in my cell, gold light flooded the room and I grew warm all over. When I looked up, I found
