“Thank you, Your Majesty. You are most generous.”

“No, not generous. This war does not allow me to be generous, only practical. Go and do what you must, and be you careful, Eragon Shadeslayer.”

“Your Majesty.” He bowed. “If I may ask one last favor: would you please refrain from telling Arya, Nasuada, or any of the Varden of my current situation? I don’t want them to worry about me any longer than they have to, and they’ll learn of it soon enough from Saphira.”

“I shall consider your request.”

Eragon waited, but when she remained silent and it became clear she had no intention of announcing her decision, he bowed a second time and again said, “Thank you.”

The glowing image on the surface of the water flickered and then vanished into darkness as Eragon ended the spell he had used to create it. He leaned back on his heels and gazed up at the multitude of stars, allowing his eyes to readjust to the faint, glimmering light they provided. Then he left the crumbling rock with the pool of water and retraced his path across the grass and scrub to the camp, where Sloan still sat upright, rigid as cast iron.

Eragon struck a pebble with his foot, and the resulting noise revealed his presence to Sloan, who snapped his head around, quick as a bird. “Have you made up your mind?” demanded Sloan.

“I have,” said Eragon. He stopped and squatted in front of the butcher, steadying himself with one hand on the ground. “Hear me well, for I don’t intend to repeat myself. You did what you did because of your love for Katrina, or so you say. Whether you admit it or not, I believe you also had other, baser motives in wanting to separate her from Roran: anger . . . hate . . . vindictiveness . . . and your own hurt.”

Sloan’s lips hardened into thin white lines. “You wrong me.”

“No, I don’t think so. Since my conscience prevents me from killing you, your punishment is to be the most terrible I could invent short of death. I’m convinced that what you said before is true, that Katrina is more important to you than anything else. Therefore, your punishment is this: you shall not see, touch, or talk with your daughter again, even unto your dying day, and you shall live with the knowledge that she is with Roran and they are happy together, without you.”

Sloan inhaled through his clenched teeth. “That is your punishment? Ha! You cannot enforce it; you have no prison to put me in.”

“I’m not finished. I will enforce it by having you swear oaths in the elves’ tongue—in the language of truth and magic—to abide by the terms of your sentence.”

“You can’t force me to give my word,” Sloan growled. “Not even if you torture me.”

“I can, and I won’t torture you. Furthermore, I will lay upon you a compulsion to travel northward until you reach the elf city of Ellesméra, which stands deep in the heart of Du Weldenvarden. You can try to resist the urge if you want, but no matter how long you fight it, the spell will irritate you like an unscratched itch until you obey its demands and travel to the elves’ realm.”

“Don’t you have the guts to kill me yourself?” asked Sloan. “You’re too much of a coward to put a blade to my neck, so you’ll make me wander the wilderness, blind and lost, until the weather or the beasts do me in?” He spat to the left of Eragon. “You’re nothing but the yellow-bellied offspring of a canker-ridden bunter. You’re a bastard, you are, and an unlicked cub; a dung-splattered, tallowfaced rock-gnasher; a puking villain and a noxious toad; the runty, mewling spawn of a greasy sow. I wouldn’t give you my last crust if you were starving, or a drop of water if you were burning, or a beggar’s grave if you were dead. You have pus for marrow and fungus for brains, and you’re a scug-backed cheek-biter!”

There was, Eragon thought, something rather obscenely impressive about Sloan’s swearing, although his admiration did not prevent him from wanting to strangle the butcher, or to at least respond in kind. What stayed his desire for retaliation, however, was his suspicion that Sloan was deliberately trying to infuriate him enough to strike down the older man and thus give him a quick and undeserved end.

Eragon said, “Bastard I may be, but not a murderer.” Sloan drew a sharp breath. Before he could resume his torrent of abuse, Eragon added: “Wherever you go, you shall not want for food, nor will wild animals attack you. I will place certain enchantments around you that will keep men and beasts from troubling you and will cause animals to bring you sustenance when you need it.”

“You can’t do this,” whispered Sloan. Even in the starlight, Eragon could see the last remnants of color drain from his skin, leaving him bone white. “You don’t have the means. You don’t have the right.”

“I am a Dragon Rider. I have as much right as any king or queen.”

Then Eragon, who had no interest in continuing to chastise Sloan, uttered the butcher’s true name loud enough for him to hear. An expression of horror and revelation crawled across Sloan’s face, and he threw his arms up before him and howled as if he had been stabbed. His cry was raw and jagged and desolate: the scream of a man condemned by his own nature to a fate he could not escape. He fell forward onto the palms of his hands and remained in that position and began to sob, his face obscured by shocks of hair.

Eragon watched, transfixed by Sloan’s reaction. Does learning your true name affect everyone like this? Would this happen to me as well?

Hardening his heart to Sloan’s misery, Eragon set about doing what he said he would. He repeated Sloan’s true name and, word by word, schooled the butcher in the ancient language oaths that would ensure Sloan never met or contacted Katrina again. Sloan resisted with much weeping and wailing and grinding of his teeth, but no matter how vigorously he struggled, he had no choice but to obey whenever Eragon invoked his true name. And when they finished with the oaths, Eragon cast the five spells that would drive Sloan toward Ellesméra, would protect him from unprovoked violence, and would entice the birds and the beasts and the fish that dwelled in the rivers and lakes to feed him. Eragon fashioned the spells so they would derive their energy from Sloan and not himself.