The sparring yard was dotted with elves of both sexes fighting in pairs and groups. Their extraordinary physical gifts resulted in flurries of blows so quick and fast, they sounded like bursts of hail striking an iron bell. Under the trees that fringed the yard, individual elves performed the Rimgar with more grace and flexibility than Eragon thought he would ever achieve.

After everyone on the field stopped and bowed to Saphira, Vanir unsheathed his narrow blade. “If you will guard your sword, Silver Hand, we can begin.”

Eragon eyed the inhuman swordsmanship of the other elves with trepidation.Why do I have to do this? he asked.I’ll just be humiliated.

You’ll be fine,said Saphira, yet he could sense her concern for him.

Right.

As he prepared Zar’roc, Eragon’s hands trembled with dread. Instead of throwing himself into the fray, he fought Vanir from a distance, dodging, sidestepping, and doing everything possible to avoid triggering another fit. Despite Eragon’s evasions, Vanir touched him four times in rapid succession—once each on his ribs, shin, and both shoulders.

Vanir’s initial expression of stoic impassivity soon devolved into open contempt. Dancing forward, he slid his blade up Zar’roc’s length while at the same time twirling Zar’roc in a circle, wrenching Eragon’s wrist. Eragon allowed Zar’roc to fly out of his hand rather than resist the elf’s superior strength.

Vanir dropped his sword onto Eragon’s neck and said, “Dead.” Shrugging off the sword, Eragon trudged over to retrieve Zar’roc. “Dead,” said Vanir. “How do you expect to defeat Galbatorix like this? I expected better, even from a weakling human.”

“Then why don’t you fight Galbatorix yourself instead of hiding in Du Weldenvarden?”

Vanir stiffened with outrage. “Because,” he said, cool and haughty, “I’m not a Rider. And if I were, I would not be such a coward as you.”

No one moved or spoke on the field.

His back to Vanir, Eragon leaned on Zar’roc and craned his neck toward the sky, snarling to himself.He knows nothing. This is just one more test to overcome.

“Coward, I say. Your blood is as thin as the rest of your race’s. I think that Saphira was confused by Galbatorix’s wiles and made the wrong choice of Rider.” The spectating elves gasped at Vanir’s words and muttered among themselves with open disapproval for his atrocious breach of etiquette.

Eragon ground his teeth. He could stand insults to himself, but not to Saphira. She was already moving when his pent-up frustration, fear, and pain burst within him and he whirled around, the tip of Zar’roc whistling through the air.

The blow would have killed Vanir had he not blocked it at the last second. He looked surprised by the ferocity of the attack. Holding nothing in reserve, Eragon drove Vanir to the center of the field, jabbing and slashing like a madman—determined to hurt the elf however he could. He nicked Vanir on the hip with enough force to draw blood, even with Zar’roc’s blunted edge.

At that instant, Eragon’s back ruptured in an explosion of agony so intense, he experienced it with all five senses: as a deafening, crashing waterfall of sound; a metallic taste that coated his tongue; an acrid, eye-watering stench in his nostrils, redolent of vinegar; pulsing colors; and, above all, the feeling that Durza had just laid open his back.

He could see Vanir standing over him with a derisive sneer. It occurred to Eragon that Vanir was very young.

After the seizure, Eragon wiped the blood from his mouth with his hand and showed it to Vanir, asking, “Thin enough?” Vanir did not deign to respond, but rather sheathed his sword and walked away.

“Where are you going?” demanded Eragon. “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

“You are in no fit condition to spar,” scoffed the elf.

“Try me.” Eragon might be inferior to the elves, but he refused to give them the satisfaction of fulfilling their low expectations of him. He would earn their respect through sheer persistence, if nothing else.

He insisted on completing Oromis’s assigned hour, after which Saphira marched up to Vanir and touched him on the chest with the point of one of her ivory talons.Dead, she said. Vanir paled. The other elves edged away from him.

Once they were in the air, Saphira said,Oromis was right.

About what?

You give more of yourself when you have an opponent.

At Oromis’s hut, the day resumed its usual pattern: Saphira accompanied Glaedr for her instruction while Eragon remained with Oromis.

Eragon was horrified when he discovered that Oromis expected him to do the Rimgar in addition to his earlier exercises. It took all of his courage to obey. His apprehension proved groundless, though, for the Dance of Snake and Crane was too gentle to injure him.

That, coupled with his meditation in the secluded glade, provided Eragon with his first opportunity since the previous day to order his thoughts and consider the question that Oromis had posed him.

While he did, he observed his red ants invade a smaller, rival anthill, overrunning the inhabitants and stealing their resources. By the end of the massacre, only a handful of the rival ants were left alive, alone and purposeless in the vast and hostile pine-needle barrens.

Like the dragons in Alagaësia,thought Eragon. His connection to the ants vanished as he considered the dragons’ unhappy fate. Bit by bit, an answer to his problem revealed itself to him, an answer that he could live with and believe in.

He finished his meditations and returned to the hut. This time Oromis seemed reasonably satisfied with what Eragon had accomplished.